The Government Does Not Create Wealth?

[SPECTRE1]

The government builds a road or bridge that you need to cross a river or travel to your destination and charges you through taxes.

A company builds a road or bridge and charges you through a fee which includes profit.



The government performs airport security through the TSA and charges you taxes

A company performs airport security and charges you a fee plus profit.

Taxes are really charges for services rendered to the American people. This is no different than what a company does when it sells you a product.

 

[Fuckallyall]

Who created the technology ? People. Who pays the fees? People.
The government cannot give what it does not first take. That is not wealth creation. It may be good public policy, but it is not wealth creation.

 

[thoughtone]

You guys gotta tell me which private company created a road?

 

[SPECTRE1]

You guys gotta tell me which private company created a road?

Let's get rid of the government, a corporation would have to step in and build a road, provide security, or teach you kid. They would have to charge a fee to recover their costs and make a profit.

In essence the government is a non-profit company that provides good and services to people. The right wing spout off that the government does nothing which will eventually lead to privatization.

 

[Cruise]

You guys gotta tell me which private company created a road?

Car companies build private roads all the time. They build them in all kinds of ways and in all kinds of conditions. They build them for big cars, small cars, fast cars, fuel-efficient cars. They build asphalt, brick, stone, and gravel roads. They have dirt roads, mud roads, and bumpy roads.

How else is anyone supposed to know how to build a road correctly, if the car companies do not build the road first?

When this country first got started, that was how everything got built... through private corporations.

Back then, a group of guys would get together and create the Pennsylvania Bridge Company, or the New York Toll Company, or the Boston Wharf Company.

They would then go around to people and get investors to buy into it. Once they had enough (and some more to pay off the early investors), they would then build something.

I remember in the movie Chinatown, how 2 guys owned the Water Company of Los Angeles. And, it is taught in history that the entire rail network of the United States was privately built and owned. The power/electrical grid, along with all the power plants. All of the telephone and telegraph wires are privately owned and so are most of the communication satellites.

The government does not create wealth. You do not need it to build anything. The government takes the wealth of the public, by force, threat, and intimidation and spends it for the benefit of a few, politically-influential groups.

If someone can scam the public, under the appearance of the "public good", they use the government to do it. Because everything we use today (water, food, electricity, cars, computers, clothes, etc.) is provided by the people. The government merely decides what we eat, how we use electricity, what cars we drive, the computers we use, the clothes we wear, what information we get, where we can go, what we can say, and the health care we get.

The government is just a busybody sticking its nose in everyone's business, whether they like it or not.

The government takes what we have and then tells us what to do with what we have left. Gotta love that arrangement.

Let's get rid of the government, a corporation would have to step in and build a road, provide security, or teach you kid. They would have to charge a fee to recover their costs and make a profit.

In essence the government is a non-profit company that provides good and services to people. The right wing spout off that the government does nothing which will eventually lead to privatization.

The government forces the public either to buy things it does not want, or to buy it at prices it does not want to pay. If people would gladly buy something, at a profitable price, why would you need the government to do it? A private company, or charity, could do it better, faster, and cheaper.

The government instituted slavery and then had to fight a civil war to fix its own mistake.

There was no public school, yet the United States saw increasing literacy throughout the 19th century.
There was no medicare/medicaid, yet life expectancy increased during the entire 19th century.
There was no Social Security, unemployment insurance, or no insurance of any kind, yet the standard of living increased the whole 19th century.
There was no national banking, yet profitable corporations were all over the place.
There was no DHS, TSA, FBI, DEA, nor ATF, yet no one ever committed acts of terrorism except for whites against everybody.
There was no FDA, yet people were able to get and eat the food they needed to live.
Medical advances regularly appeared.
So many of the great inventions we enjoy today, came about in the 19th century (telephone, AC/DC electricity, the internal combusion engine, railroads (freight), motion pictures).

