By Tribune-Review

Published: Tuesday, January 1, 2013, 8:43 p.m.
Updated: Tuesday, February 19, 2013

During the fiscal-cliff debate, President Obama and fellow Democrats revealed that they don't understand how our free-market economy works.

Liberals see wealth as static, something that's always there, and they believe it's the job of government to divide it up more fairly.

However in reality, wealth is dynamic — it can be created or destroyed by the actions of humans. The dictionary defines wealth as all things that have monetary or exchange value.

Wealth is created whenever someone invents a new product or service, constructs a building, starts a business enterprise or builds a new factory. These activities expand our economy by generating more jobs and value.

Wealth is destroyed when businesses and factories close, buildings and property are destroyed or devalued, and when people stop investing in an enterprise.

Wealth redistribution penalizes those who grow the economy by creating obstacles to growth. But shouldn't we admire those who expand the economy instead of punishing them?

Class envy and the policy that it entails will not reallocate wealth more fairly, as liberals claim, but it will prevent new wealth from being created and even destroy existing wealth. And those at the lower end of the economic scale will suffer the most from this misguided thinking.

Dave Majernik

Plum

1. IRS vs. America I
2. IRS vs. America III
3. IRS vs. America II
4. Societal diagnosis?
5. Alumni, parents & CMU
6. IRS vs. America V
7. IRS vs. America IV
8. Forgetting veterans by Tuesday
9. Arnold sewage bills
10. Heresy
11. Oppose Common Core

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