[extropy-chat] Bloodless Redistribution of Wealth(wasSingulartarians)

[Samantha Atkins]

On Dec 28, 2005, at 2:29 PM, Damien Broderick wrote:

> At 01:43 PM 12/28/2005 -0800, spike wrote:
>
>> Wealth creates wealth.  Large piles of wealth in
>> the hands of an individual creates larger piles
>> of wealth.  Wealth in the hands of government, well
>> I'll let you decide if that is a harm or a
>> benefit.  Perhaps both....
>
> This is too simplistic to be useful. We need to look closely at the  
> fine grain of how this aggregated wealth is spent by govt to know  
> if it's better or worse than having it dispersed among many or  
> aggregated by private owners (cf. national health in Oz and Canada  
> vs. private funds in USA, where the latter notoriously have  
> ludicrously excessive skimming from the top, pushing up costs).


Let's see.  In the US the government takes 50% of everything  
including land.  Even with all that wealth it provides paltry  
services (if we can even call many agencies and programs a "service")  
and has racked up around $40 trillion of total indebtedness.   I  
would say the case against government confiscation of wealth and good  
stewardship of wealth is pretty open and shut.

- samantha