74 Rising Standard of Living

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now is the best time to be alive, and a minute from now will be even better, and the hour after that gets better too. Market Forces-based economies relying on the fundamental human motivations of greed, avarice, vanity & envy require no outside coercsive force, and seem to be the secret to an ever increasing standard of living. There are ideologs that argue for simplier times but their basic premise that there was some imagined better time than this is fundamentally wrong. And, of course, by trying to force their vision on the world, they violate the liberty of everyone else. It's the same old, know-better-n-you paternalistic, self-conceited blather that socialists always bring to a debate.<br /><br />Standard of Living is entirely the result of productivity. The reason people are better off is because America produces $16 trillion of goods & services every year and spread it around. The .01% UberRich keep $4 trillion, which they mostly invest, and everyone else basically spends theirs to keep afloat, but at ever increasing standards of living. The old "a rising tide lifts all ships" adage obviously has its upside, but make no mistake, without wealth redistribution there is also a mathematical certainty of a rising Nouveau Aristocracy.</p>