Great Forbes Review of New Wealth and Poverty
George Gilder’s Classic Wealth & Poverty Reissued For A New Generation
Creating Confusion
Entrepreneurs did build those businesses. They built those roads and bridges, too. In a market economy, which comes first – the creation of wealth, or government funding? Wealth has to be created first, doesn’t it? Otherwise, there’s no way to pay for the government. No private wealth production, no tax receipts. No tax receipts, no Department of Transportation. It isn’t a chicken and egg conundrum. Wealth has to be created into existence for it to be taxed. Only then can we construct our bureaucracy. The president’s “you didn’t build that” gibberish last month was perfectly backwards. Implying that a taxpayer-funded “common good” makes private success possible puts the cart before the horse. The public is paid for by the private. Read More ›
“Ask a Capitalist” Q&A Recap
Medved on Deserving vs. Undeserving Rich
The Obama administration and its media allies are doing what they can to fan the flames of class conflict. Some recent pollssuggest the campaign is having an effect on public opinion. But Michael Medved digs a little deeper into the data, and argues that Americans don’t generally dislike the “rich,” but rather, the undeserving rich: The biggest challenge for Mitt Romney isn’t that America hates the rich; it’s that the public hates the undeserving rich, anddeeply resents privileged punks and politically connected connivers who never performed constructive service to make their millions. This is an important distinction, reminiscent of Arthur Brooks’s distinction between “earned” and “unearned” success.