The Chicago Boys

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The free-market Chicago Boys, "Why the Really Rich Love Socialists" (like Barack Obama--who wants to skew taxation even more to go after Joe the Plumber's American Dream):

This article [h/t Instapundit] shows that the U.S. has a more progressive tax code than the democratic-socialist states of Europe.

Such a state of affairs should not come as a surprise. Our own history shows that the very wealthy benefit from leftist policies of high tax rates, “targeted” taxation and industrial policy.

The ugly truth is that the really wealthy can manipulate the political system to their own ends better than ordinary people.

The hacks and crooks in Barack Obama's adopted home town. WSJ, "The Chicago Boys":

For the past seven years, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has time and again put the Chicago machine through the prosecutorial cleaners. Come next week, a product of the Windy City's political culture may be on his way to the White House. Now would be a good time to know if a President Obama would keep the pressure on his friends back home.[snip]

A year after his election, Mr. Obama bought his home in Chicago's Kenwood neighborhood with Mr. Rezko's help. At the time, he was the subject of a (then rumored) federal investigation. The men together looked at a house listed at $1.95 million. The seller insisted an adjoining lot must be sold simultaneously, though it was bound by a restrictive covenant that severely limited what the purchaser could do with the lot.

Nevertheless, on the same day that the Obamas offered $1.65 million -- the highest bid on the property -- Mr. Rezko's wife put in for the lot at the listed price of $625,000. (Mrs. Rezko earned $37,000 a year at the time and had assets of $35,000.) In 2006, Mrs. Rezko sold a 10 foot wide strip of her property to Mr. Obama for $112,000 to expand his garden. He paid nearly double the assessed value, but the sale made the Rezko lot less attractive to develop.

Though Barack Obama said after Rezko's conviction, "this isn't the Tony Rezko I knew", as the Journal points out Rezko has yet to tell his side of the story on his relationship with one Barack Obama.

And then there's the Obama Rahm-a. You don't want this America.