Writing in 1951 about popular attitudes toward income inequality in "The Ethics of Redistribution," Bertrand de Jouvenel observed the following (H/T WSJ):

The film-star or the crooner is not grudged the income that is grudged to the oil magnate, because the people appreciate the entertainer’s accomplishment and not the entrepreneur’s, and because the former’s personality is liked and the latter’s is not. They feel that consumption of the entertainer’s income is itself an entertainment, while the capitalist’s is not, and somehow think that what the entertainer enjoys is deliberately given by them while the capitalist’s income is somehow filched from them.

In arguably the best financial blog post to date in 2009, the Epicurean Dealmaker analyzes the skewed dynamics that led to the Merrill Lynch high-level executive bonus pool and observes, among other things:

It would not be outlandish to consider the Merrill executives’ bonus pool as the latest and largest campaign gift toward Mr. [Andrew] Cuomo’s 2010 gubernatorial run.

Meanwhile, Andrew Morris wrote the following in a letter to the WSJ editor (H/T Don Boudreaux):

At first, when I read your headline “States give gambling a closer look” (Mar. 3) I thought you were reporting on yet another “stimulus” or “bailout” bill in which politicians played games of chance with taxpayers’ money. Hardly news — just another “dog bites man” story.

Then I realized it was just a story about allowing ordinary people to risk their own money  –  now that’s a “man bites dog” story!

Along the same lines, the WSJ’s Notable and Quotable series provided the following excerpt from Friedrich A. Hayek’s "The Constitution of Liberty" (1960) on the illusory nature of progressive taxation and large increases in governmental spending:

Not only is the revenue derived from the high rates levied on large incomes, particularly in the highest brackets, so small compared with the total revenue as to make hardly any difference to the burden borne by the rest; but for a long time . . . it was not the poorest who benefited from it but entirely the better-off working class and the lower strata of the middle class who provided the largest number of voters.

It would probably be true, on the other hand, to say that the illusion that by means of progressive taxation the burden can be shifted substantially onto the shoulders of the wealthy has been the chief reason why taxation has increased as fast as it has done and that, under the influence of this illusion, the masses have come to accept a much heavier load than they would have done otherwise. The only major result of the policy has been the severe limitation of the incomes that could be earned by the most successful and thereby gratification of the envy of the less-well-off.

And Jason Kottke noted the technological irony of the week:

Now you can go to the iTunes Store to buy the Kindle app from Amazon that lets you read ebooks made for the Kindle device on the iPhone.

Finally, legendary Houston trial lawyer Joe Jamail passes along this anecdote about the late, great Houston criminal defense lawyer, Percy Foreman:

In the early 1980s, Jamail represented his courtroom idol, Houston criminal defense attorney Percy Foreman, whose neck was injured when his car was rear-ended by a commercial truck. On direct examination, Foreman testified that he had not experienced any neck problems before the accident, and that he was entitled to $75,000 for lost income due to the injury.

But on cross-examination, the defense revealed that Foreman had been hospitalized nine times for neck problems prior to this accident.

“The jury looked at me, expecting me to give them an answer,” says Jamail. “So I told them that Percy had been a great lawyer throughout his life, but that he was now just an old man and was growing senile.”

At that moment, Foreman jumped up and yelled out across the courtroom, “You goddamned son of a bitch!”

“See what I mean,” Jamail immediately told jurors. “He doesn’t even know where he is right now.”

The jury awarded Foreman the sum of $75,004. Jamail says he never figured out why the extra $4.