🚀 go-pugleaf

c2xrib@kocrsv01.delcoelect.com (rex i beard) writes:
>We have a tremendous debt because we didn't spend *enough* money!!?

I respond:
>No, because we didn't INVEST enough money.  Pay attention.  The phrase
>"eating our seed corn" is a good soundbite; listen to it.

Rex asks:
>What is it you want to invest *MY* seed corn in? AT&T? Listening for
>space aliens? Perpetual Motion machines? Cold Fusion? Bonds? Super
>computers?

If you get to KEEP your seed corn, then YOU can decide.  The problem
is not so much the lack of investment by the government, it's the
drain of resources caused by "entitlement" programs which suck up
what could otherwise have been invested by non-government entities.

>[...] Giving to the poor *does* produce
>wealth. It makes those who give it happy. And that *is* wealth.

I don't agree.  Happiness is NOT wealth, wealth is NOT happiness.
Giving money to the poor effectively subsidizes poverty, and when
you subsidize something you get more of it as a result.  So these
supposedly wonderful social programs have turned into a mechanism
for maintaining and creating poverty.

>[...]
>There is no "stuff", but neither is there "stuff" in the wealth
>of the services industry.

This is arguably true for some services, but I see a lot of value
being maintained (and sometimes created) by many services.  Your
ditch-digger "shovels and gloves and doctors and drugs" argument
goes against you here.  You've misread my emphasis -- I said:
> Right.  We GET stuff.  Understand?  There is a real BENEFIT.
I emphasized GET and BENEFIT, not "stuff".  "We at large" don't
get anything from simply giving money to other people.  If they
simply dig and refill ditches or make and break clay stones, the
net result is WORSE than zero.  You've wasted their time which
they could otherwise have put to constructive use.

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Alan Anderson                               | Ignorance can be fixed,
(I speak AT, not FOR, Delco Electronics)    | but stupidity is permanent.