Counterfeit: Wealth and Money

  The word "wealth" is used so widely that it has largely lost most of its meaning.  But the process of creating wealth is at the very core of our constitutionally guaranteed liberties.  We have all of these images of the "wealthy" cruising around in expensive cars, eating in fancy restaurants, jetting around the world on expensive vacations.  Yet these people do not necessarily have wealth: they just have money.  Where they got it, in many cases, is not easily discovered.
   I had the opportunity to fly into Israel some time ago and when making the approach into the Tel Aviv airport, the border between Israel and the bordering Arab land was starkly visible.  On the Israeli side, the land was green, fish ponds dotted the countryside, orderly homes were built and every inch of land was carefully cultivated.  On the Arab side, the land was barren desert with very few signs of cultivation.  The same land, same weather, same resources.
   Money, then comes from the creation of wealth, but it is not wealth.  Wealth is created when a person takes the raw material of his own life and turns it into something of value to everyone.  Wealth never has finite value: it only becomes finite when it is converted to money.
   Consider the young man who decides to take his small parcel of land and see what he can turn it into.  He takes a shovel and turns the soil, removing rocks brush and weeds.  He finds some manure and spades it into the soil.  He plants squash, turnips, beans, potatoes, tomatoes, corn and whatever other vegetables he can find.  He waters it and waits.  Like a miracle the plants sprout and, in a few weeks, he harvests a bounty of vegetables.  These vegetables have universal value and could quickly be turned into money.  Stored for the winter, however, they sustain his family in good health.  He has created true wealth. 
   Wealth cannot be "re-distributed."  Only money can be re-distributed.  When wealth is converted to money and taken from the person who created it, the whole creative process envisioned by our founding fathers is perverted and both the creator of the wealth and the recipient of the money suffer.  The creator is discouraged from the creation of further wealth and the recipient is relieved of the necessity of creating anything of value for himself.
   How about it, seekers.  Are we going to be bamboozled into agreeing to this whole perversion of our language and the theft of what we create?