The "poor" never share

Luck plays a role in everything. I have no problem with people being born into riches as long as they are in a free market society they are still contributing by investing. We shouldn't idealize a economy around the fact that luck exists.

If you were to remove luck, the best thing to do would not be give to the poor, but to give to the *gifted*.

Getting a little ancy are we?

It doesn't matter how someone owns a factory, as long as they did it morally, they are still 100x more of the equation than a single worker in manufacturing goods. That's life. If it weren't true a factory wouldn't cost as much as it does. But it does.

The rich are being rewarded for something they did a long time ago, they saved their money. If they aren't rewarded for saving their money then we wouldn't have any of the technology we have had since america was founded. Oh, i mean the industrial revolution which happened to happen almost instantaneously after capitalism was practiced in it's simplest form for the first time.

You're wrong, this "inequality" you have a problem with is going to be there whether you adjust for it to the maximum or not. What it comes down to is that people work at different levels of efficiency and absolute hours worked. A laborer at my work makes $80k a year, but works 12 hours a day almost 30 days a month. An engineer out of college makes $80k, but he works 8 hours a day 5 days a week, the engineer is working smarter. A man with $1 million dollars invested (smartly) works maybe a few hours a year just making sure everything is still good with the company and it's management, he makes $80k a year on that investment, he works much smarter than both the engineer and the laborer. To boot when a laborer wins the lottery we don't see them even try to turn that into capital, they put it in the bank or mutual fund and let someone else deal with it, often times spending until they're broke and have to go back to being a laborer. Lottery stories are a great example of why we should let the market do it's magic instead of "fixing" "inequality."

I went on a tangent, but as long as we need them there will be jobs. Robots require electricity, there's jobs, they require programming, there's jobs, they require supervision, there's jobs, they require maintenence, oil, metal, marketing, improvement, cleaning, repair, upgrades, shipping, there's jobs. Further, the product's prices are going to drop to almost nil so being paid less isn't a problem at all.

The employment of any economy is directly related to how much it's population desires a job. There is no such thing as 0 demand for any job. What there is, is when that demand is uneconomical to provide for.

If you were to give every person in the united states $1 million dollars of the rich's money, the *only* thing it would accomplish is raising prices. In the same fashion when nobody has a job, everything is going to get cheaper.

There will always be jobs because after we've mastered energy, or manufacturing, people will buy entertainment. This end you speak of doesn't exist.

Without private property, all you're going to have is tribalism or slavery. Why the hell would I build a stadium if me or the people who did it with me didn't get paid? Or the investers we'rent rewarded?

Did you read any of my post? It's the exact opposite of reliable and viable evidence.

The economy is exponential, it has to be because it's based upon investment (not labor). You NEED to graph an exponential curve on a logarithmic scale to get an accurate idea of growth. If the economy grows 4%, most of that 4% is going to the top end of the curve, it doesn't mean the curve has changed shape which is what you and the retarded liberal media is suggesting.

If you were to graph their same graph another 40 years back you'd notice we are at the same inequality we were 80 years ago, and things weren't all that bad 80 years ago. Where's the fire?

Further if you look at what portion of the taxes each class pays over the past 10 years you will notice the only increasing number is the middle class. Since this bypasses the logarithmic scale need, this is the true movement of classes, we are most likely getting people coming from both the poor and rich class to the middle class.

Why am I even repeating this? If you want to criticize my debunking of your inequality rant, then do so critically, not on a whim of emotional irrationality.

Where's you're proof? Oh wait you don't need any, you're a liberal, sorry i forgot.

It's common knowledge that homeless people make more than the people handing them money think they do.

 

When I do not have money, I go to work. If I needed help, I would go to family, friends, a church or local charity.

The truly needy do not need the federal government playing God by performing cookie-cutter miracles.

 

I'm glad you said the federal government. We should get the federal government out of entitlements altogether because the Constitution in no way authorizes them to do that. But the states? That's a different issue. They can do whatever they want with whatever they can afford. They can't print money like the federal government can. And those states that want to spend themselves into bankruptcy are free to do so.

 

Ownership, monopoly, enforcement of property privileges, exploitation of dire circumstances...

 

You've obviously never gone to dinner at a poor person's house. My father makes a lot more money than most of his coworkers. I remember going to eat dinner at my dad's less well off colleagues' homes as a child. Even though we lived in a large five bedroom suburban home they would cook for us in their humble trailer. When I donated hundreds of dollars from my first bonus check at work I didn't think it was a big deal. When I got a free home cooked meal from an elderly couple living in a trailer it made such an impression on me I remember it to this day.

