And now for something completely different
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 By Mike Maurer
When it comes to things we poor humans don’t understand, two of the big ones are price and wealth. Government officials are always going to ensure we have the right price for whatever it is, gasoline, health care, you name it, and everybody is certainly into wealth.
Unfortunately, most of the time, what we’re worried about is ensuring that, say, Donald Trump doesn’t have too much wealth, and that we ourselves don’t have too little.
When the typical American starts complaining that they themselves have too much wealth, and the majority of the rest of the world that has less has too little, then I’ll start believing the claims of those who want to redistribute the goods.
The fact is, wealth is ephemeral, based on others’ perceptions of value, and those perceptions are volatile, changing all the time. It goes without saying that being wealthy is better than being poor, all other things equal, but the real issue is behavior. Change a man’s wealth, you won’t likely have a long term affect on his well being; change a man’s behavior, and you will.
