Yes, I agree with this email. I was objecting to your statement that wealth
*has to* be extracted from you and me.
On Sunday, December 15, 2013, LizR wrote:
> On 15 December 2013 19:06, James Tauber
> <jtau...@jtauber.com<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'jtau...@jtauber.com');>
> > wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Dec 14, 2013 at 5:27 PM, LizR <lizj...@gmail.com<javascript:_e({},
>> 'cvml', 'lizj...@gmail.com');>
>> > wrote:
>>
>>> I haven't had a chance to watch it, but I do know that banks are
>>> stealing our wealth - as indeed are rich people generally, since "wealth
>>> breeds more wealth" and that more wealth has to be extracted from you and
>>> me.
>>>
>>
>> Wealth doesn't have to be extracted from anyone. It isn't a zero-sum game.
>>
>> The 1990 to 2010 saw a *halving* in the rate of extreme poverty in the
>> world. Those people didn't extract wealth from anyone.
>>
>> That's due to technological advance, which enriches everyone in the long
> run. For example, mobile phones have changed agriculture in Africa almost
> overnight. For another example, everyone in the west has things that almost
> every king and emperor in history couldn't even dream of possessing.
> However, taking money out of an economy doesn't enrich more than a few
> people, quite the reverse; it reduces the money in circulation -- at least
> until inflation reduces the amount removed and causes more tokens of
> exchange to be created. Hence Chandra Nair's solution to the widening
> rich-poor gap and its detrimental effects on the First World - print lots
> more money, and give it away (print being a euphemism - you can do this
> just by putting numbers into a computer's memory, nowadays, of course).
>
> The problem is that economists pretend that wealth IS a zero sum game,
> which they can do if they carefully ignore the effects of technology, which
> creates wealth (in the real sense of the word) and environmental
> destruction, which reduces it in a real sense. Since governments and so on
> play by the rules laid down by economists, the "1%" taking money out of
> circulation really *does* reduce the wealth of the 99%.
>
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--
James Tauber
http://jtauber.com/
@jtauber on Twitter
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