That's partially true. Wealth is a construct in that our recognition of wealth is based on a communal idea of monetary value. But contemporary wealth is based on ownership of material things. Excluding the occasional asteroid strike, the only wealth created is in peoples' heads; everything manufactured has always been here, it's simply been bought low (ie through mining/farming rights) and sold much higher as finished goods.

Recessions are when people forget for a moment that the entire economy relies on everyone believing in the dream, and react in a logical but irrational way to the lack of any clothes in modern imperial economics.

The continuously rich are the ones canny enough to play the dream when it's smooth sailing and fall back on the real when it's all gone a bit pear-shaped.

I agree with Draginol that the middle class and rich are differentiated primarily on their understanding of economics, but I disagree that it's basically a bad thing (if that's why he keeps making the point). I think most middle class people are happy where they are. After all, they can afford most things they want and everything they need. Economics just isn't important enough to most people to make being rich worth the sacrifices of becoming rich.

My computer wasn't here before someone created it.

A bunch of rocks, some oil, and some sand is NOT the same as my computer. And obviously my computer is more valuable than some rocks, oil, and sand. Otherwise we wouldn't have built it.

Perhaps wealth exists only in people's heads. But that's all we are: people. What other absolute value is there than how we perceive the world?

(I am waiting for some Creationist to come in now explaining to us that there cannot be any wealth since creation of things from other things violates the second law of thermodynamics.)

An asteroid strike does not necessarily increase the amount of our wealth. If it hits something we created but brings in resources less wealth than it just destroyed, the asteroid strike decreased our wealth.

I really think many left-wingers never understood wealth.

good point about assembly, but he even said MINING!

Being in the earth but miles away from being reachable to a person without technology does not make it "available"... mining isn't "buying low", its adding resources to the pool from a source previously untapable. (its not like you can just walk miles into the earth and pick up some gold.)

just like one cannot simply walk into space, but in the future it will be possible to mine an astroid and bring the raw materials to earth.

Actually, this situation IS indeed quite often found in central and south american countries, but ones that have had right wing dictatorships (dictatorships that interestingly enough had the blessing of, or at the least a blind eye turned to their tactics by the west) The resurgence of leftist governments we see in the americas today is relatively recent. But if you go back in history, you'll find that in most major american countries there was a very popular leftist movement that was gaining a lot of speed in the 1950-1970-ish range, from Brazil, to Argentina, Chile (with Salvador Allende as their leftist president) and so on. Interestingly enough, most of these countries had military coups that deposed of their democratically elected leadership, after which right wing dictators took control and enacted wildly unpopular economic measures.

But don't take my word for it. I'm just a crazy know-nothing foaming at the mouth liberal terrorist-lover, right? Instead, for further explanation check out any of the following books-

Blowback, Sorrows of Empire and Nemesis; the last days of the american republic by Chalmers Johnson (trilogy)

Failed States by Noam Chomsky

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

and for a little bit of lighter reading, but still worthwhile the book

Confessions of an Economic Hitman, by John Perkins

Also several good books by Chris Hedges, although the only title of his that comes to mind at this particular moment is called "war is a force that gives us meaning" which doesn't focus so much on economic topics.

I can point to several such societies. One of them occurred in the U.S of A in the late 19th and early 20th century. This was the time known as the Gilded Age, and it's actually something we run a very serious risk of returning to.

Here's a quick and dirty link-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age

So, let's describe a situation very similar to the gilded age and how it works (and why it's able to work) In fact, it's a situation still found in many smaller towns today although mostly ignored.

Imagine a town with say, 5 or 10 thousand people. It can be more or less but let's stick with this number for our example.

In this town, let's say you've got a couple of primary industries. Maybe a rubbermaid factory. Maybe a sawmill, maybe a mine, but suffice it to say, you've got a couple of meal-ticket operations that are the underpinning of the local economy and allow for all the secondary industries, the restaurants and bars and stores on mainstreet to have a customer base and get revenue.

Now, let's say that the mine is owned by a man named Mr. Potter (as in the Mr. Potter from "It's a Wonderful Life")

Now, since Mr. Potter's mine is the main employer in town and the money spent by his workers allow for all of the other industries to flourish, the town council is incredibly sympathetic to any desires he may have. In fact, he's probably on town council or perhaps his brother is. So he has a lot of influence in any thing that's going to happen in town.