Right wing hate disgusts me.

 

For some reason, liberals consider the federal government to be a God. Chaining it down is the only way to maintain freedom and prosperity. We are currently loosing this battle.

As you have mentioned, the states have to operate within their means. This maintians the unions health. Allowing the federal government to consume all personal responsibilities is destroying the whole of the union and freedom.

 

Your post makes no sense. BTW, living in a mobile home does not make you poor, needy or a liberal.

 

Just mentioning that it's not proportional to productivity nor ability.

No, the FACTORY would be worth 100 times as much as a single worker. If the person who owned the factory died, the factory would still be functional..as long as the engineers and other laborers maintained it.

Do you not understand that simple, obvious point?

^^Thus concludes one of my biggest qualms about strict unregulated capitalism. It would give the innate advantage to people who privately owned these things, even if they themselves, rather than simply their things, were not productive or capable of being productive.

Yes, an unintelligently irrelevant rant that had nothing to do with my points.

Which, theoretically, could all be performed by robots with super artificial intelligence and ability to emulate human behavior.

Being paid nothing, however, would be. If a society exists where only 50% of people, due to demand for human labor dropping enormously, ever could have a job, then what right wingers would want are two things: 1. millions of people starving to death or 2. fighting over charity they got.

Automation and technology should benefit society as a whole; it shouldn't simply benefit special interests (such as factory owners) while hurting everyone else. More specifically, people who don't own these machines. Call it utilitarian, or whatever you will; it's what I think and never will change.

I'm talking about supply for jobs...?

Yes, your'e right.

The truth is though, ultimately, the only people who would benefit from this system you support would be the owners of said machinery, robots, automation, and other technology. People born with little/nothing would be born with a severe handicap.

So..EVERYONE can just become an entertainer?

Ultimately, the problem is that whereas you're satisfied with a system where people have at least a small chance of prospering, I'm only satisfied with one where most people have a very high chance of prospering, unless they truly are self-destructive.

Again call it utilitarian. That wouldn't exactly be correct, but even if that's what you wanna do, go on ahead, don't care

When did I ever say that private property shouldn't exist? Don't shove words in anyone's mouth.

I own a laptop, it's cord, a primitive but effective cellphone and it's cord, several oldschool video games that I rarely still play, and a few other items. The truth is though, sharing is a lot more efficient than individual ownership.

With private property, what one person owns, no one else can (necessarily) ever use. It's a zero sum game-the more I have, the less you have. There's nothing wrong with that in most situations, but when it comes to say, certain natural resources and space itself, respectful sharing is pretty much obligatory in any ordered sustaining society.

This isn't necessarily about "equality". Don't shove words in my mouth.

 

And if the worker died, another would replace him for a similar wage. You are rewarded for creating capital in capitalism, not for doing work. If you can create capital without work, you are a great capitalist. Further, the factory would not exist if the investors didn't save, and invest in building one. They are extremely expensive, ergo one should be rewarded for supplying one. You are against capitalism, but at the same time you desire it's core ability which is to reward someone for their exact worth. The only reason you deny capitalism is because you are unhappy with the results of who/what is worth more. You wish that *work* got you paid, instead of *creating capital*. But in a society like that, which is marxist, they would have had payed workers to do silly things like excavate land with shovels instead of the excavators right next to them. Just so they could supply more jobs. In turn they turned a $1 billion job, for example, into a $5 billion dollar job. Instead of building one of those sites they could have built 5.

You could say the same for a laborer, it is not him who is valuable it is his freedom he lends to the company. It just turns out it is much more efficient, unsurprisingly, to loan your property earned from perhaps decades of aggregate freedom, than it is to loan your freedom in one hour.

It had alot to do with it, and what? Am I restricted to only responding to your points? I can't bring up my own? Besides, what I did bring up was relevant to the holes of logic you are putting forth about the "flaws" of capitalism. Perhaps the only flaw is that people don't understand it and are prone to be envious of those who did it better, were more disciplined with their money, and even were "lucky" to happen across a proponderance of unfound wealth. The beauty is though, that if they don't deserve that wealth they will find it disappearing in no time. Unless ofcourse they are cheating the system, like liberals do, by taking from others rather than trading with others.

lol, then you're not going to have any government let alone one which will redistribute wealth. Further I'd argue we'd never get to the point of innovation where we can live like jabba the hutt, gluttonously, if we're in a socialist society which directs us in the opposite direction, towards tribalism.

