Darren New wrote:
> It *is* the "cream 
> rising" if you define "cream" as "capable of creating wealth."
>

Ah, that's my problem.  I keep defining "cream" as "having a brain and 
using it in some productive way" or even as "being a decent person."

> 
>>> And that's why Kenya is a poor country.
>> Precisely.  It's circular.
> 
> I guess I'm not following why you seem to be complaining, if that's what 
> you're doing.
> 

No, just observing.  It's like real estate--"location, location, 
location"--not something over which Bill and Oprah had any particular 
prenatal control, just incredibly good luck.

> 
> I was slightly off. The top 5% pay 50% of the taxes. The top 1% pay only 
> a third of the taxes.
> 

Again--what is the relationship between any individual's _taxpayer_ 
percentile and _income_ percentile?  (And don't those figures paint a 
lovely picture of the gap between the filthy rich and the dirt poor?)

> 
> Those who *do* have more money than they could possibly spend 
> invest because it's that or burn it in the fireplace. :-)
> 
> ...When you have more money than California, it's hard to spend it all.

Which leads to a bizarre, sideways-to-the-topic speculation:  Is it 
actually possible to have more money than you can spend?  I've heard 
this description of extreme wealth for roughly forever, but I can't say 
that I've ever seen it analyzed in any way.  Is this a real condition, 
or is it like that business about not being able to march all the 
Chinese past a given point?  You could calculate/guesstimate the amount 
of income per day or second or whatever (and the amount of expenditure 
necessary to reduce that amount consistently), but how do you calculate 
potential expenditures?  In a world that has space tourism and Japanese 
toilets, this could be a problem.  Not actually trying to change the 
subject, just slightly distracted by a shiny thing. ;)

> In truth, the really rich people don't actually own 
> that much money, which is how you get away from AMT.  Bill Gates doesn't 
> have all that much money.  He has a whole bunch of Microsoft stock, and 
> *Microsoft* has a whole bunch of money.  And Bill Gates has a whole 
> bunch of credit.
> 
> (OK, yes, Bill Gates has lots of money. But hopefully you follow what 
> I'm saying there.)
> 

Yep.  Of course, that Microsoft stock *smells* a lot like money... ;) 
But it has to make you wonder--weren't the people who designed the AMT 
aware of that particular point?

I *like* arg-- erm, "discussing" with you--ye're rat smart.  ;)

--Sherry Shaw

P.S.:  Sorry it took me so long to get back to an interesting 
discussion--the so-called Real World keeps intruding on my Me-time, 
dammit.  The other day, I looked out in the yard and thought, "Hmm, the 
ice storm left quite a lot of tree limbs lying around, but then the last 
couple of floods carried some of them away...but the the tornado left 
some new ones behind."  OK, that's wacky even by Missouri weather 
standards.  I keep expecting to look out and see giant steaming piles of 
glowing neon-colored sparkly horse doo, from the Four Horsemen of the 
Apocalypse riding overhead.*  And then there's school.

*<Pratchett reference> I imagine Binky's is silvery colored, with blue 
and clear glitter. </Pratchett reference>

-- 
#macro T(E,N)sphere{x,.4rotate z*E*60translate y*N pigment{wrinkles scale
.3}finish{ambient 1}}#end#local I=0;#while(I<5)T(I,1)T(1-I,-1)#local I=I+
1;#end camera{location-5*z}plane{z,37 pigment{granite color_map{[.7rgb 0]
[1rgb 1]}}finish{ambient 2}}//                                   TenMoons

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