The United States government is, by design, a machine to redistribute wealth.

This is such an important point, and most people just don't realize this. They still think anything related to the U.S. economy is steeped in free-market capitalism. The truth is, our supposedly innovative government has been intervening into our economy from the very start. Before we even had a constitution, our provisional government was enacting subsidies and enforcing protectionism and forming a central bank.