OT: Goodbye to the American Dream

e anecdotal evidence (and not a lot of it). You would need to read the book , though it doesn't look as if you've got the attention span to cope with a nything longer than a paragraph.

My attention span is plenty long. But I doubt if I will ever read that boo k. It sounds like a boring book about something I am not very interested in an d about something that I could not change. If I had the book memorized I doubt if it would improve my life in any way. Other than being able to dis cuss the book with you , why do you think I should read the book?

Dan

Who is talking about axes? The point made was that investing in the stock market was "good" and is obviously not making any axes. According to John, I believe, it is pure gambling.

The definition of wealth redistribution includes charity and I believe when you lose money in the stock market it is akin to charity. I seem to recall a lot of people donated to large charities such as Enron, WorldCom, Tyco International, HealthSouth, Madoff and quite a few large banks.

What is not zero sum about the stock market? The only aspect of it that is not zero sum is that more and more money flows into it raising prices. Likewise money can flow out crashing stock prices making the investors slow to react into paupers.

Didn't someone in Congress suggest that Social Security be replaced by mandatory investments in the stock market?

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Rick

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"Wealth redistribution" is James Arthur's code phase for "tax and invest".

He likes nice simple idea like axe heads and axe handles. The more difficul t concepts of a community owned and funded road system to let you get the a xe heads from the foundry that casts them and add them to the axes handles (made from wood grown and cut someplace else) is a little too difficult for his under-neuroned right-wing brain.

The idea that a modern socialist society should tax everybody fairly heavil y to pay for the kind of welfare, health and education system that produces a healthy, well-trained and co-operative work force strikes him as absurd.

It works well for Scandinavian and Germany, but the kind of tax level that it takes to pay for it is not something he wants in his back yard.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

ore anecdotal evidence (and not a lot of it). You would need to read the bo ok, though it doesn't look as if you've got the attention span to cope with anything longer than a paragraph.

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and about something that I could not change. If I had the book memorized I doubt if it would improve my life in any way. Other than being able to d iscuss the book with you , why do you think I should read the book?

It explains one aspect of American exceptionalism - why the US is rich, but way down on lots of public health issues. The authors nail down the point that rich is good only up to the point where everybody has more or less eno ugh to eat, after which a reasonably egalitarian wlath distribution becomes more important.

If you understood it, you'd probably realise that the US does need to chang e in this respect, and you'd have some idea of how it ought to change. The authors don't say a thing about the mechanism - pointing out that Japan get s much the same advantages from a relatively egalitarian wealth distributio n as does Scandinavia, while getting there by completely different mechanis ms.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

Barack Obama means 'by force.' Charity is never forced.

Nyet.

Fraud. Not charity. You're mixing up a lot of distinct, unrelated concepts.

You're confusing the transaction with the market. The stock market overall creates a mechanism for innovation, where people can share the risks and the rewards of starting new ventures. That's >>zero-sum.

The transactions are only zero-sum if you ignore the future value, which you just did. If one person has gained from a company's increase, but wants to bail out, cash in, or convert that to another use, and a second person wants to buy the future earnings, both gain.

Cheers, James Arthur

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ult concepts of a community owned and funded road system to let you get the axe heads from the foundry that casts them and add them to the axes handle s (made from wood grown and cut someplace else) is a little too difficult f or his under-neuroned right-wing brain.

You posted your IQ some years ago, and you're simply way out of your league . You've also assumed I was poor, Republican, etc., none of which was true. You're constantly drawing dots then connecting them randomly into narrative s.

I daresay it's you who's too simple to understand that men build roads, not governments, and men fully realize the value, and build roads themselves. You simply can't imagine something existing unless a government takes it from someone first.

Roads are also a tiny part of our spending, which you should know by now, a nd nothing to do with taking a man's earnings simply to give them to another m an who did not earn them--redistribution--which is 69% of U.S. spending today.

But you're surely plenty intelligent enough to understand these things, jus t too invested in parasitism to admit that a 50% load affects the host (and changes the host's behavior).

You keep calling it noble and insisting it's something for nothing. It isn't either.

Cheers, James Arthur

On Sun, 30 Aug 2015 20:43:36 -0500, amdx Gave us:

The term is you're, dingledorf.

On Sun, 30 Aug 2015 20:43:36 -0500, amdx Gave us:

The term is 'you're' and you only show us that you're dumb.

The real point to take away from this is understanding why you bought real estate at a time when nearly every property in the country had doubled in value in some 5 to 7 years.

The same illogical reasoning was applied by governments when their real estate tax base dropped in value by 1/2 just after it doubled. Net effect was nearly zero but they all screamed they had to raise taxes because of the loss of the windfall.

