My response ...
I will concede some concern that I have always had about becoming a banana republic, but it is the intervention of government that I fear more than free market. Government always screws things up.
Liberalism always looks at isolated incidents and distorted facts, but the agenda is always to have the government play Robin Hood while increasing the power of government over our lives. Either you live in a free society or you don't, and as long as government has the power to benefit some people at the expense of others then you lose freedom. If you don't want people exploiting the politicians then you don't give government the power in the first place. The current federal government has far exceeded its constitutional power.
The liberal myth of the free market leading to the collapse of the economy completely ignores the reality that government created this mess, through its GSE's and requirements that banks lend money to people who are not credit worthy. In a economy not so distorted by the government, banks have no incentive to make bad loans because it is their money they are going to lose. But if the government requires people to make bad loans while promising to buy up those bad loans and sell them to investors with an implied government backing, how can the banks be called immoral? They are simply following the rules that the government created. (If the government guarantees your profit by buying your loan, are you suppose to act morally and say you don't want it? Who would? Thus government corrupted our society.)
The top 1% also pay 38% of the federal income taxes. They are not getting a free ride.
The distress of the Tea Party is that we are rapidly driving off a cliff built out of debt created by government big spenders. Unless we do something about this, we are in deep deep trouble.
Ebert is the greatest movie critic ever. I really do like him, but we will probably never see eye to eye politics.
Best wishes,
John Coffey