Subject: RE: I'm For Personal SS Accounts: Here's Why.-not
You are correct about money not creating wealth. It is as you say a kind of score keeper. Wealth does have a single source--productivity. The ability to do a task, produce a product, provide a service at less cost creates wealth. The resources not needed by the more productive techniques are then available (as they were not before) for savings or for spending on something else.
Such increases in productivity come from investment in newer, more efficient machinery or investment in more efficient use of labor. Typically, those investments are paid for with funds that have been saved. Often the funds are borrowed by the producers from the savers and "rent" (interest, dividends) is paid for the use of the funds.
This is a win-win situation. The producer gets to be more productive and can make a bit higher profits. He then can return the borrowed funds plus some extra for "rent." All consumers get the benefit of the lower costs or greater availability of the more productively produced thing.
Privately owned personal retirement accounts would be a wonderful addition to the capital markets and would result in considerable improvement in growth of overall GDP.