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Rick

When investing in funds success is mostly a matter of luck and perhaps timing. Large segments of the market must go up for funds to appreciate appreciably. That is hard to predict although getting out before a bubble bursts is not so hard. Just don't stick around to gain every last nickle.

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Rick

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icult concepts of a community owned and funded road system to let you get t he axe heads from the foundry that casts them and add them to the axes hand les (made from wood grown and cut someplace else) is a little too difficult for his under-neuroned right-wing brain.

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What I posted was the comment that I scored well enough on IQ tests that th e results didn't mean much. IQ is a useful metric for working how well regu lar kids are likely to do at passing exams. It doesn't measure much that's meaningful in a wider context, and if you think that your IQ score says muc h about the reliability of your opinions, you've just devalued that claim.

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They can, but at some - fairly low - level it becomes a community effort, a nd governments are our way enlarging communities.

Bizarre misconception.

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Roads are just an example that even you could understand, if you were prepa red to make the effort. Defence and law enforcement are other examples that play well with right-wing nitwits. Universal education is another, but peo ple like you complain that the schools teach the students the wrong attitud e - insufficiently worshipful of the founding tax evaders and the like.

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Synergism is the concept that you ought to have in mind.

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makes the point that wide disparities in income do affect peoples behaviour for the worse. Yours is unappealing.

I certainly don't claim that it's something for nothing. High tax rates are n't attractive in themselves, particularly when you are one of the people w ho pays them. What they buy can be worthwhile.

In Scandinavia and Germany they buy a contented, healthy and well-trained w ork force.

In the US rather lower taxes bought you the invasion of Irak, and the large st prison population in the developed world.

Under-paying for your administration and community services doesn't look li ke a wise choice. There's nothing noble about buying the right services at the right price. Trying to cheapskate out of your responsibilities to your fellow citizens does look a bit ignoble, but I'm not going to persuade you of that.

Bastiat made a virtue of it ...

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

Bears make money, bulls make money, pigs lose money.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

Ya, that average 10% return per year over the last 73 years would really suck. What percentage did our money grow as it is (invested?). If we had a lock box growing at 10% the system wouldn't be going broke. Mikek Mikek

Yes, I'm pro-wealth.

I have no interest in equating the stock market to gambling. Investing in one company has a higher risk than investing in 1000 companies. You can make your own choice.

It's such a shame that you never benefited from capitalism. I've done well because I lived under my income and invested in America. When the Nasdaq does well, I do well. Invest in *America!

Mikek

• Many American companies have global exposure, so you do have some other country risk.

book.

n and about something that I could not change. If I had the book memorize d I doubt if it would improve my life in any way. Other than being able to discuss the book with you , why do you think I should read the book?

ut way down on lots of public health issues. The authors nail down the poin t that rich is good only up to the point where everybody has more or less e nough to eat, after which a reasonably egalitarian wlath distribution becom es more important.

nge in this respect, and you'd have some idea of how it ought to change. Th e authors don't say a thing about the mechanism - pointing out that Japan g ets much the same advantages from a relatively egalitarian wealth distribut ion as does Scandinavia, while getting there by completely different mechan isms.

But my understanding would still have no effect. I am not a member of Cong ress. So would have spent time reading a book about something I am not int erested in, and the result of reading it would be the same as if I had not read it.

Dan

You didn't really answer my questions. Rather you made an assumption you have no evidence to support.

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Rick

Please reread what I wrote. No, I better write it another way. In 1994 I bought and paid $83K for my house, today is now worth close to $140K. See the time frame there?

During the intervening years the value boomed to $250k to $270K, then dropped with the real estate bust. In the years since I've had a home, garden and workshop. I didn't buy my home as an investment, and haven't counted it as a financial asset for years.

That said, I'm not going to be hard on the millions that did get get stuck upside down on there mortgages, I just don't want to pay for it. I do understand how mortgage renegotiation helped support real estate prices. I don't know if this a was paid for by tax payers or banks or both.

I'd think a fairer description is that Mike is in favor of allowing people to keep & accumulate the value they create through voluntary transactions with other individuals. It works to everyone's mutual advantage.

'Looting' is wealth redistribution. Voluntary cooperation and mutual gain is entirely different.

Cheers, James Arthur

Investing in funds is not mostly luck and or timing. There is pretty much no luck in investing in index fund as the S & P 500 index. And if held for decades , timing is nearly irrelevant.

In my kids case the fund I bought for him had a good track record and was a fund that only invested in insurance companies. I considered that since they specialized in a area which was doing well, they would probably do be tter than average.

More recently I have invested in a couple of funds that specialize in Biote ch companies. They have done well and do not depend on large segments of t he stock market to go up. They only depend on some of the biotech companie s to do well ( which they have ). The funds I bought are BBH and FBIOX.

Dan