Theres no more reason to believe we'd fight over charity than fight over the welfare. 50% of people allready don't work because they are either: retired, in school, too young, house-wives, pregnant, or cant find a job.

Rich people donate more money than anyone else, proportionate or not to their income, you cannot assume this would suddenly change. All I ask is that we allow them to donate rather than take it with guns. If you look at the states with the lowest taxes you will also find the highest amount of philanthropy. It seems the more you take the less they give, socialism seems to be not only retroactive but it cannot even accomplish the one thing it tries to do.

Listen, here's another capitalist solution to your quarrel. If robots are doing everything there is no labor cap to production we can yield. Therefor there'd be enough "room" and growth in the investing industry everyone could make a living off of simply owning property. A positive feed-back loop where everyone is finally, officially, wealthy. And they can't talk their way out of it like they do it today.

Yes, you are, the supply for jobs is equal to the demand for work. The supply of work would be the laborer. The demand for jobs would be workers looking for work.

Economics 101 fail.

Life's not fair. You can't make it fair either, it's impossible. The fairest way to do it is to let the market decide their worth. Currently a person making an average wage is only 15 years from retirement if they follow an aggressive savings and investment plan. That's really not that far behind. Problem is the people making average wage or lower aren't the brightest, or disciplined, and would rather have a flatscreen TV, than twice its' worth in 7 years. It's not that they wouldn't rather, actually, it's that they never even thought or realized that they could do it. Which is another thing rich investors do well, find opportunities, which liberals give them no credit for.

Entertainment has been growing since we first entered the realm of free market (still far from trying it in it's purest), what do you suggest would prevent everyone from becoming an entertainer, when it's about the only paying job in said society? Isn't everyone's dream job in entertainment anyways? Making video games, being a rock star, being a pro athlete, being a chess master, poker master, gourmet chef, dancer, artist, writer?

No, you are taxing people more, keeping them from saving and investing and reaching the golden egg of capitalism. They could reach that goal years earlier without your redistribution plans. If you're going to make such a claim you should back it up with some sort of logic. So far everything you say has been ass-hat backwards and I'm betting you're a capitalist waiting to be discovered. You just don't understand the differences yet.

What is trading? It's the fairest system of sharing. I share my $10, you share your laptop cord. Niether was taken advantage of, and we both got what we wanted. If you have a problem with me not wanting to trade my cord, ask someone else you're bound to find someone. Or even, offer more.

IT NOT A ZERO SUM GAME. That is the biggest problem people have with understanding capitalism! If you're playing golf with a $100 set of clubs in Los Angeles, and I pull a $100,000 golden nugget out of sacramento. Your clubs are still worth $100! Wealth is created out of thin air by *demand* not by division.

You sure were talking alot about equality earlier.

 

..but he actually does something. The owner could do nothing and still be "worth" more in your system, which makes no sense.

If you're going to have a rewards-based system (which is what capitalism tries to be), at least make it to where you're rewarded for what you personally do. Period.

Utilitarianism =/= forcing/allowing people to do "unproductive" jobs.

You are being consequentialist right here, which is something that most individualists look down on.

But, even if we are going to discuss your argument, I'd rather live in tribalism than live "like jabba the hutt". MUCH rather, for that matter.

Seriously..being an inactive glutton is simply horrible for the soul IMHO.

I actually think that the top few "rich" people would own/hoard all the technology and barely anyone else would have any technology; most people would be worse off than they are today.

THIS IS EXACTLY THE IDIOTIC ASSUMPTION THAT SO MANY ANARCHO-CAPITALISTS MAKE.

Wealth CAN'T be "created out of thin air". Think about it physically. Oil and salt and metals are never "created out of thin air". That'd defy the Law of Conservation of Matter, for Christ's (*)(*)(*)(*)ing sake!!

 

Great, yet another ignorant argument about who pays more.
I guess I just have to keep saying the same thing over and over.

