Thomas Sowell’s Jan. 28 column, “Talk of income inequality ignores an important point,” argued against the concept of “income redistribution.” The thrust of the column noted that high net worth individuals had earned their wealth by providing the population needed goods and services or selling their talents to organizations that translated that talent to dollars exceeding those paid to the provider.
Example of the first would be Steve Jobs or Larry Ellison. Examples of the latter would be Tom Cruise or Michael Jordan.
Would that Sowell had leavened his presentation by one additional statistic: the percentage of the “1 percent” who had achieved that senior net worth level through inheritance rather than their own efforts. The extended Walton family and the beneficiaries of the Jobs or Rockefeller fortunes could be examples.
Neil Leitner
Vancouver
