Providing For the General Welfare

I don't think there is anything in the U.S. Constitution that specifically empowers the federal government to redistribute wealth. Congress, however, has the constitutional authority to collect taxes, borrow money, coin money, and regulate its value. It also is empowered to "provide for the general welfare of the United States". This is probably why government charity is commonly called "welfare". Questions have been raised over the years about the exact meaning of "general welfare". Some say that it means the welfare of everybody, not just certain people. This would seem to preclude taking money away from me and giving it to you, which would promote your welfare at the expense of mine. Others have interpreted "general welfare" to mean the welfare of the country as  whole. In other words, anything that is good for the country.

Since we now have an economy that is driven by consumption instead of production, it could be argued that anything that gives people more money to spend is good for the country as a whole. If you take money away from some people and give it to other people, you are not increasing the wealth of the country as a whole, unless the average spending power of the citizens is increased. Ken has argued in the past that the one percenters who now have most of the money are not spending it as much as the poor people would if they had it in their hands. I would argue that they are so spending it, just spending it on different things, but then we would have to count investing as spending. When Joe Six-pack buys another six-pack, he is trading his money for something that he considers to be valuable. When Chauncy Gotrocks invests in the stock market, he is trading his money for a share of stock, which he considers to be something of value. When he later sells that share, it will likely be either more of less valuable than it was when he bought it. Whether Chauncy makes or loses money on the deal, he will likely buy another share of stock with the proceeds. Ken maintains that this is not true spending because Chauncy's money keeps going around in circles. Joe Six-pack, on the other hand will ultimately piss his investment away, so his money is literally going down the drain. Now which person is contributing more to the economy, and thus the welfare of the country as a whole?

See, economics doesn't have to be boring. Ken may be right, however, that the people who write about economics deliberately make it boring because they don't want the rest of us to become interested in it and compete with them for a slice of the pie. If so, they are ill advised, because more people entering the stock market can only drive up stock prices. The bigger the pie gets, the more slices can be cut out of it. All the pieces may not be the same size, but a little piece is better than no piece at all.