The poor DO pay more proportionately than the rich, out of their own pockets. The problem is the poor make so much less money proportionately then the wealthy, that a rich person’s pocket change would be more than the average minimum wage worker can earn in an entire year, so obviously 25% of $20,000.00 isn’t going to be as much as even 5% of $2,000,000.00. Rich people pay most of the revenue BECAUSE they have most of the money in this country, so I say tax the guy who makes 2 million as much percentage as you are already taxing the poor guy, NOT the other way around.

If you think it’s such a burden to be rich, then the answer is simple, give a poor person the money and go live like a poor person, put your money where your mouth is and go make a fortune doing manual labor jobs and come back and tell me how right you were then.

End the Bush tax cuts and we wipe out half the deficit, it just that simple.

 

The poor pay proportionately more for a LED TV as well. Doesn't seem to stop them from buying one though, does it now?



The argument based upon proportion is a canard.

 

Yea, I know. You're payed to be productive, not to work. Productivity doesn't infer working. It does makes sense, you can't just declare something doesn't make sense, make a (*)(*)(*)(*) argument against it! Only a rich man (or many poor) can afford to buy a factory, which evidently takes more resources to build than a lifetime of a laborer's work, since it is such a large investment it requires that the investment is proportionately given interest.

In you're world I could make a living being a "underwater bb stacker", and absolutely nothing would come in production of it. Working =/= producing.

This is just a statement nothing more. Wheres your argument? You are rewarded, period. Any other way and you're either in slavery, or an unproductive society.

Capitalism is utilitarian.

Care to say how I'm being consequentialist? Maybe it's that you're learning your arguments don't hold up to scrutiny, but I'm noticing more and more statements and less and less arguments.

That was an exxagerration, and by all means, go live in a tribal society. You don't need to destroy the global economy in the process. And why are you so interested in the wealth of the country if you believe wealth is gluttonious? One day in the 1600s and you'd be crying to come back, and that's not even tribal.

Wow, somewhat of a reason-backed with an ounce of thought argument. Surprising. Once again, exaggeration. In comparison to 10,000 years ago we are all gluttons. Gluttony is more about the spirit, than it is living a luxurious and wealthy life.

If they did, they would do it through the government's arm of taxation. Which you lust for.

Yes, it can be. Wealth is not material. It's the most immaterial thing in our lives. The conservation of matter, is not a law. lol. Mass is destroyed everyday. You're probably talking about the conservation of energy. Which applies to *closed* systems even still. Good thing I'm an engineer or you'd be slipping away on this one.

Wealth is only determined by one thing, how much demand a product or service has. A baseball can go into a baseball game worth $10, and come out worth $1,000,000 after sammy sosa hits it out of the park and signs it. Today, oil is worth something like 90 dollars a barrel, 6 months ago it was worth 120 dollars. Steel arrives at a car factory worth a fraction of what it is once it's turned into a frame for a car.

The best way to prove wealth is absolute, is to remove people from the equation. How much was manhattan island worth 200,000 years ago? That is, how much could you sell it for? Absolutely nothing, there was no demand period. How much was oil worth before it was discovered (and thus came into demand) that we could create machines with it? Absolutely nothing, no one would buy it. So, do you think these things were worth any money at all before you had a buyer? No, they weren't their value has changed over time, and will continue to change. In the case of Chernobyl, it's value went from 0, to billions of dollars, to practically negative. You have to pay someone to take it from you.

Yea, saying the same thing over and over usually gets different results. Isn't that what einstein said the definition of crazy is?

If a poor person is spending 50% of their wealth on taxes, let me know. Cause that's what we pay here in california and im not even rich. 10% state income, 10% social security, 20% federal income, add in sales tax property tax and all the other fees I have to pay to drive my car etc. It's way above 50%. And any rich person, is only going to be paying more than me, up to 15% more.

Further, you're not helping anyone taking the rich's money. You're stagnating the economy, killing jobs, and raising prices. Yea, let's do that in a recession.

 

Give an example of a person, themselves, being productive, without labor.

No, it is individualist. Capitalism doesn't care about how well a society, nor any individual, is doing.

You're comparing the supposed consequences of socialism (which you say is tribalism) to the supposed consequences of automating everything (which you say is living "like jabba the hutt", or something similar), and using that as an argument against socialism.

No, they'd do it through private property rights. I don't own a factory and even if I could design an entire factory, I couldn't build one and don't have the materials for it. On the other hand, rich people don't NEED to have ANY of those skills/abilities because they have a lot of money.

