To Buffett, a vast pool of wealth, such as his own, should ultimately benefit society-the reason he has created and funded the Buffett Foundation.

This is an act of fraud — that is what inflation is all about — which is another way of saying that it sets a platform for consumption without making any contribution to the pool of real wealth.

Now, Medicine hat is setting up the equivalent of Norway's famous sovereign wealth fund, a pool of money that should make more money for generations to come.