With all this government, the country is moving backwards, technologically, economically, medically, scientifically, socially, and culturally. It was actually better in the 1990s for black people than it is today. Too much government is destroying the black middle class.

 

[thoughtone]

source: http://newdeal.feri.org/tva/tva10.htm

Rural Electrification


Although nearly 90 percent of urban dwellers had electricity by the 1930s, only ten percent of rural dwellers did. Private utility companies, who supplied electric power to most of the nation's consumers, argued that it was too expensive to string electric lines to isolated rural farmsteads. Anyway, they said, most farmers, were too poor to be able to afford electricity.

The Roosevelt Administration believed that if private enterprise could not supply electric power to the people, then it was the duty of the government to do so. Most of the court cases involving TVA during the 1930s concerned the government's involvement in the public utilities industry.

In 1935 the Rural Electric Administration (REA) was created to bring electricity to rural areas like the Tennessee Valley. In his 1935 article "Electrifying the Countryside," Morris Cooke, the head of the REA, stated that

In addition to paying for the energy he used, the farmer was expected to advance to the power company most or all of the costs of construction. Since utility company ideas as to what constituted sound rural lines have been rather fancy, such costs were prohibitive for most farmers. [ footnote]

Many groups opposed the federal government's involvement in developing and distributing electric power, especially utility companies, who believed that the government was unfairly competing with private enterprise (See the Statement of John Battle ). Some members of Congress who didn't think the government should interfere with the economy, believed that TVA was a dangerous program that would bring the nation a step closer to socialism. Other people thought that farmers simply did not have the skills needed to manage local electric companies.


By 1939 the REA had helped to establish 417 rural electric cooperatives, which served 288,000 households. The actions of the REA encouraged private utilities to electrify the countryside as well. By 1939 rural households with electricity had risen to 25 percent. The enthusiasm that greeted the introduction of electric power can be seen in the remarks of Rose Scearce.

When farmers did receive electric power their purchase of electric appliances helped to increase sales for local merchants. Farmers required more energy than city dwellers, which helped to offset the extra cost involved in bringing power lines to the country.

TVA set up the Electric Home and Farm Authority to help farmers purchase major electric appliances. The EHFA made arrangements with appliance makers to supply electric ranges, refrigerators and water heaters at reasonable prices. These appliances were sold at local power companies and electric cooperatives. A farmer could purchase appliances here with loans offered by the EHFA, who offered low-cost financing.
Rural electrification was based on the belief that affordable electricity would improve the standard of living and the economic competitiveness of the family farm. But electric power alone was not enough to stop the transformation of America's farm communities. Rural electrification did not halt the continuing migration of rural people from the country to the city. Nor did it stop the decline in the total number of family farms.
​

 

[thoughtone]

The government instituted slavery and then had to fight a civil war to fix its own mistake.

There was no public school, yet the United States saw increasing literacy throughout the 19th century.

With all this government, the country is moving backwards, technologically, economically, medically, scientifically, socially, and culturally. It was actually better in the 1990s for black people than it is today. Too much government is destroying the black middle class.

This post is so full of inaccuracies, half truths, inconsistencies, and down right ignorance.

But it is in line with the rest of your bizarre posts.

I'll say this, research Freedmen's Bureau and public schools. That should make your brain explode. Stay away from those private sector Hollywood movies. They are designed to make a profit not expose truth.

Facts, not opinion.

 

[Cruise]

This post is so full of inaccuracies, half truths, inconsistencies, and down right ignorance.

But it is in line with the rest of your bizarre posts.

I'll say this, research Freedmen's Bureau and public schools. That should make your brain explode. Stay away from those private sector Hollywood movies. They are designed to make a profit not expose truth.

Facts, not opinion.

I don't think you know the difference. Yet, you think to lecture me?

You pick one or two things as an attempt to invalidate the whole argument.

If you can counter, then do so. Otherwise, it just looks like you don't want to accept the FACT that no one NEEDS government to do anything.