Private property rights are a zero sum game. Yes, they should exist; don't be idiotic and say that I claimed that private property rights shouldn't exist. But they should be regulated in some situations.

Atoms can only be created or destroyed by nuclear reactions, and creation of atoms (to the extent of being relevant to the economy for any reason) does not go on in today's society. Which is why copper, for example, is currently a scarce and finite resource.

You still needed natural resources for all those things; even the human brain, which subjectively perceives value of things and thus determines how much any individual is willing to pay for anything (according to the free market), is made of atoms. Which are in finite, limited supply on Earth.

Supply and demand. Value is determined not only by demand (how much people want to pay for something) but supply (how much of it there is). That's the simple point.

Value can change due to increased demand, but without any supply, there will never be any total value.

 

For the umteenth time, INVESTMENT. You don't need a million dollars to invest, go to scotttrade.com get an account, buy non-growth stock (with dividends) and you're producing. You loaned some firm money, they were able to then hire another worker, buy another machine, order more materials, and in turn produce more goods. Then they reward you for that.

It's not individualist because it takes two to make a trade, and both benefit from that trade if it is made *voluntarily* and rationally. Capitalism is utilitarian because it creates, surprise the same thing capital creates, products. The company gets rewarded for selling them, and the population gets a means of transportation, computer, tv, cell phone, etc. None of these would exist without capitalism. I know homeless people with cell phones and laptops, tell me what other system in which homeless people own laptops.

No, I said your argument was completely invalid because in it's scenario socialism is just as useless as capitalism, in fact worse.

So what? Once...AGAIN...production requires more than work it requires capital. And like you pointed out there is even a point where work doesn't even need to be done, which is great. Investing is only the best way to make money when you have alot of is *saved up*, it's exponential. They are essentially being rewarded for work they did in *the past*. That is why it is more powerful than work, because you can only be in one place at a time. While mr investor is still capitalizing on money he got working 15 years ago. Further, in this industrial economy, capital happens to be the most important thing to a business. Which is evident in the fact that one factory costs more than one worker. If it were not true nobody would pay that much for a factory, and no laborer would take the "low" wage.

Wealth isn't limited to property, education is wealth, healthcare is wealth. And property can increase and decrease in value. Like I said Manhattan island was worth exactly $0 before any human was there to demand a price for it.

Luckily our wealth isn't dependent on the scarcity or finite of one resource. Further, your wealth is entirely dependent on your value of your own goods. If you don't think your car is worth what someone will pay for it, you trade them and you both walk away wealthier. Wealth is simply in the eye of the beholder, if you will. Once 1 person realized the object value of copper, they were willing to offer more trade for that item. Since the seller of the copper had no idea what the copper could used for it was less valuable to him. They trade and both walk away wealthier.

Someday, it will be cheaper to live in space than on earth. Only a closed uneducated mind thinks we aren't heading towards a space-faring society. The closer we get to there the less value to us "finite" materials will be, because they are all over this solar system.

I think that went way over your head. Supply only counts what is *brought to the market* not what is here on earth. I'll rephrase that, even, supply and demand is useless in determining value outside of the market. I have a picture of me and my dad at our old house, this is worth...millions of dollars to me if someone were to actually make an offer (demand) it. This doesn't necessarily make me wealthy. The market value of that picture is the average aggregate value other people have for that item. Since it has no sentemental value to them, it's nearly worthless in the market. But it's one of a kind. Doesn't matter.

Here's a much better example, intellectual rights. They are literally infinite in supply. But they are still very valuable. Why is it that we can have infinite supply and, still have value. But we cannot have 0 demand and still have value? Because demand is the true variable in supply and demand. Supply is nearly a constant along for the ride. Kind of like C in e=mc^2, only our C can change.

Supply and demand is a mathematical abstract, I'm looking at it conceptually not mathematically. And it tells us demand determines wealth, THEN divided by supply.

 

Honestly, the poor survive through sharing. Cigarettes, booze, drugs, food, shelter. That is the problem when poor, the circle of sharing one relies on becomes the guilt trip that prevents the individual from breaking off. A poor person moving out of that circle not only loses their safety net, but as they get better and better off, suffers from the same mental conditions as vets returning from war alive when their friends died. That self preservation that one learns can't be taught, it is a self realization. So I think that is why a lot of people from the "hood" don't go back, because they know the others must learn for themselves, but they still love them and don't want to see them impoverished and disenfranchised.

