Poverty, abundance, and that dreaded One Percent

The political left, with the help of the media, once again defines the problem and the apparent solution. In the case of poverty it's that 1% of super rich people - and capitalism, apparently. And so we've got the young, and not-so-knowledgeable, preaching the virtue of high taxation to give money to the poor, to in turn hopefully get rid of poverty.

Mistaken and wrong.

If you want to see the elimination of poverty, then the conversation beings with abundance - not the 1%. Because with abundance (of essentials) prices fall to what those on humble incomes can afford. Yet without abundance, poverty becomes inevitable no matter what else you might do.

To understand the dynamic: If I have one glass of water in a room of ten desperately thirsty people, and it's the only glass of water around, then I can surely sell it for a few thousand dollars. And the more money those ten customers gain, the more still I can sell it for. In this scenario the bidding war dictates the price.

Hence, when you've restricted supply (a lack of abundance) money itself can't solve the problem. Your money equates to consumption power only insofar as you have more of it than others. What counts in a critical undersupply is not absolute credit - but relative credit.

And when you do have abundance; that is, water on sale to quench say eleven people and not just ten, then the price of water falls to what even the most humble credit holder can afford...as the market wants to sell as many glasses as it can.

Wherever you see real poverty, what you first see is a lack of critical abundance. For example, we see exactly this in New Zealand, where the locked-in undersupply in urban land has created the bidding war from hell on property; creating homelessness, crazy mortgages, sky-high rents, and indeed real poverty. Remember money will not (and has not) solved this problem. It can't. Money alone only inflates New Zealand's property prices further, just like in my previous example. Liberating abundance is the only thing that can solve New Zealand's property nightmare.

So which economic system is most effective in creating and securing abundance? CAPITALISM, not socialism, is the undisputed king (sorry, Bernie). This is not open to debate. The history is overwhelming.

Knowing that the game before anything is about the generation of abundance will stop you from screaming at that dreaded 1%, who are in fact far more irrelevant than you might have been led to believe. Just focus on abundance and everything becomes right-headed and clear - and we get real solutions to real problems.