Just Two More of the Filthy One Percent

The "99 percent versus the one percent" may make for a good populist slogan but it has no basis in fact.

Five separate studies by liberal economists reveal that "income inequality is a myth."

In fact, no less a leftist icon than Jason Furman -- deputy director of President Obama's National Economic Council -- wrote in 2006 that every segment of American society has become wealthier since the Reagan revolution.

Remember when even upper-middle class families worried about staying on a long distance call for too long? When flying was an expensive luxury? When only a minority of the population had central air conditioning, dishwashers, and color televisions? When no one had DVD players, iPods, or digital cameras? And when most Americans owned a car that broke down frequently, guzzled fuel, spewed foul smelling pollution, and didn’t have any of the now virtually standard items like air conditioning or tape/CD players?

Free enterprise, the market system and -- dare I say it -- capitalism -- have created the most magnificent society ever seen on the face of the Earth.

But put all of the studies and common sense aside (easy for the Occupy Wall Streeters, to be sure) -- and simply consider two of Obama's hated "one percent".

Twelve years ago, Larry Page and Sergey Brin were students at Stanford. They were then members of Obama's oppressed "poor". Page grew up in this house, hardly the lap of luxury.

Less than ten years later, Page and Brin were worth a combined $36 billion as the founders of Google.

What the Left's economic illiterates can't or won't understand is that wealth disparity is wonderful. It allowed Page and Brin to invent, innovate, and construct a radically wonderful company from whole cloth, employing tens of thousands and producing thousands of other millionaires. Many of these new millionaires invested, spent, created other new companies without having their money stolen by the government and delivered to their political cronies (*cough* Solyndra *cough*).

Now, of course, Brin and Page are among the vile "rich" -- to be demonized as somehow oppressing the poor.

But if you take more money from the business owners, you get less venture capital, less investment, less business growth and -- ultimately -- fewer jobs.

You see, drones, what's important is not wealth disparity, it's income mobility. That is, the ability to move between economic classes is what makes America unique.

Of the top ten wealthiest members of the Forbes 400, six are self-made billionaires.

But apparently this is too difficult for the economic illiterates behind Occupy Wall Street. They want the rich to become poorer, so they'll invest less, spend less and hire fewer people.

In fact, I'd call the OWS crowd dumber than a bag of hammers, but that unfairly impugns the usefulness of hammers.