The Demonization Of American Capitalism

by Jonathan Adelman.     In the last seven years, inspired heavily by the Great Recession of 2007-2009, there has been a tidal wave of demonization of American capitalism. From movies (“The Great Gatsby” to the “Wolf of Wall Street”) to large scale social protest movements (“Occupy Wall Street”) to “One Percenters” to much of the    ... MORE

The Typical Household, Now Worth a Third Less

by Anna Bernasek.      Economic inequality in the United States has been receiving a lot of attention. But it’s not merely an issue of the rich getting richer. The typical American household has been getting poorer, too. The inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical household was $87,992 in 2003. Ten years later, it was only $56,335, or a 36 %    ... MORE

VIDEO: Hope And Change - Animal Style

Jaana Woceshyn: Income Levels Is Not A Social Issue

Don't take your eye off the ball.      I have resisted writing about the perceived problem of inequality in income and wealth; Thomas Piketty’s book, Capital in the 21st Century, has received too much unjustified attention already. But I gave in because I think what I have to add to the debate helps in rejecting Piketty’s argument that     ... MORE

John Stossel: Popular Nonsense

Repeat a lie often enough and it will be believed.      "Young people are exploited!" "Income mobility is down!" "Poor people are locked into poverty!" Those are samples of popular nonsense peddled today. Leftist economist Thomas Piketty's book "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" has been No. 1 on best-seller lists for weeks (with 400    ... MORE

Liz Peek: Obama Promotes A Society Of Helpless Victims

Dependency sells.     Eric Holder stirred up a hornet’s nest the other day, whining to a mostly black crowd about the ill treatment he received from a Congressional Committee. Holder seemed to imply that he and President Obama have come in for rough treatment because they are black. It was a stunning comment. This is, after all, Eric Holder,  ... MORE

Income Redistribution's Logical Conclusion Is Communism

by Jeffrey Dorfman.     Income inequality is dominating the economic news cycle at the moment with multiple stories about rising income inequality, the need to raise the minimum wage, and anecdotal stories designed to make the more fortunate feel sorry for the less so. There are, however, two big problems with this narrative. First, most of the  ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Income Inequality

Let's think about fairness and justice.           Democrats plan to demagogue income inequality and the wealth gap for political gain in this year's elections. Most of what's said about income inequality is stupid or, at best, ill-informed. Much to their disgrace, economists focusing on measures of income inequality bring little light to the issue.     ... MORE

Ronald Bailey: The President Is Wrong On Inequality

It is not the "defining challenge of our time."      Are the rich getting richer? Yes. Are the poor getting poorer? No. In fact, over the past 35 years most Americans got richer. Has income inequality increased in the United States? Yes. Does it matter? Well, President Barack Obama thinks so. In a December speech at the Center for American     ... MORE

VIDEO: Milton Friedman - A Conversation On Equality

From the award-winning series "Free To Choose," featuring Thomas Sowell.

VIDEO: Tax Inequality in America

Brian Domitrovic: Inequality Is The Child Of Fiat Money

The Federal Reserve is the problem. For a while there, it looked like the 2012 election was going to be a referendum on economic inequality. This would have been weird, in that economic growth and its twin, employment, are the clear issues of choice in these years of torpid economic recovery. Had President Obama succeeded in making  ... MORE

Patrick Brennan: The Inequality Fetish

Does unequal income cause economic ills?    There must be something in the water in Scandinavia: Nobel laureates, from our president to Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, all agree that high levels of inequality are a serious problem, if not the problem, facing our weak economy. According to this liberal thesis, either the 2008 financial ... MORE

Holman W. Jenkins Jr: The Inequality Obsession

Do we want to persuade the rich to report less income?  If it were learned that the car driven by the average American is 10 times more likely to burst into flames than the car driven by the richest 1%, what should the policy response be? Should it be to mandate that cars driven by the rich burst into flames more often? Income inequality is a strange obsession, at least ... MORE