Someone shove this down Mikey Moore's throat....

Stating The Obvious:

"I'm always surprised people can ignore the most obvious economic lessons of the 20th Century: statism slows productivity growth, and in the end productivity growth is more important than anything else (GDP is just population x productivity). You're about ten times better off being in the lowest quartile of the rich, unequal United States than a median forcibly equalized Cuban or North Korean, and the poorest U.S. state has a higher PPP GDP per capita than most of the Western European social democracies."