EJ,

So Bob Katter is your economic guru?

See if what Bob Katter said turns out be true.

As for economic gurus - try testing your Adam Smith calculations against reality as it has unfolded and is unfolding, and in particular a scientific appraisal of what wealth is and how it's created (see my last par).

EJ,

Adam Smith was the first to use science and Maths to analyse economic activity. Since then many more reputable geniuses have tackled the issues, leading to the body of economics we have today. A few hack politicians are not going to "suddenly see the light".

All locked in to the same false premise - that acquisition and allocation of wealth (i.e. investment) creates any wealth.

So people and governments investing in infrastructure and businesses, employing people does not create wealth?

Apparently nobody knew and the last century has been a sham.

The invested wealth is usually not created by the hands and brains of the investors, merely acquired by them and allocated by them. There will be small scale exceptions in which a producer of wealth has saved up some of the wealth he has personally produced. This was recognised during the war when tax returns were divided into income from personal exertion and what was misleadingly termed "unearned income". The "unearned income" was earned but not by the taxpayer. It included the usual spiv sources of income - dividends, rent collection, share trading profits, real estate profits. It was taxed at a very steep rate approaching (in the UK) 20 shillings in the pound. The buyers of influence got the distinction discontinued when the war was over.