No one is ENTITLED to electricity, any more than a job, or a car.

It is the government that seeks to interfere, meddle, and disrupt.

If the government actually existed to protect the rights of the people, instead of attacking the rights of the people (Slavery, Jim Crow/Separate But Equal, the War on Drugs/Poverty/Everything), most of the injustices you complain about today would never exist.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

I don't think you know the difference. Yet, you think to lecture me?

You pick one or two things as an attempt to invalidate the whole argument.

If you can counter, then do so. Otherwise, it just looks like you don't want to accept the FACT that no one NEEDS government to do anything.
No one is ENTITLED to electricity, any more than a job, or a car.

It is the government that seeks to interfere, meddle, and disrupt.

If the government actually existed to protect the rights of the people, instead of attacking the rights of the people (Slavery, Jim Crow/Separate But Equal, the War on Drugs/Poverty/Everything), most of the injustices you complain about today would never exist.

Except those people the government educated and gave power to when the private sector wouldn't. And build drivable roads because the private sector won't. And the ones that need government healthcare because the private sector would let them die in their homes or on the street.
You should throw all the people who have needed the government to protect their drinking water so it wouldn't catch fire anymore in the Midwest.
There seems to be this need to see the "government" as one big thing and it's really not. It's a lot of little things made up of people. When used correctly, it's the one thing protecting us from corporate greed and mendacity.
Just as there are no perfect people, there will never be and has never been a perfect government. But that doesn't make the entire institution a bad thing.
The government instituted slavery and the government fixed it, that's good governance.

If you find a better alternative, embrace it and share with everyone. But, unlike your countless rants about "anarchy", make sure they're real and not figments of your fevered imagination.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

I bet there are all kinds of contractors, not just defense, that will tell you that the government has created much wealth for their industries.
Only the foolish and uninformed don't know how government is a major driver of wealth in this country.

 

[Cruise]

I bet there are all kinds of contractors, not just defense, that will tell you that the government has created much wealth for their industries.
Only the foolish and uninformed don't know how government is a major driver of wealth in this country.

Once again, you are mixing your delusions with reality.

So, government contracts "CREATE WEALTH"?

In your mind, when the government destroys food in the field, to keep the agri-businesses profitable, that "CREATES WEALTH"?

When the war industries make things that do nothing but destroy, that "CREATES WEALTH"?

When people are over-presribed medicines, kept in hospitals longer than needed, and undergoing specious "proceudres" for government payouts, that "CREATES WEALTH"?

You do not seem to understand what it means to "CREATE WEALTH", so I will help you.

Source

1. to cause to come into being, as something unique that would not naturally evolve or that is not made by ordinary processes.
2. to evolve from one's own thought or imagination, as a work of art or an invention.

Source

1. a great quantity or store of money, valuable possessions, property, or other riches: the wealth of a city.
2. an abundance or profusion of anything; plentiful amount: a wealth of imagery.

Now, let's take the 2 definitions and we have...

to CREATE WEALTH is to cause to come into being a great quantity or store of money, valuable possessions, property, or other riches.

Okay, does the government cause a great quantity of money to come into being?

No, because the government borrows every dime it has. All the government does is take from one group and give to another. Therefore, government CANNOT create wealth... it can only re-distribute it. This merely rearrages the winners and losers for a politically-acceptable outcome. Black people are getting too powerful. Take their property and give it to whites. Natives are sitting on valuable land. Take it and give it to whites.


Does the government cause a great quantity of valuable possessions to come into being?

No. The government, through taxation, merely appropriates the valuable possessions of others for its own use.

Does the government cause a great quantity of riches to come into being?

No. The government seizes riches from others and claims it for its own use. the riches already existed, the government merely lays sole claim to them.

I don't know how much simpler this can be explained. But, I have learned that you are resistant to logic and facts. But, it's interesting seeing that willful ignorance, selective incompetence, and basic denial of incontrovertible facts leads to the belief that the government can CREATE WEALTH.

