birdog1960

an experiment that's never been tried. but i suspect global wealth would decrease, mostly due to a large loss of wealth at the top and then in reinvestment. the absolute wealth shared between the 99% would likely increase substantially. meaning .75 of x would be greater than .4 of y. x may well be less than y but not by an amount proportional to the change in distribution. this is all pure conjecture. you don't know and i don't know. the blogger noted that the laws of thermodynamics apply to the physical world but contends they don't apply to economics. are not all physical resources part of both the physical world and economics?

right now about 80% of securities are owned by a few percent of the population. so we know who is likely richer. whether others are poorer goes back to the same argument and questions of scale. has the stock doubled as a result of exploitation of human resources? exploitation of natural resources? increasing prices for no reasons other than profit motives? in those cases there are losers.

did you miss the part about "assume some increase in AVAILABLE resources"... but yes, the laws of thermodynamics do apply in an absolute sense.

well. no. see, it's a problem of scale. if i (and 1% of the population) make 10,000 or 100000 times more per day than you and nearly everybody else and that ratio continues to increase, then you and everbody else will be worse off.

very convincing. a coyote blogger taking on a nobel prize winning economist. but he's an academic...what could he know? and zero sum is your phrase and not mine or krugman's. i don't think it represents our views. but keep arguing against that strawman if you must.

and what about the lost wealth in the print industry? paper manufacturers? old school media distribution? the workers in 1st world countries replaced by third world subsitence or lower wage earners? are you so certain that the net effect on wealth is an increase? i'm not.

but the fundamental meaning of wealth is the ability to purchase resources. yes, there actually might be some more efficient use of resources and then some more actually available but not enough to compensate for such a wide disparity in purchasing power. and much of the $500 (don't know where you bought your ipad) is going to end up in the hands of people that are already holding the lions share of wealth. the people buying the ipad may be better off, worse off or neither depending on what they do with their ipad. those manufacturing it may be better off but relatuive to whom especially if it's built in some developing 3rd world country?

have you ever asked yourself how small the republican party would be if you eliminated everyone that the far right considers rinos? but keep it up. the enemy of my enemy is my friend. and how difficult is it to realize that all resources are finite. if they're divided 60/40 with the 60 going to the 1%, the 99 are going to do worse than oif it were divided 40/60. why is that so hard to see? assume some increase in available resources over time and it remains as stated.

mars;venus. yup, as i said, things woulda been different under a far right pres.

from a foreign policy perspective, i doubt we'd have seen much difference. the damage of the two wars was preordained long ago and a tidy ending was never likely once the genie was out of the bottle. the middle east would still be the middle east - a dangerous and unpredictable powder keg. domestically, i think things would likely be quite different. the aca could possibly have been repealed. btw, medicare spending is down since the beginning of implementation and the programs expected viability extended significantly. we'd likely have seen massive spending cuts (mostly on social programs) without tax increases to the wealthy and thus even further and more rapidly growing wealth disparity and quite possible even slower recovery or worse. and then there are all the social issues that could have gone very differently and likely would have but i must admit, it would have been interesting to see a far right pres response to massacres and a public outcry for gun control. outcome would have been the same, however.

much better than if a far right con (or somone forced to play to the far right) had won. lot's of room for improvement, however.

everyone does this to some degree. what do you think political strategists and campaign managers do (did anyone change their stance more than romney to appeal to the "base"?) and yes, romney couldn't have won with the latino vote. that's supposed to advance your argument that the demographics don't matter? no, it shows how far away the far right part of the repub party is from pulling of a pres election win. but keep deluding yoursaelf and we liberals will keep laughing right on into the white house again and again.

aren't carmel and montery in california? never heard that state described as low tax.

then by graham's reasoning it won't matter who runs for pres on the republican ticket. he can't win due to the demographics. agreed?

that's what lindsay graham had to say about republican prospects if immigration reform isn't passed. isn't it about time all you extreme cons label him a rino?

i'm cuckoo for cocoa puffs

not a lot of evidence on safety but I'd suggest nicotine lozenges short term to quit. Nicotine but not the other stuff. Stop after 3 months, weaning all the time. Good luck.

Did Jim chew? Copenhagen, skoal,redman? Did a search here and it didn't come up. Anyone know?

i feel i do my share but you still don't get it. i'm not proposing that everyone is entitled to the same level of wealth. in fact, i refused to say this despite repeated prodding to do so. but the current concentration seems excessive and is steadily worsening (maybe, if i typed this in some other language...?). i contend that is part of the problem and will hinder the solution (and it appears from the linked article that i'm not alone). in addition, i feel it's of high relative importance to support candidates and figures that champion these issues (and whose programs will likey be disadvantageous to me personally) since individuals won't solve these problems. it will need to be done collectively.

didn't you first link to the economist article? did you read it closely? "but poverty's scourge is fiercest below $1.25...people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short. they lack not just education, healthcare, proper clothes and shelter...but even enough food for physical and mental health". so $1.25 seems pretty pi$$ poor and truly is but its better than less and appears to be what is achievable in the short term, PROVIDED that wealth inequality gets no worse, among other necessary conditions. the more closely i read this piece, the more i like it. it says capitalism can grow the world out of this problem (albeit with the meager goals specified) but only if things become more equal. besides that, the prose is almost poetry. gotta love the brits.

yeah, "squandering" $1.25 per day is going to be a real problem. hell, some might even "squander" 10x's that. the shame....

the first time i've used this word in the thread and it's a reference to someones link that supposedly undermines my argument. is that obsessive? i'll just go off and obsess about that for a while...

asked and answered. based an arbitrary and unreasonable definition of extreme poverty as being $1.25 consumption per day. that's a pretty low bar to set - i'd think a one legged high jumper would set the bar higher. guess yall missed this part in the 4th or 5th paragraph: "so caution is justified...and if inequality does not widen so much that the rich lap up all the cream of growth...". seems the writer (presumably an economist) can envision a scenario quite similar and by the same mechanisms to the one i've been presenting. imagine that. and this little part from the section you included: "Greater equality also helps, contributing the other third"...except that we arent seeing greater equality globally. so what gives?

good lord. they don't eat more. the rest eat less.

no. didn't say 99% of the food would be hoarded. i said that there would necessarily be shortages. and there would. who would want to produce goods for a large population holding 1% of the wealth? if poor somalian's somehow found gold or platinum deposits nearby, they would no longer be starving because they'd have more wealth and producers would line up to supply them.....until someone exploited them (at least then,there'd likely be more international efforts at invoking order) and their natural resources and then they'd likely be hungry again. not at all certain it's impossible. what was the wealth disparity in fiefdoms? millions, perhaps billions in the world already qualify as serfs. what is going to stop the exponential progression of wealth disparity to this level? obama? ok, a bit of hyperbole...maybe i should have said 75%. is that better? does that change the argument? i set the condition of constant supply as a premise to make the argument simpler. disregard it if you wish. assume that supply increases. but not proportionally to wealth disparity...that ain't gonna happen. hasn't happened before, isn't happening now, won't likely happen in the future. changing that condition doesn't change or destroy my argument. nothing emotional about it. no.