How not to fight the 1%

In an article that will no doubt make “progressive” hearts go pitty-pat (“The 1% May Be Richer Than You Think, Research Shows,” Bloomberg, August 7), Jeanna Smialek suggests that top 1%’s wealth is far greater even than official statistics indicate – and that because so much of that wealth is hidden in offshore tax havens government efforts to reduce inequality through tax and welfare policy are thwarted.

In the interest of fairness, Smialek quotes Tyler Cowen’s statement that “[p]eople worry about the top one percent too much,” that it doesn’t matter how rich Bill Gates is if “the poor are becoming better off in the process.”

That’s a big load of horse manure. If Gates’s wealth comes from robbing everybody else, then the inequality sure as heck does matter. Everyone else is made worse off than they otherwise would have been — by definition…