 

[SPECTRE1]

The right wing propaganda is that the government is a parasitic organism that survives off of them. However, is just a giant corporation that bills for its services on April 15.

It builds or acquires assets like damns, levies (New Orleans), or roads. It charges a fee for this service.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

No government agency owns a steel factory or makes concrete so when they build roads and highways and interstates, they pay someone to do that. Those same people then employ countless others.
Weapon are meant to destroy but someone got paid to make them.
When the government buys fleets of vehicles for their various agencies, that them driving wealth.
The term "create wealth" itself is false. Every transaction is just moving money around. The private sector doesn't create wealth. They have products and need consumers to part with their money to buy them.
These philosophical debates have begun to bore me because you can go round and round but really if you take some people's philosophy that they say they believe in BUT DO NOT LIVE BY and take them to their logical conclusion, they end up being big lies. But they won't be moved because they keep throwing up strawman after strawman argument.

 

[Lamarr]

Govt can't create wealth, they can only confiscate it through income taxes, inflation & interest rates!

The more the individual worker produces, the more he increases the wealth of the whole community. The more he produces, the more his services are worth to consumers, and hence to employers. And the more he is worth to employers, the more he will be paid. Real wages come out of production, not out of government decrees.

So government policy should be directed, not to imposing more burdensome requirements on employers, but to following policies that encourage profits, that encourage employers to expand, to invest in newer and better machines to increase the productivity of workers — in brief, to encourage capital accumulation, instead of discouraging it—and to increase both employment and wage rates.

 

[thoughtone]

I don't think you know the difference. Yet, you think to lecture me?

You pick one or two things as an attempt to invalidate the whole argument.

If you can counter, then do so. Otherwise, it just looks like you don't want to accept the FACT that no one NEEDS government to do anything.

No one is ENTITLED to electricity, any more than a job, or a car.

It is the government that seeks to interfere, meddle, and disrupt.

If the government actually existed to protect the rights of the people, instead of attacking the rights of the people (Slavery, Jim Crow/Separate But Equal, the War on Drugs/Poverty/Everything), most of the injustices you complain about today would never exist.

I can counter all of them. You pick the two. I didn't want to waste time on your rambling emotional rant.

The school thing was just outrageous.

For some strange reason, you think private business are entitled, but the individual is not allowed lobby to their government.

Railroads: Pacific Railroad Acts

Your education about the 19th century is laughable.

 

[sahusahir]

Did the New Deal not happen in this country. Did the US not rebuild europe & japan after ww2. Did some european countries not accumulate great wealth by enslaving & colonizing around the world. Government can create wealth. corporations are created by appealling/applying to goverment. Government so good at it, corporations now want to take over government.

 

[Lamarr]

If the govt could create wealth, why are they 16.6 Trillion in debt?

Govt can't create wealth, they can only confiscate it through income taxes, inflation & interest rates!.

See post 14

 

[QueEx]

If the govt could create wealth, why are they 16.6 Trillion in debt?

Govt can't create wealth, they can only confiscate it through income taxes, inflation & interest rates!.

See post 14

Ahem.

 

[Cruise]

Did the New Deal not happen in this country. Did the US not rebuild europe & japan after ww2. Did some european countries not accumulate great wealth by enslaving & colonizing around the world. Government can create wealth. corporations are created by appealling/applying to goverment. Government so good at it, corporations now want to take over government.

C'mon now.

The government BORROWED ITS ASS OFF from the private indivudual to "rebuild" Europe and Japan.

The private person did not spend its dollars but instead gave it to the GOVERNMENT so it could give it to Europe and Japan.

And, the whites stole from cultures and civilizations all around the world, in the form of private corporations (Crown Corporations).

The government did not CREATE WEALTH, it simply stole it from others.

Once, again, GOVERNMENT takes from everyone for its own political purposes.

