makeshiftmind

A surprising number of people retain from childhood the idea that there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world. There is, in any normal family, a fixed amount of money at any moment. But that’s not the same thing.

When wealth is talked about in this context, it is often described as a pie. “You can’t make the pie larger,” say politicians. When you’re talking about the amount of money in one family’s bank account, or the amount available to a government from one year’s tax revenue, this is true. If one person gets more, someone else has to get less.

I can remember believing, as a child, that if a few rich people had all the money, it left less for everyone else. Many people seem to continue to believe something like this well into adulthood. This fallacy is usually there in the background when you hear someone talking about how x percent of the population have y percent of the wealth. If you plan to start a startup, then whether you realize it or not, you’re planning to disprove the Pie Fallacy.

What leads people astray here is the abstraction of money. Money is not wealth. It’s just something we use to move wealth around. So although there may be, in certain specific moments (like your family, this month) a fixed amount of money available to trade with other people for things you want, there is not a fixed amount of wealth in the world. You can make more wealth. Wealth has been getting created and destroyed (but on balance, created) for all of human history.

Suppose you own a beat-up old car. Instead of sitting on your butt next summer, you could spend the time restoring your car to pristine condition. In doing so you create wealth. The world is—and you specifically are—one pristine old car the richer. And not just in some metaphorical way. If you sell your car, you’ll get more for it.

In restoring your old car you have made yourself richer. You haven’t made anyone else poorer. So there is obviously not a fixed pie. And in fact, when you look at it this way, you wonder why anyone would think there was.

Hackers & Painters
by Paul Graham

I walked up to Chad’s desk the other day and said, “Chad, is Windows Vista the new XP, or the new ME?”

“XP” he responded, immediately.

I gave a little, knowing laugh and went back to my desk.

I have to admit though, I was wrong. Vista is, in fact, NOT the next ME…

…it is the next Windows NT 3.51.

Which, in some respects, is orders of magnitude worse.

This is a shocking article about a freelance reporter who was arrested at the CNN Republican debates for asking Giuliani’s staff members some tough questions.

Reporters were questioning Giuliani staff members on a variety of issues, including his apparent ignorance of the 9/11 Commission Report, according to Bermas. The staff members accused the reporters of Ron Paul partisanship, which press denied. It was at this point that Lepacek, who was streaming a live report, asked a staff member about Giuliani’s statement to Peter Jennings that he was told beforehand that the WTC buildings would collapse.

Giuliani’s press secretary then called over New Hampshire state police, fingering Lepacek.

Though CNN staff members tried to persuade police not to arrest the accredited reporter–in violation of the First Amendment, Lepacek was taken to jail. The police station told JonesReport.com that Lepacek is being charged with felony criminal trespass. Multiple witnesses on the scene reported that the state police were also heard discussing charges of espionage.

Please note that Matt Lepacek had proper CNN press credentials when this occurred.

This is a disgusting violation of individual rights. Make no doubt about it–the Republicans are moving us towards a police state faster than anyone could have imagined. If you value liberty at all, quit justifying your Republican vote by pretending the candidates are less evil than you imagine Democrat candidates are. The only Republican worth supporting is Ron Paul, and even then, he would have a very difficult time fighting Congress, and would probably be impeached during his first year of presidency because he would challenge the fiefdom that our neo-fascist politicians work so diligently to protect.

It really exists…

Chad just pointed out that an anagram of my name, “Nick Cloud”, is “Click Undo”.

Who would have thought…