Quote Originally Posted by rvg View Post
Quoting? Hardly. Mocking, mostly.
Thanks for clearing that up.

Quote Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name View Post
This is blatantly wrong and I don't understand how you can have such an opinion. If wealth is zero sum, then logically India, Africa, and South America must be poorer than ever before in world history since us Westerners are so rich. But they are not, South America and India are richer than ever before as well.
Well, the distribution of wealth is more equitable than in the past, and goods in general have become devalued (hence the massive inflation of the last few hundred years)

Western Nations are not that Rich - we just have more junk than ever before. In meaningful ways we are much poorer, and the "Third" world is consequently richer. Bear in mind, in the past, wealth was so prevalent in the West that private companies could afford vast private armies in addition to all the workers, flunkies, clerks and whores they could keep track of.

What has changed is the overall quality of life of the world's population - but that's the result of industrialisation making everything cheaper, not people or Nations getting richer.

Think about it - how is China getting richer?

By making the US poorer, and then extending credit to make us even poorer.