Wealth Equalization = Economic Health

Many have heard the debate of "The poor are all helpless kittens who need our tender loving care, and who should be treasured like a precious but fragile gem" vs "the poor are moochers who should all be shot, and those who live should be thrown into the coal mines to prove their worth as human beings at $1/hour and climb their own way up from there. If they can't survive on that, it's their own fault."

Okay, most don't sound that extreme, but you get the general idea, but they do get pretty bad. Those who call welfare "the poor stealing from the middle class" and those who tell about shellshocked vets who will never have a chance to reliably hold a job again who need our support, to the ominous sounding "welfare mom" who lives off of welfare making babies because she can to the noble people who were once stuck on food stamps, but having been able to survive due to them and later become millionaires and became gracious philanthropists.

Almost all the arguments on both sides are highly emotional, with people going on about "what's right."

The only remotely unbiased argument that I've heard (and I do mean "remotely") is those that say making the rich have money means money will trickle down and help the poor although that's been disproved over and over (note, they keep trying to push the failed "trickle down" idea over and over despite it never working, and they just change the name each time; it may be trickle down, another time it's "Job Creators," another time its "public investment in industry," etc.). 

So the question is... what makes the economy healthy?

One very obvious answer when you stop and think about it. It's called Wealth Equalization.

Most will agree, the economy is built on two things: Buying, and Selling. Which, in reality, is silly. Because if you think about that for a second, you'll realize that's not two things. It's one thing. You can't buy without a seller, and you can't sell without a buy.  In the long run, buys minus sells and sells minus buys equals 0. There's one sell for every buy, one buy for every sell.

The economy is built on only one thing: Trades.

The more trading that happens, the better. It doesn't matter if its buying or selling or for how much. One day's seller is the next day's buyer. The value of a coin changes from day to day. The economy is not built on the value of trades or who's buying and selling, it's built, almost completely on the number of trades that happen and the number of people involved in the trades. The former determines the strength of an economy, the latter determines the size of an economy.

Another key point to realize about trades, is they benefit specifically the people who trade. The trades that happen on Wall Street benefit those who are on Wall street. That's why they make the trades. The people who make trades in stores are the ones who benefit from the trades. If a trade doesn't benefit (or at least seem it benefits) both parties, they don't trade, simple as that. The vast majority of the benefit goes only to those people who did the trade.

So, for the best economy, you need the most people doing the most trades.

And that means you have to maximize the number of people trading, and the number of trades. And that means maximizing the number of people who want to buy things and have the money to buy things while making sure there are enough people with the resources to make and sell those things to meet the demand.



So, whatever scary name people call it by, "Wealth Redistribution," "Wealth Equalization," a "Robin Hood Tax," or "Stealing from job creators to give to welfare moms" doesn't change the fact it's a good idea for our economy, and in turn, for everyone. You want to have as many people as possible as close as possible to being middle class. That means people have the resources to make things, and people have the money to buy those things, and in turn, push the economy forward.


Some people may wonder if any kind of precedent for such forced wealth redistribution exists without violent overthrow or Robin-Hood tendencies. And the answer is, yes. During their most prosperous time in ancient history, the Hebrews once had a tradition that happened very 50 years called Jubilee.

During the year of Jubilee, all debts were forgiven, slaves were set free, and bought/taken/seized lands were returned to their original owners (references to it can be found in the Torah/Bible in Leviticus 25:10). Practically, this helped the Hebrew nation significantly by forcing an equalization to an economy that could get unbalanced over time. It wasn't perfect (business people began to plan ahead for jubilee to prevent it from redistributing their wealth), and eventually the practice lost prominence. (Although, interesting to note, some Jews still hold this practice to this day, and interestingly, our previous time of healthiest economy was around the time of the last Jubilee. It could be coincidence, but I believe it's something that should be researched.)

So, in all honesty, what we likely need to end the recession and get the economy back on track is a either sweeping reforms to make constant wealth equalization, some politically intense event to force wealth equalization, or a Jubilee.

And that means systematically giving to the poor.

So, I don't care if you feel giving to the poor, and medicare, and medicaid, and so many other things are the right thing to do (although I feel they are), but they are the smart thing to do.