As for the bums are rich compared to Africa statement, I notice that never gets used when referring to the top of America. Quit trying to make the American people slaves by comparing them globally and destroying the dream since you already got yours. For people who repeat the word "competition" over and over again, the top sure is scared of it.

 

I'm not afraid of competition, but there is no competition in taking my money and giving it away. It's just pure unadultered theft. Taxes should go back to the taxpayer.

 

I agree completely. However, the majority of tax funds get distributed upward, not downward. Take for instance welfare. 1/3 of welfare is vets, 1/3 of welfare is elderly, 1/3 the rest. Of the 1/3 that is "the rest", 2/3 of that is farm subsidies. The majority of "entitlements" is corporate welfare. While handouts are truly detrimental when it comes to working age poor, it is still a drop in the bucket. You are venting your anger at the wrong crowd. If you add on to the fact that everyone who bills the government gouges the (*)(*)(*)(*) out of it, on top of all the different ways they get free money from tax breaks, to subsidies, to R&D grants, etc., it is amazing our nation still stands.

 

This thread isn't about the corrupt crib the *ultra* rich have with the government. There has been an increasing trend in the past decades that the rich give to the poor, every year we give more and more. This directly effects honest workers rich or not or soon to be rich. I'm trying to debunk the myth that the honest rich owe the poor anything de facto. By pointing out the hypocrisy in that they aren't robbed and money given to countries with the same poor to rich relationship, or that the majority of my money doesn't go to the rock bottom poor of the world. They say they allready do give, well so did I before it was taken unsolicited. If they let me play with my own earned money a little more maybe I could have given more away.

 

If we had a nation full of investors and no laborers, what would happen?

That does make sense, actually; one could say it's not truly individualist since people are required to respect certain rights of others, which means they're considering individuals other than themselves. But in that sense it's still individualist because only individuals, rather than entire groups, are considered in decisions.

okkk....

All those things require, ultimately, both natural resources and labor. Education requires natural resources to keep someone physically alive such that they can learn anything in the first place, and some kind of action to educate the person. Same with healthcare, obviously. The Manhattan island requires people who are physically alive, which in turn requires physical food etc., to value. Etc.

That's totally irrelevant because we can't do that now and won't be able to for a long time.

Value being subjective doesn't have anything to do with the fact that value itself requires, ultimately, two things: natural resources and labor. You wouldn't be alive and that picture wouldn't exist without them.

What do you mean by "then"? Are you saying that demand is somehow "more important" than supply? And demand is subjective since value is subjective; but that is irrelevant.

 

People would pay a pretty penny for labor, and/or everything would run as usual if the time has come where labor is a past-time work...like farming is now.

Corporations do make decisions together, often by a board of directors.

What's your point, though?

I forget what the original response was to.. I guess it had to do with the same point above.

It was something like a 10:1 investment to *individual* labor, though. Meaning the investment required 10x as much as an individual laborers wage. If you add all the labor of each individual together they might be closer together. But, there's a loophole...In order to pay laborers you require investors. So labor can never be more important than investing. At most it can only be equal. Once again, the reason is, because investment is essentially the integral of work. It's work * time, and return on investment would be work*time(e^interest*time). Looking at this last equation you can see it's literally impossible for work to produce more than investment because time is never negative, interest is never negative, and investment is just the multiplication and exponential of work.

When I said then.. I meant the demand comes first, supply comes second.

It's relevant because it tells us that wealth is subjective, since it derives from demand. It tells us that wealth can be created out of thin air. And you can see that very easily by just looking around and seeing that today the city you live in is wealthier than 200 years ago. They have lightbulbs, airports, cars, etc. which was still here 200 years ago it just wasn't assembled and distributed. And yes many of this took labor. But that doesn't mean wealth always requires labor to create. And an example of this would be if we had two tribes where one had 100 great sticks and one had 100 great baskets, they traded 50 great baskets for 50 great spears, and they both walked away wealthier. The only difference between this and today, is that we can trade baskets for spears with people who don't need or want them. First we sell the spears for currency, then we buy the baskets for currency. And we still both walk away wealthier, but we weren't limited to trading with someone who didn't want our spears. Currency is just a lubrication for trade to make it easier *and* more profitable. Because the guy who I want baskets from, might hold a low value for spears and I could get 51 baskets instead of 50 if I traded the spears to the hunters for their meat instead, then traded the meat for the baskets.