Governments do create something... WAR AND DEBT!

 

[Upgrade Dave]

Govt can't create wealth, they can only confiscate it through income taxes, inflation & interest rates!

The more the individual worker produces, the more he increases the wealth of the whole community. The more he produces, the more his services are worth to consumers, and hence to employers. And the more he is worth to employers, the more he will be paid. Real wages come out of production, not out of government decrees.

So government policy should be directed, not to imposing more burdensome requirements on employers, but to following policies that encourage profits, that encourage employers to expand, to invest in newer and better machines to increase the productivity of workers — in brief, to encourage capital accumulation, instead of discouraging it—and to increase both employment and wage rates.

To be even more brief:
to participate in the creation of wealth.

 

[thoughtone]

To be even more brief:
to participate in the creation of wealth.

 

[Greed]

To be even more brief:
to participate in the creation of wealth.

That's quite the win-win for you. Whether the government steps back and let private individuals create wealth like Lamarr suggest or showers a favorite project with money, you classify it as "to participate in the creation of wealth."

Must be nice.

 

[SPECTRE1]

If the government did not exist a corporation would step in and sell that service to you for roads, bridges, or other things. Therefore, through logic, the government is creating wealth if a corporation would provide that service by building an asset.

What gets me is how housing assistance, food stamps are presented to the public. These are social insurance programs that for some unforeseen reason, you was unable to make enough money or was unemployed, these social "insurance" programs would step in and ensure that you ate or had a roof over your head. Most people feel they are supporting people which would be like you supporting a cancer patient through your health insurance premiums.

I would like to see the government taking these program and itemizing separate charges on your taxes that would allow people to choose the level of protection that they need or pay a generic tax rate.

Although that benefit is not being provided to you, a job loss could easily put you into that position where you would need it. Many people put in their claim for this insurance for the first time due to the recession.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

That's quite the win-win for you. Whether the government steps back and let private individuals create wealth like Lamarr suggest or showers a favorite project with money, you classify it as "to participate in the creation of wealth."

Must be nice.

It is nice.
Stop putting your faith in whatever philosophy you subscribe to and actually know what the words mean that you say and you can have the same type of situation.
Lamarr suggested a situation where the "creation of wealth" is augmented, aided even, by the government and says this in a post talking about "government doesn't create wealth".
How is the irony so lost on some of you?
When you let reality shape your philosophy and not the other way around, it's usually a win-win because you'll have the verifiable facts and history on your side.

 

[Greed]

It is nice.
Stop putting your faith in whatever philosophy you subscribe to and actually know what the words mean that you say and you can have the same type of situation.
Lamarr suggested a situation where the "creation of wealth" is augmented, aided even, by the government and says this in a post talking about "government doesn't create wealth".
How is the irony so lost on some of you?
When you let reality shape your philosophy and not the other way around, it's usually a win-win because you'll have the verifiable facts and history on your side.

You might want to distinguish for the sake of honesty, that an action taken in the positive is different from one taken in the negative.

The government can actively choose a winner or loser, or the government can step back while a winner is being decided. The government being passive and not doing anything to harm a situation is not worthy of admiration, and definitely not worthy of credit for a positive outcome while blinding blaming capitalism for any negative outcomes.

Instead of the Oscars, we don't give out awards to people for not punching you in the face while you're just trying to live your life.

 

[thoughtone]

That's quite the win-win for you. Whether the government steps back and let private individuals create wealth like Lamarr suggest or showers a favorite project with money, you classify it as "to participate in the creation of wealth."

Must be nice.

source: http://newdeal.feri.org/tva/tva10.htm

Rural Electrification


Although nearly 90 percent of urban dwellers had electricity by the 1930s, only ten percent of rural dwellers did. Private utility companies, who supplied electric power to most of the nation's consumers, argued that it was too expensive to string electric lines to isolated rural farmsteads. Anyway, they said, most farmers, were too poor to be able to afford electricity.

