Does Frederick Bastiat and his "fallacy of the broken window" come to mind? Even Berthold Brecht, in his play "Mother Courage" portrays the cumulative destruction wrought by war. Wealth is both created and destroyed... catastrophes destroy... proper application of accumulated capital can create.

There are no "illegal aliens"... only unregistered Democrats.

O'bama would've only been "in danger" for not pulling the trigger on Bin Laden had a "public witness" been present. If the tree falls when nobody's around to hear... it's silent.

The way capital gains are calculated... for tax purposes... they are largely a TAX ON INFLATION. Not only does a successful investment appreciate over time... but the value of the money in which it is calculated has diminished. "Fairness" would require a capital gain to be indexed to the CPI. Urban blight is also a result of the tax on capital gains. Landlords become frozen into income property investments... lest a significant share of their sale proceeds be taxed away. Often they wait till they die, so their heirs can benefit by the readjustment of the tax basis on the death of the owner. Imagine what that does to the physical condition of the property.

With FDR and Alger Hiss calling the shots... what else could be expected? United Dictatorships is a better moniker. The pathetic "peace making" in Syria lifts up the curtain for all to see how empty the utopian promise of "World Government" was back in the 1950s.