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To: paul ross who wrote (5890)	1/14/1998 9:12:00 PM
From: Mark Bartlett	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116753

Paul, <<Generally a transfer of money, government's taxing of some to create a benefit for others, does 4 bad things: 1.Diminishes the quality of life for those it extracts money from. 2. Creates an inefficient bureaucracy to handle the transfer of money that eats up an ever greater percentage of that transferred. 3. Punishes the recipients of the transfer by destroying the ability of them to do for themselves. 4. Creates an inefficient and oft times unnecessary industry in the direction of its transfer.>> Well .... I really did not want to get into this on the gold thread - but if Thomas does not have a problem with it - so be it. I am not particularly religious, but I will start my respone as follows: One of the most misinterpreted phrases in the bible is "we are all created equal" .... some have mistakingly taken this literally - despite the fact that it is obvious we are _not all created equal. We are all however equal in the eyes of God. Some people are born handicapped, mentally challenged, and so on .... IMHO it is encumbent on a society - if it is a society that wants to consider itself mature, compassionate, and loving, to take care of/assist/facilitate the needs of these people - as well as the very elderly, the abused etc. I would be the first to admit that governments, in their infinite wisdom, are often not inefficient at providing these services. That being said, I do not often see other facilitators stepping forward to fill the gap. It happens, but it is not something that is consistantly available. If the process that faclitates the solutions is poor and inefficient - then my answer is to change the facilitator - not get rid of the service. As far as "diminshing the quality of life for those that are taxed" ... well, in my experience, those are are truly wealthy, rarely sacrifice so much that their life styles are impacted. As far as "punishing the recepients because it makes them incapable of doing for themselves" .... well, I am NOT talking here about able bodied people that are staying on the dole, swilling beer and smoking dope - I am talking about those that need a little extra assistance at a time of need. I am talking about those that require (for example) publicly funded transportation to get to work because they may be in a wheelchair, or have some other incapacity. I am talking about the person who has worked 25 years, been a productive member of society, and then, do to "automation" or "rationalizing the work force" or whatever, find themselves out of a job at the age of 48. In fact, many people today are likley 2 paychecks away from unemployment. Our society is changing so that fewer and fewer of us are needed to do more and more.... massive structural changes are going to be required, otherwise, IMHO, social unrest is going to be very tough to control. I do not have the answers - but I suspect if wealth becomes too concentrated, the middle class will become nearly extinct, and more and more of us will be relegated to serfdom. MB

To: paul ross who wrote (5890)	1/15/1998 9:27:00 AM
From: Dwight Taylor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116753

Paul-- <<Diminishes the quality of life for those it extracts money from.>> I can't see Bill Gates, Peter Lewis, or any CEO making multi-million dollar salaries or any billionaire hurt in anyway. The problem is too much is levied in taxes against middle income earners, and too many loopholes for corporations. <<Creates an inefficient bureaucracy to handle the transfer of money that eats up an ever greater percentage of that transferred.>> Inefficient, yes. But if you want to emphasize efficiency write your congressman when the next pork barrel spending measure arises. In the process of transfer a job is created for someone to assist in that transfer. The net result is a good thing, someone is credited with a job that may not otherwise have one << Punishes the recipients of the transfer by destroying the ability of them to do for themselves.>> If the recipient is "punished" then I guess an empty belly and a cold house is a reward.

To: paul ross who wrote (5890)	1/15/1998 2:14:00 PM
From: Pete Young	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116753

Called about buying some American Gold Eagles yesterday, with the spot price at ~$282. Best prices around town were $299 on the sell, and most interesting, $285 on the buy. Six months ago, I called for the same information, and the spread was much lower, just several dollars at that time. So, any comments on the sell price being so high in relationship to the spot? Also, I noticed that these folks seemed busy...not much time to chat on the phone, (which was a change from my previous experience). Is there anyplace anyone can recommend that would offer a lower spread today?