When elitist politicians and pundits in Old Media rail against “the rich,” the implicit assumption is that it’s the same people, year after year, who are getting over on the rest of us.

On Friday, using the 1982 and 2007 Forbes 400 lists (2007’s main page is here), John Tamny at Real Clear Politics nuked that perception (HT Instapundit; bolds are mine), and landed a not-so-subtle broadside on the campaign of John Edwards:

….. capitalist economies are far from stationary, and for evidence we need only look to a graph in the latest issue that shows the makeup of the first Forbes 400 in 1982 compared to the latest.

Even though the wealth gap is a positive in most economies for driving the economic creativity of those not-yet-rich, much is made of it in the media and among politicians who worry about individual wealth consolidation even more than they do the corporate kind. A quick look at the Forbes 400 would surely assuage some of their fears.

Indeed, of the charter members of the first Forbes 400, only 32 remain today. Far from a country where only the rich get richer, the wealthy in the US are very much a moving target. While there are 74 Forbes 400 members who inherited their entire fortune, 270 members are entirely self-made. Though many attended Harvard, Yale and Princeton, there are countless stories within of high school and college dropouts, not to mention others who grew up extremely poor. Politicians who regularly engage in class warfare would do well to keep the Forbes 400 out of the hands of their constituents, because it makes a mockery of the kind “Two Americas” rhetoric suggesting the existence of a glass ceiling that keeps hard workers at the bottom of the economic ladder. To read the Forbes 400 is to know with surety that the U.S. is still very much the land of opportunity.

To read many business journalists today, one might assume that the U.S. economy is stratified, offers little room for advancement, and that those at the top are impervious to market forces while enjoying market power that enables them to fleece the less fortunate. Thanks to the lessons offered up yearly in the Forbes 400, we know the opposite is true. Successful people are that way because they make our lives exponentially better, while yearly dropouts from the Forbes list frequently offer evidence showing that consumers punish those who falter. For that, we should be glad that the Forbes 400 goes against the conventional grain and celebrates successful American enterprise.

This previous post at BizzyBlog from September 2005 (”Income Inequality + Economic Mobility = Long-Term Prosperity”), based on income-inequality information from the Census Bureau, and economic mobility data from the Heritage Foundation, goes into more detail.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org and the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s “Wide Open” blog.

Boring Made Dull made a good supplemental point last week about the measurement of “corruption”:

It would be interesting to see some additional detail behind these types of reports, just to see what does or does not constitute corruption. After all, I would expect that what one might term “official legislative” corruption, such as Congressional earmarks for bridges to nowhere should count, but they probably don’t.

My guess is that he’s right.

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Ben Keeler and TaxmanBlog wrote up John Edwards’ decision to accept public financing.

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Porkopolis puts some perspective on SCHIP, courtesy of David Brooks, who appears to be one of the few remaining sane guys at the New York Times. Proponents are (shock!) exaggerating the scope of the “problem.”

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Ohio Conservative points to an I-hope-he’s-right post by Jack Wheeler (”Silence in Syria, Panic in Iran”).

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Last week, Nasty, Brutish & Short noted the U.S. Episcopal Church has, in essence, officially and philosophically split with the rest of the world’s Episcopalians.

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Eye Hacker is impressed with Wal-Mart and its generic prescription program.

It seems to be a pretty good idea to always check at WallyWorld (or Target, K-Mart, Meijer, or other similar store of that’s your preference) to see if you can get your prescription filled for less than your health plan’s co-pay. Really now, isn’t that amazing?

This move by Wal-Mart and other retailers who have matched or closely matched what it’s doing (ah, competition!) doesn’t get nearly enough recognition. I would suppose that’s because it gets in the way of arguing that greedy providers, insurers, and drug companies would rather let us suffer or die rather than provide us medications.

Oh wait — somebody’s doing that already, but it’s not any of those guys.

From Paris:

Sep 26, 2007 / 01:17 pm (CNA)

Caroline Aigle would have turned 33 on September 12. The first female fighter pilot of the French military and future astronaut died of cancer on August 21. The country is still mourning her death and continues to be moved by her sacrifice: she was five months pregnant when she learned she had cancer and she chose to postpone her treatment so her baby could be born.

In mid-July Caroline received the devastating news. Rather than despairing, she faced the adversity and ignored doctors who advised her to have an abortion.

Together with her husband Christophe Deketelaere, who is also a pilot, she decided to give this new member of her family a chance to live. Her second son was born three and a half months premature at the beginning of August and doctors say he is progressing well.

In an interview Christophe said, “She could not stop the life she had carried for five months. She told me: ‘He has the right to have the same chances I had’.” Her husband said that her pregnancy was “her final battle and she won.” Before dying, she was able to see her son several times and hold him in her arms. “She was heroic to the end,” he said.

Caroline Aigle (which means “eagle”) was born in Montauban in 1974. At the age of 14 she entered the military school of Saint-Cyr. In May of 1999 she became a fighter pilot and flew a Mirage 2000-5.

Her funeral was celebrated by Father Pierre Demoures, a former fighter pilot himself. In his homily, he remembered Caroline as someone who led people to Christ with “her qualities, kindness, willingness, passion,” and he praised her for choosing to give life to her son, for whom she “postponed a treatment that was urgent.”

Father Demoures recalled that when Carolina and Christophe sought him out for marriage preparation, they asked him for a book that spoke not about the love of one for the other, “but rather about the love that opens us to love others.”

“The great lesson that Carolina gives us is the urgency to love. Not the urgency to fear, but the vital urgency to know that only love gives life. Man is made for life. This urgency can make love stronger and give life to a treasure amidst the most tragic events,” Father Demoures said.