Daniel Gross nails it, but as is usual for a business writer he fails to follow arguments to their logical conclusion. What is it with business writers anyway? Do their editors walk around with aluminum baseball bats, making sure no one mounts a serious challenge to the wisdom from the Street?

Take Gross' citation of the New York Times piece alleging that those with earnings of over $1 million took home 47% of total income gains in 2005. He follows this with the customary observation that it really makes no difference; jobs generated by the rich are just as good as a jobs generated by the poor and the money always stays in circulation. But this ignores the fact that at the end of every business day, those dollars get parked in someone's account. And he who has more dollars in his account also has more freedom. Money equals freedom equals justice, as O.J. Simpson can tell you. More money equals more freedom equals a greater right to life, as the survivors of New Orleans can attest.

So there is a zero-sum game at work here. The more financial freedom I have at the end of the day, the less financial freedom you have at the end of the day. That may seem, at first, an abstract question of fairness but in fact it's not abstract at all. Disenfranchised people will turn to violence, as eating and having a roof over your head are higher priorities than upholding the law. Because we are humans and not widgets, any system becoming chronically unfair must perish.

Gross compares a Learjet to 3,000 Ford automobiles, judging the former to be equal to the latter. Well yes, in pure dollar terms. But which generated more manufacturing and marketing jobs? Which created a greater need for infrastructure and investment, bringing more government dollars flowing into a region?

If what you want is anemia, free market theory is the best to acheive it. As a society focuses more and more on meeting the demands of the wealthy few, it balkanizes. There will be a mansion on the hill, yes, and an array of boutiques hawking overpriced pouffery to its occupants. What fun is being rich if you can't do everything to excess? Overproduction of luxury goods drives up prices for low-end goods as well, as capacity and skilled artisans are snapped up in the endless quest for what's hot and hip and sexy and fun.

Much of the "value" thus created is illusory and quickly vanishes. Paris Hilton may be hot today, gone tomorrow; ditto for Bijan, House of Chanel, House of Gucci, DKNY and Vera Wang and all the rest. The rich are gamblers, risk-takers, speculators. Very little of what they do is meant to last. Most is meant to dazzle, and die.

So which is better, the McMansion or the 20 starter homes? Guess it depends on who you ask. The two-thirds of all Americans who are poor or working poor would of course opt for the latter. Daniel Gross' boss and his buddies from work would be equally quick to choose the former. Need I say more?

Two-thirds of Americans are either poor or working poor. Yes, you read that right. America prospers thanks to two persistent lies: 1) most of us are comfortably middle class and 2) we do not depend on imported slave labor for our survival. Therefore if you can't hack it, there must be something wrong with you.

Fine for the mooks to believe the big lie, but what does it say about us that most of our business class seems to believe it too? Those who do not distinguish real gold from fool's gold are either perpetrating a scam or ready to be scammed themselves. And that indeed is what we see in our markets: endless cycles of misrepresentation and victimization, with accompanying loss of assets. You can ask the retirees from Enron about it.

It all adds up to one h--- of a headache when the party is over, as inevitably it will be. Not anytime soon, Mr. Gross. Americans are still too lulled by economic sweet-talk to realize their backsides are being danced upon. So you've another decade or two, at least, to line your pockets before the takedown.