Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Where Is the Wealth of Nations?

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Mon, 15 Oct 2007, Vern Green wrote:

> > Do you want to live in a country with a strong middle class, or would 
> > you prefer to live in a country with a small number of very wealthy and 
> > a large number of poor?  The future distribution of wealth in our 
> > country is determined by the tax laws of today.  We can become more 
> > like Scandinavia or more like Latin America.
>
> I want to personally live in a country where hard work and determination 
> pays off. In most other nations in the world this is not possible. This 
> is what makes the US so unique and why so many people in other countries 
> want to come here.

There is a country where hard work and determination does not pay off?  I 
think it just doesn't pay as well in every country.  You don't seem to 
want to say it, but I think you would prefer Denmark or Norway to Ecuador 
or Bolivia.  If we taxed income exceeding $3,000,000 at a rate of 90%, 
your hard work would still pay off, even after the first $3,000,000 in any 
single year.


> > Why would a person make a bad choice?
>
> Why do people smoke, drink excessively, quit school? There are bad 
> decisions made by people everyday and often in spite of other people 
> giving them good advice. Why would a person make a bad decision? You are 
> going to have to ask someone with more acronyms behind their name than I 
> do.

That's a good answer Vern -- we don't know the answer.  Why then are "bad 
choices" and "good choices" consistently used as reasons for maintaining 
massive differences in wealth and power between rich and poor?  The fact 
is, rich people are mostly born that way and they might make all kinds of 
really bad choices but they remain rich.  A poor person who makes nothing 
but good choices might become rich, or he might get stuck with some really 
difficult challenges like feeding his hungry siblings.


> Why don't people take advantage of opportunities such as these?
>
> I don't know

Right again.


> Why did I make bad decisions? Who knows, I asked myself many times if I 
> could have done things differently, I know I could have.

Maybe what you did was the best you could do under the conditions you were 
living in, with your knowledgebase and your resources, your choices were 
sensible, but in retrospect you can see better options.  Maybe you didn't 
trust that some path was going to lead to a good outcome, but now you look 
back and think that it would have.


> > Why isn't everyone "logic driven?"
>
> I don't know the answer to this myself

Another thing that no one really knows.


> but so many democrats are driven by emotion in their decision making 
> process.

Are they?  And in this they are unlike other people?  For example, 
Republicans are different?

Mike

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