Yeah, that last paragraph in my post was a little sloppy. Asking if it should be a societal goal is a little offbase, as it’s already something of a raging debate in the context I was thinking of: universal healthcare, better public schools, more access to higher education.

The things that middle class families spend most of their money on are healthcare, education, and housing (which can be explained partly as parents competing for good public schools). If we can cut the amount that the typical family has to lay out for these things, we are sandboxing them quite a bit.

Depending on how you define those individuals that see it as an end. The only way you can effective ‘sandbox’ them would be to simply get out of the sandbox, take your shovel and pail go home. I think we are all ‘in’ the sandbox. It’s just a matter of trying to minimalize the damage done when those trying to utilize your money as the ‘end’ seriously F* up …aka… go bankrupt or make your 401k drop 25%. Just take your money and bury it in a jar in your backyard haha.

Money is just an agreed upon symbol. It doesn’t matter much if the underlying thing money is based on is something real like gold or something “fake” like government fiat. As long as people continue to use it to exchange goods and services, it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing. If people become afraid to exchange, it doesn’t matter what money is backed with – gold doesn’t do much good in a famine.

Have you seen this flick yet?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912

Pretty interesting, takes a bit to get going, but is really well done, definitely worth the 2 hours of your time.

I’m not a communist at all. I just think capitalism should be regarded as a tool for efficiently advancing society rather than as a tool for the personal enrichment of those who treat it like a game. You’re an Ayn Rand fan, though, so I’m sure you disagree