[quote=jstoesz]It would be wise to give Egypt a few more years before using them as an example of an effective protest. That country will likely yet turn into a blood bath.
A quote from a Roosevelt admirer, maybe it will chasten you.
“A second danger to President Roosevelt’s valiant and heroic experiments seems to arise from the disposition to hunt down rich men as if they were noxious beasts. It is a very attractive sport, and once it gets started quite a lot of people everywhere are found ready to join in the chase. Moreover, the quarry is at once swift and crafty, and therefore elusive. The pursuit is long and exciting, and everyone’s blood is infected with its ardour. The question arises whether the general well-being of the masses of the community will be advanced by an excessive indulgence in this amusement. The millionaire or multi-millionaire is a highly economic animal. He sucks up with sponge-like efficiency money from all quarters. In this process, far from depriving ordinary people of their earnings, he launches enterprise and carries it through, raises values, and he expands that credit without which on a vast scale no fuller economic life can be opened to the millions. To hunt wealth is not to capture commonwealth.”
Winston Churchill[/quote]
Hogwash. Most of the richest people today do nothing to increase domestic production or create jobs. Quite the opposite — they’ve lobbied for policies that make it easier and cheaper for them to off-shore jobs to Third World nations.
The way most of the “traders” are getting rich today is by speculating. They buy and sell existing assets that they don’t personally need and have no use for, and they bet on the price movements of those assets. This is zero-sum, totally unproductive, and takes money from the *real* productive economy.
