Re:  "When Wealth Flows One Way"

In his column, Professor Campos suggests an equivalence between two entirely different situations.  When people criticize Senator Obama's desire to "spread the wealth around", they are denigrating an activist government that seeks to forcibly remove money and resources from one group in order to give this bounty to another; this "redistribution of income" is effectively the government deciding who deserves what.  Prof. Campos cites economic statistics to claim that if the income of one group changes over time at a different rate than another group, that this must likewise be "redistribution of income"; if the income of the "top 1 percent" is higher relative to the "middle class" than it was at another time, he draws an equivalence.

Prof. Campos ignores several important facts.  First of all, he seems to confuse economic statistics with people; the people comprising the "top 1%" are not the same people over 30 years:  people move in and out of various economic percentiles all the time.  Secondly, simply because a particular income group increases in relative wealth over time does not necessarily mean that it has come at the cost of any other group; any look at the consumption rates and the quality of life of various income groups over the past 30 years demonstrates enormous growth in each group.  Finally, in the case of the "redistribution" favored by Obama, the government directly takes from one group (via taxes) to give to another group; in the case Prof. Campos describes, no direct government intervention is involved.

Sincerely,
Dave Smith