The Roosevelt Administration believed that if private enterprise could not supply electric power to the people, then it was the duty of the government to do so.


Thak goodness for government or the corporations would determine everyones fate, like the kings and queens did.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

source: http://newdeal.feri.org/tva/tva10.htm

Rural Electrification


Although nearly 90 percent of urban dwellers had electricity by the 1930s, only ten percent of rural dwellers did. Private utility companies, who supplied electric power to most of the nation's consumers, argued that it was too expensive to string electric lines to isolated rural farmsteads. Anyway, they said, most farmers, were too poor to be able to afford electricity.

The Roosevelt Administration believed that if private enterprise could not supply electric power to the people, then it was the duty of the government to do so.


Thak goodness for government or the corporations would determine everyones fate, like the kings and queens did.

Government did something that the private sector reaped the rewards for. In essence, putting money in their pockets with little to no investment from them.

 

[thoughtone]

Instead of the Oscars.

Please explain this analogy.

Are you suggesting the Oscars are objective?

 

[thoughtone]

No one is ENTITLED to electricity, any more than a job, or a car.

You are simple. The government doesn't have factories, they fund, authorize and regulate. The government doesn't build roads, they hire companies and fund the projects. The government doesn't build satellites, they hire private entities and fund research to build and implement the use of satellites and set common standards so those satellites will operate properly and won't kill anyone.

If it weren't for government, the wealth would be even more inequitable.

 

[Greed]

Please explain this analogy.

Are you suggesting the Oscars are objective?

No it rewards a positive action. It rewards doing something.

 

[Greed]

source: http://newdeal.feri.org/tva/tva10.htm

Rural Electrification


Although nearly 90 percent of urban dwellers had electricity by the 1930s, only ten percent of rural dwellers did. Private utility companies, who supplied electric power to most of the nation's consumers, argued that it was too expensive to string electric lines to isolated rural farmsteads. Anyway, they said, most farmers, were too poor to be able to afford electricity.

The Roosevelt Administration believed that if private enterprise could not supply electric power to the people, then it was the duty of the government to do so.


Thak goodness for government or the corporations would determine everyones fate, like the kings and queens did.

How is this proof of government creating wealth? That's proof of government action, which can be debated to be right or wrong.

 

[Greed]

Government did something that the private sector reaped the rewards for. In essence, putting money in their pockets with little to no investment from them.

Which is the most common result of government picking economic winners and losers by redistributing wealth (not creating it), they often go with the rich guy who has the best access to politicians.

I consider the solution to be to stop letting government pick economic winners and losers.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

You are simple. The government doesn't have factories, they fund, authorize and regulate. The government doesn't build roads, they hire companies and fund the projects. The government doesn't build satellites, they hire private entities and fund research to build and implement the use of satellites and set common standards so those satellites will operate properly and won't kill anyone.

If it weren't for government, the wealth would be even more inequitable.

Yep. As imperfect, and sometimes downright corrupt, as the government (local, state, and federal) is, it's the best available option.
If someone knows of a better one, show me. Dont tell me in another unattached to reality rant. Show me a country where it works. Preferably a large, diverse country so the comparison is legit.

Which is the most common result of government picking economic winners and losers by redistributing wealth (not creating it), they often go with the rich guy who has the best access to politicians.

I consider the solution to be to stop letting government pick economic winners and losers.

In theory, sounds good. In practice, you would have those people stuck in the 18th century and ultimately being a drag on the nation as a whole.

 

[Greed]

In theory, sounds good. In practice, you would have those people stuck in the 18th century and ultimately being a drag on the nation as a whole.

I'm sorry, when you said this:

Government did something that the private sector reaped the rewards for. In essence, putting money in their pockets with little to no investment from them.

I thought you were implying it was a bad thing.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

I'm sorry, when you said this:

I thought you were implying it was a bad thing.

No, not at all.