Friess: More Fat Cats, Please!

"What the 'supposed 99 percent' don't realize," writes businessman Foster Friess in Newsweek, "is that they are better off if there are more fat cats, not less."

He cites a few examples of fat cats' largess: David Koch's $100 million gift to cancer research. Bill Gates' $28 billion to global health initiatives, which saved an estimated 5.8 million lives in Africa alone. Mark Zuckerberg's $100 million to New Jersey public education.

Friess argues that asking fat cats to pay higher taxes only "enlarges government" and "creates divisiveness."

For example, if you want to buy a Cadillac and I want to buy a Ford, we go to our respective dealers and we’re both happy. But if the government starts issuing automobiles, suddenly you and I become political enemies over how we position our favorite car. We have so many government activities that divide us. If it were left to the private sector, people would not have those animosities.

An enlarged government also leads to waste. Who in their right mind would voluntarily contribute to any of these "investments" made by our own government:

• $700,000 for a pig flatulence study in Thailand,
• $500,000 to study shrimp on a treadmill,
• $1.9 million to study the drinking habits of prostitutes on the job ... in China?

He doesn't say, but could have, that free-market capitalism, and the fat cats it creates, have lifted more people out of poverty throughout the world than any redistributionist government system.