On the CBO’s Income-Differences Report. Donald Boudreaux‏

For too many reasons to list here, Mr. Robinson is completely out of line to suggest that this study shows that most Americans are victims of “theft” by upper-income Americans.  But consider just two such reasons.

First and most obviously, the vast majority of rich Americans – people such as Kobe Bryant, Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, and Ralph Lauren – steal from no one.  They create valuable goods and services that millions of people voluntarily pay for.

Second, Mr. Robinson mistakes statistical categories for being flesh-and-blood people.  As University of Michigan (Flint) economist Mark Perry reports about a study that tracks the fate of actual individual households over time, in even as brief a period as 2001-2007 50 percent of households moved from one quintile to another.  Most relevantly, 44 percent of households in the lowest quintile in 2001 had moved into a higher quintile six years later, while during this same time 34 percent of households that were in the top quintile had fallen into lower quintiles.

Read full letter in Cafe Hayek.