Now, being a good little capitalist, Mr Potter always has to put his money to work, you know, so that he can continue to take 1 dollar and turn it into 2 dollars. This means that with some of his profits, he's going to go out and buy other properties in town. Perhaps houses and apartment buildings that he'll rent out.

Then, with the additional profit he makes off of that, he goes out and buys more businesses. The General Store, the restaurants, why before you know it, he owns just about every business in town. This means that it really doesn't matter what he chooses to pay his workers, because ultimately every dollar they make will just be recycled back to him one way or another.

Have you ever heard that song about the company store? Or life in a company town? (I think LW's father was a coal miner in such a condition, no?)

A perfect example of what I'm talking about, and what we're going back to can be found in the case of Mr. George Pullman, who created his own company town in the 1880's-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Pullman

"Pullman ruled the town like a feudal baron. He prohibited independent newspapers, public speeches, town meetings or open discussion. His inspectors regularly entered homes to inspect for cleanliness and could terminate leases on ten days notice. The church stood empty since no approved denomination would pay rent and no other congregation was allowed. Private charitable organizations were prohibited. Pullman employees once declared:

We are born in a Pullman house, fed from the Pullman shops, taught in the Pullman school, catechized in the Pullman Church, and when we die we shall go to the Pullman Hell.

—Pullman employees living in the Pullman-owned town"

Now the only counterbalance to this is organized labor and an effective democratically elected government who plays traffic cop (beholden to the citizens, not the few ultra rich) but labor had it's back broken during the 80's (what with less than 13% of workers currently unionized) and the current government is so incredibly beholden to special interests that it's anything but impartial. So we're headed back to this situation of winner takes all, "king of the hill" type of society.

Again, purely on principal higher taxes doesn't automatically mean greater prosperity for society. The key is that those higher taxes be used properly on things that will benefit everyone, including the businesses and ultra rich that paid their share.

Well Leauki, you should have a conversation with Nikola Tesla. He's the inventor of AC electricity, among many other things (including the radio, as it has been determined that he beat out Marconi)

Mr Tesla's inventions and contributions to humanity far surpass many of the inventions brought about by many other entrepreneurs who profitted wildly. But Tesla died a penniless man.

Did you know that when Tesla was working with Mr. Westinghouse, he signed a contract stating that he would get paid  $2.50 for each kilowatt of AC electricity sold?

His invention was so wildly succesful and adopted across such a broad spectrum that when the amount he was owed by Westinhouse was over 1 million dollars, Westinghouse was threatened with bankruptcy. If Tesla had a been a real "wealth creator", he could have cleaned out Mr Westinghouse for all he was worth and gone on to create his own business empire. But he realized that the money he would be receiving (that's wealth that he'd be "creating") from others would make electricity so expensive that it would hold back progress and deprive others of their own hard earned money. So he tore up the contract and took a lump sum payment so he could continue his research (and you know, that westinghouse guy just faded into anonymity, right?)

He also played around with X-rays before roentgen was officialy credited with their discovery, worked on inventions and principals related to radar and television and was using flourescent bulbs in his lab almost 40 years before industry "invented" them.

His last official project? He was working on a wireless transmission system for one Mr. JP Morgan (also a no name) When Mr. Morgan found out that Tesla wanted cheap and abundant energy for everyone, Morgan pulled the funding and had the project shut down. I guess the man who invented some of the underpinnings for our entire modern way of life, had gotten in the way of Mr. Morgan's dreams of wealth creation!

The countries with the most economic freedom are usually the wealthiest.

High taxation is one quick way to decrease economic freedom. 

I am not sure what is "right wing" about South American dictatorships. 

Sure. But it wasn't created from nothing. That's my point. It's a refined good, not something created from nothing. Real wealth is based on the physical.

That's why people turn to gold during a recession. People realise, when the bubble bursts, that gold is better than any number of derivatives, which unlike gold are wholly imagined.

Asteroids occasionally carried meteoric iron, which for much of human history was incredibly valuable due to its purity. I was using them of an example of the rare occasion where the earth actually gains more mass.

