Originally Posted by sperbonzo

Apparently you missed my post, so I will re-post it.

I did not say that wealth is infinite. Please re-read my post. The POTENTIAL wealth that can be created is infinite, and every time that a new product, or service, is created, or improved, new value, i.e. new wealth, is created.

The success of facebook did not "make myspace poor". First of all understand that all companies are composed of people, they do not create themselves. How much money was earned by the creators, and the employees, of myspace? That money didn't disappear when it was no longer profitable. It may NO LONGER be generating revenue, but that does not discount the wealth that it created before a better product came along. That wealth still exists. It wasn't taken back out of the personal accounts by consumers and handed to someone else.

As for the transfer of your investment holdings from one stock to another, you're right, that is not creating wealth. I never said that every activity involving the movement of funds does that. HOWEVER, the reason why you decide to buy that first stock is that you believe that the company you are investing in will be able to successfully use that money to create more and better, products and services, and therefore create more wealth, which you will be able to share in, since you helped get them the capital they needed to do it. That you decide to later sell that stock and buy another is simply a transfer of your capital for the same original reason.

I have poured all kinds of money into various projects over the years, in essence, I "bought stock" in them. Some failed completely, and I lost everything I had put into them. Since they failed to come up with a product or service that the market (i.e. free consumers/clients), did not place a high enough value on, no new value was created, therefore no new wealth was created. The projects which did create value in the market, created wealth for me. Some of them are no longer creating wealth, but that doesn't mean I don't still have the money, (or the objects and services I traded the money for), that I earned from that project.



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