Wealth creation is zero sum.
Motivation is “not” zero sum.

Otherwise, start watching for headlines that are more optimistic, such as these:

GLOBAL WARMING REVERSED!
DIASTER AVERTED… EARTH SAVED!
MAN-MADE CLIMATE CHANGES… PERMANENTLY NULLIFIED!

Albert Einstein provided the perfect scientific answer to Global Warming in 1905 with his paradigm, mass-to-energy equation, which is the key to unlocking all of the clean, cheap, environmentally friendly energy the inhabitants of Earth will ever need, without any pollution or waste stream, and with no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse emissions.

Even the super-powerful Energy Cartel will be unable to prevent millions of individuals around the World from freely switching to this abundant and everlasting Einsteinian cornucopia of “home-made energy,” which will automatically reestablish Mother Nature as the exclusive controller of climate change.

http://slow-motion-Thermonuclear.blogspot.com/2006/06/invention-for-sale-slow-motion.html

My personal opinion is that monetary wealth is created mainly from creating a divide between the rich and the poor. The greater the gap, the greater the power of the rich. Simplistic view, yes I agree.

The governments of the day need to keep the working man rich enough to survive and poor enough to have to come back to work, yet keep the worker just content enough not to tear down the system. It’s a fine line.

Wealth is easy to create. The easiest one is financial wealth. Personal wealth may be a little harder; however being able to pay the bills and do unlimited travel doesn’t exactly sabotage your happiness in this world.

Once again: Great blog! Keep it up.

2. your ‘human mind’ can simply be viewed as a more efficient way to decrease entropy (into our desirable way), in the expense of some energy which is available in abundance.
our efficiency was extremely low and still is, consider how muc sunlight is wasted each second.

Wrong, but nice.

Ever see those bumper stickers that say “You work harder than a medieval peasant”?

It’s not a zero sum game, wealth creation. Ah, but wealth _redistribution_ certainly is.

Measure happiness, won’t you? The NY Times is also flogging that pony. Money can be printed, resources can be exploited. So can people. Were people miserably unhappy 50, 100, 150 years ago? I used to think so. Look at the photos! So grim. And no running water!

And certainly, we have alleviated certain aspects of misery and suffering.

Now what? We have prolonged life – and now cancer occurs more often. We can cure cancer – but eventually the body fails. Are we now living in paradise? No, we have old people unable to afford their prescriptions, and elder discrimination and elder abuse are on the rise.

Society can be richer as a whole; your straw man version of Krugman agrees, read his books. But we’re not talking about a richer society. Ask someone with their surround-sound stereo and a second mortgage, a member of the working poor, whether he would trade his stress and unhappiness for 6 weeks of vacation. Compare the U.S. to France, and either one to a century ago.

We make steps foward in physics, in engineering, I know; we also make steps forward in law. But meanwhile, we make steps forward in medicine, and that paradoxically can increase the possibilities for suffering, as well as decrease them. Malthus gets the last laugh.

Good luck with your thesis.

Eh N.

This week’s COTC is up and running at Local Small Business Marketing And Advertising. As you all know, I’m a finance/econ kinda guy. Most weeks, I find that the Carnival has a few posts I like, and a lot of stuff that I’m not interested in. However, …