The pool of minerals in the earth isn't infinite, and therefore there's a limit to the wealth you can harvest by mining. It's not creation if you're just taking it from somewhere else and refining it for a new purpose. You're creating it from pre-existing objects. Derivatives are created from hope, conjecture, sunshine and short skirts.

you are very VERY selective in your quotes cactoblasta, oftentimes countering with things debunked in the same post from which you are selectively quoting...

You yourself say that an astroid hits increases the total wealth because minerals become available, so as long as the astroid is in SPACE it is unreachable and unavailble and thus not considered wealth. Why then are the unreachable minerals in the depth of the earth (maybe, eve down in its molten core? or do you draw the line an some arbitrary depth?) considered part of our wealth? you are arbitrarily decide "earth and anything below its surface is our wealth, space and anything in it is not, unless it enters the atmosphere.

You also compeltely confuse "natural resources" with "wealth". Wealth has little to do with resources and more to do with what you DO with those resources (for example, shaping the rock into a house instead of remaining a cave)

You and I have different views of what "wealth" is. _I_ find my computer more valuable than some natural resources of the same weight and material.

The market also finds my computer more valuable, which is why I can get an old computer for free, but have to pay for a computer like my current one.

How we define wealth is irrelevant. Whatever you want to call it, the way we live has changed dramatically since the days we lived in caves.

The resaon we don't live in caves still is because people did things that resulted in us not living in caves. 

Assuming we don't like living in caves, we should look at why we don't live in caves.

To me, becoming wealthy is like acquiring physical fitness -I can get there to a certain degree within my abilities if I want to pay the price. I desire an X amount of wealth and I desire an X amount of physical fitness, but do I really want to do what it takes to get there? It takes effort and work to achieve either.

thats pretty much it, the entire "definition of wealth" thing was hair splitting to deflect from the real point.

No, that would be the case if you believed that $1 was worth as much to the very poor as to the very rich. Since we are talking about what's best for society overall, as opposed to what would maximise total wealth for society, it is quite possible that what's best for society overall might be to have government performing some redistribution which would likely involve a larger government (both in size and tax intake).

Well if you had a static amount of money (i.e. no expansion in money supply) and wealth (measured in terms of intrinsic value) increased, the amount of money wouldn't change, but instead you'd effectively have deflation. That is, let's say you start off with a fairly simple situation where person A is producing food, and person B is producing water, and person C is producing clothing, and there's a fixed level of money floating around. Now lets say person C discovers a special way of making clothes that improves their quality+durability, making them more valuable, while A and B's quality+levels of production remain the same. The value of what's being produced in that mini-economy will have now risen, even though the amount of money will be the same (and if you were doing an inflation index for that economy, you'd likely register deflation on it, since you would have had an increase in quality without an increase in prices overall). So in this case C was able to make a gain without needing A or B to squander something. I'm not sure if this answers your question, but hopefully it might.

The market should ensure that minimal taxation in the US (or a similarly developed country) wouldn't result in such high levels of absolute poverty. Even if say 50% of people in the US would be in absolute poverty were it not for government handouts (something I highly doubt), that in itself wouldn't be enough to support your figures since the reduction of taxation would likely increase total wealth in the economy, meaning some of that 50% would be shifted up from absolute poverty.

Or you can use capitalism to solve such problems - remove barriers to entry and if an owner did try exploitation (e.g. via a monopoly situation) a competitor could enter who could provide better conditions. Similarly ensure that labour itself is mobile so that those workers can move to a different town/firm for employment where things are better, rather than being 'pullman employees living in pullman's town'. Of course democracy will be the right environment for that, but organized labour wouldn't.

Do the poor live in caves? If not, then they seem to benefit when society as a whole becomes wealthier.

Besides, society as a whole decides what it considers to be the minimum tax rate is.  The problem is, most people don't recognize the unintended consequences of taxation.

I actually read that book over a year ago, and interestingly enough, I also heard that the only reason the author (what's his face, Richard Kirsosaki or something like that) is rich today is because he sold so many copies of that book.

Not to say I disagree with the concepts presented therein, especially the point about aspiring to nothing more than to work for someone else for the rest of your life.  I'm not sure it had an effect on me though, since I'm still working through college to go work for someone else for the rest of my life.

Maybe I'll come see if I can work for you once I'm finished and you've expanded your building a bit.

By the way, people who have lived their whole lives in the United States shouldn't be talking about poverty at all.  We don't know what poverty really is here.