Stick to Theology

If I had unlimited time and money, I would memorize this article.

"Entrepreneurial capitalism takes more people out of poverty than aid." With those 10 words, spoken to an audience at Georgetown University in 2013, philanthropist rock star Bono demonstrated a keener understanding of economic reality than the leader of global Catholicism.

The U2 frontman clearly has it right—and Pope Francis is wrong to suggest that poverty is growing, or that capitalism, free markets, and globalization are fueling the (non-existent) problem. In just two decades, extreme poverty has been reduced by more than 50 percent. "In 1990, almost half of the population in developing regions lived on less than $1.25 a day," reads a 2014 report from the United Nations. "This rate dropped to 22 per cent by 2010, reducing the number of people living in extreme poverty by 700 million."

https://reason.com/blog/2015/09/21/if-pope-francis-wants-to-help-the-poor-h

Who Built It?

Mr. Dose is onto something.  Quoting now from economist Kyle Pomerleau’s Tax Foundation analysis, “Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data,”:

The Top 50 Percent of All Taxpayers Paid 97 Percent of All Income Taxes; the Top 5 Percent Paid 57 Percent of All Income Taxes; and the Top 1 Percent Paid 35 Percent of All Income Taxes in 2011.

“Progressives” love to complain about the alleged unfairness of the amount of income earned (“Progressives typically use misleading terms such as “claimed by”) the top 1 percent of income earners.  Why not complain instead about the unfairness of the amount of tax revenues received by the top 1 percent of net-tax-revenue recipients?  Why are the annual tax-receipt incomes of this small group less worthy of condemnation than are the annual pre-tax market-earnedincomes of “the 1 percent” who are the regular objects of criticism, envy, and childish populist moralizing?

Maybe You DID Build That!

Climate Scientists' Biggest Challenge Isn't Scientific - Bloomberg View

Opinion is not scientific evidence or proof. A scientist who is an "expert" can still deliver only an opinion. 
The scientific method does not include popularity contests. Consensus is to scientific proof what lemon is to a skin rash. 
This seems so simple to me, but confusion about this matter riddles debate after debate, and the willingness to use govt force in support of "expert" and "scientific" opinion is killing people (low fat diets).

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-21/climate-scientists-biggest-challenge-isn-t-scientific

The Weekend Interview with Stanley Druckenmiller: How Washington Really Redistributes Income - WSJ.com

But he adds that "I did not think it would be nutty to tie entitlements to the debt ceiling because there's a massive long-term problem. And this president, despite what he says, has shown time and time again that he needs a gun at his head to negotiate in good faith. All this talk about, 'I won't negotiate with a gun at my head.' OK, you've been president for five years."

His voice rising now, Mr. Druckenmiller pounds his fist on the conference table. "Show me, President Obama, when the period was when you initiated budget discussions without a gun at your head."

Which brings him back to his thieving generation. For three decades until 2010, Mr. Druckenmiller ran the hedge fund he founded, Duquesne Capital. Now retired from managing other people's money, he looks after his own assets, which Forbes magazine recently estimated at $2.9 billion. And he wonders why in five years the massively indebted U.S. government will begin sending him a Social Security check for $3,500 each month. Because he earned it?

"I didn't earn it," he responds, while pointing to a bar chart that is part of his college presentation. Drawing on research by Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff, it shows the generational wealth transfer that benefits oldsters at the expense of the young.

While many seniors believe they are simply drawing out the "savings" they were forced to deposit into Social Security and Medicare, they are actually drawing out much more, especially relative to later generations. That's because politicians have voted to award the seniors ever more generous benefits. As a result, while today's 65-year-olds will receive on average net lifetime benefits of $327,400, children born now will suffer net lifetime losses of $420,600 as they struggle to pay the bills of aging Americans.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303680404579141790296396688
Did you see that headline about how social security robs the young and poor to give to the old and rich?  No?  Wonder why that is ...

“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”

― Friedrich von Hayek