[Hooman]

Just wondering what the overall consensus is here. Then I'll say why I asked. Yup, it's one of those questions again.

[tomkuegler]

Economic principals will tell you that it is unlimited...

[tomkuegler]

Sorry... misspost.

[babyjoy214]

I really feel its unlimited if it's proper distributed..

[tazman9r]

I voted, so I guess I'll comment.

A FREE market does not promote a zero sum game. The reason 95% of the world is poor is due to a government's stifling of a free market.

If a person from (name your favorite poor country/region) was able to design, market, and sell a product for which there becomes a demand, then that person would become wealthy, and their country would benefit from the tax revenue.

Originally Posted by babyjoy214

I really feel its unlimited if it's proper distributed..

See, I find this a really interesting comment. Who distributes wealth? A government? A church? And who's definition of "properly" are we using? Who gets this wealth? Is it that there is a bunch of wealth so we all take/get what we need? Or is it that we would all be wealthy if those darn rich people would stop hoarding all the wealth?

The free market does not "distribute" wealth, wealth is earned in a free market through selling products or services. Is it a fair system? I think it is the most fair system. Life puts challenges in our way to rise above and overcome. Look at Helen Keller. If you don't know who that is, I really suggest you Google her. Or Bethany Hamilton, the one armed surfer girl. Look her story up. These are people who didn't lie down and die because the going got tough. They adapted and overcame. The free market demands that you adapt and overcome, and when you do, you become a better person. If you are allowed to fall, you'll learn how to walk better. If you are allowed to go a little hungry, you learn how to better provide for yourself and your family.

This is not to say that we shouldn't help each other out through tough times. Certainly we should give back to all of those who helped us when we needed it. But I don't think we need to carry each other along indefinably, either.

It's all supply and demand. Even the most die hard penny pincher will part with some money to acquire what they want.

[DPayne]

well, technically, there is only a limited supply of currency out there. If it was unlimitedly printed, inflation would be out of the roof. We're certainly headed that way, lol.

There is enough out there to satisfy my wants and needs, I just have to figure out how to get my share.

[HarveyJ]

Any closed system is finite, and the only "extra" wealth generated is through inflationary pressures tat diversify the real wealth.

Now, more value can be added to the system by finding more resources that can be commodified, but there's a finite limit to how much can be produced before there is nothing new to input into the system.

I had this argument with a university lecturer who said that due to informational wealth, there is no cap on economic output.
The fact of the matter is that we run on an energy based economy, not an information based one. When energy becomes scarce, informational based economies will collapse as there the energy must be devoted to the creation and development of primary resources: to wit, food, shelter, etc.

And whilst raw energy available in our macro system is unlimited (solar energy, it'll last longer tha the human race, I'm sure), the ability to harvest it is limited and, currently, does not provide enough energy to meet our current, let alone future, energy requirements in which to keep secondary economies operating in the long term.

Of course, none of this really matters to us, because there's enough fossil and nuclear fuel to last about 200 years. So we'll be very very dead before this happens.
I'm just pointing out that, in the long term, all economic growth is limited by the base unit that the economy is backed against.

[tazman9r]

Certainly there is a finite and quantifiable amount of currency out there. But as long as you have a product or service that has a demand, there will be someone to buy it. And the people who amass wealth in this way also buy things, because they have needs as well. Ok, they can afford to buy things that go outside their "needs", but they help others up by making purchases.

As far as energy is concerned, necessity is the mother of invention. Even if the planet did run out of oil in the next 200 years, humans would have found another energy source to take it's place. We live in a world that broke the sound barrier with rockets in an unpressurized craft. We have been to the moon, and we got there with slide rulers. We have proven time and again that if we put our minds to something, we can accomplish what we dream.

Maybe I sound a bit like Pollyanna, but so what. I am not talking about things that have never been done, I'm looking at what we have already achieved and wondering what is not within our grasp if we just are just willing to our put or minds and our backs into it.

[DPayne]

tazman, we all know we can achieve what we believe. But the question is about wealth being limited or not. There is a limit to the amount of wealth out there. That is what makes wealth valuable, its scarcity.

We can all achieve what we want to achieve. However, wealth is not 'unlimited' when talking about wealth from a financial point of view. If you were to take all the money in the world and throw it into a huge pot, would there be a limit to the amount of money in that pot? Yes. So the answer to wealth (assuming the question is about financial wealth) is yes, wealth is theoretically limited. There has to be a certain dollar amount to what is physically attainable.

However, if the question is dealing with wealth in other ways such as spiritual, joy, happiness, etc. Then that is a whole different question.

[tazman9r]

Originally Posted by DPayne

tazman, we all know we can achieve what we believe. But the question is about wealth being limited or not. There is a limit to the amount of wealth out there.

I don't disagree with that fact. I even said so.

Originally Posted by tazman9r

Certainly there is a finite and quantifiable amount of currency out there.

And we also agree on this point...

Originally Posted by DPayne

We can all achieve what we want to achieve.

But perhaps I was not being clear on the point I was trying to make when I said...

Originally Posted by tazman9r

... as long as you have a product or service that has a demand, there will be someone to buy it. And the people who amass wealth in this way also buy things, because they have needs as well. Ok, they can afford to buy things that go outside their "needs", but they help others up by making purchases.

While the physical number of dollars and other forms of currency is limited, I think the better word is "finite", the capacity to generate wealth is not. The capacity to generate wealth is only artificially limited by governments or other controlling agencies (OPEC, for example).

A free market, and by this I mean a market that is either free of regulation or only has enough regulation to protect against fraud (and that is a very slippery slope), is relative to society in that it grows and shrinks with demand. Demand is the variable, not supply. If you want to see prices rise on something, reduce it's supply, but even then, the prices will only rise relative to demand for the product.