I don't even know where to begin with these people. The premise of this Wall Street Journalcolumn by Romney economic adviser Kevin Hassett (dubbed by some naughty wags as the "world's worst economist," and for a host of pretty damn good reasons) and his partner in crime is that the common refrain of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer these last decades is "wrong," because just look at all the nice microwaves and cell phones the poor have these days. Yes, we have heard that case being made before—one cannot truly be poor if one has ever owned a microwave oven, because once you can afford a microwave oven you will always, from that point forward, have enough money to eat and house yourself and never lose your job or get sick or need medicine or have some gargantuan money whore eat your pension just because they can, so screw you.

This particular effort is especially notable for its slapstick conclusion, but we have to wait for that. The rest is too good to pass up. Selected quotes:

In the mid-19th century, socialists of various stripes asserted that capitalists grow richer while exploiting workers, who grow poorer. Today we hear that the gains from economic growth accrue to the highest-income earners while the standard of living of the poor and middle America stagnates and the gap between the richest and the poorest grows ever wider. That portrait of the country is wrong.