President Obama said last week that we need to increase tax rates on the wealthiest Americans to obtain an extra $100 billion in tax revenue, and he blamed the failure of Congress' supercommittee on the unwillingness of the Republicans to increase tax rates. Do you agree? If you think increasing tax rates on the "rich" is the correct economic policy, then you also need to believe the following seven fantasies, each of which is like believing in the Tooth Fairy:

If misery loves company, beleaguered officials at Penn State may have taken some solace from the ugly news coming out of Syracuse University Monday (11/28).  Assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine was fired after a third person accused him of sexual molestation, and an audiotape surfaced which bolstered the credibility of his first two accusers. Zach Tomaselli, 23, said Fine, 65, a coach at Syracuse for 36 years, molested him in a Pittsburgh hotel room in 2002.  ESPN broadcast Sunday (11/27) a tape of a telephone conversation in 2002 with Fine's wife, Laurie, in which she expressed fear her husband had molested ball boy Bobby Davis in their home. So now people are asking of another iconic college coach:  What did he know? When did he know it? Those are good questions which deserve answers.  But more pertinent for most of us are the questions we should be asking ourselves. That's the lesson I learned from Dan Hendley, the pastor at North Park Church in suburban Pittsburgh, in a magnificent sermon I attended last Sunday (11/27).

In most countries for most of history, people were pretty much locked into the social class into which they were born.  But in America men and women of modest means could become rich -- if they had an idea for making life better, and worked tirelessly to make their vision real.  Entrepreneurs such as Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Bill Gates and Steven Jobs became very, very rich.  The rest of us were enriched, too, by the fruits of their genius and their labor -- the electric light, the automobile and the computer, and tens of thousands of other inventions and new, better ways of organizing things. People who don't have good ideas and who don't want to work hard want to be rich, too.  Some have found a way. CBS' 60 Minutes program broadcast a report Nov. 13 on insider trading by Members of Congress.  Among the worst offenders are House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and Rep. Spencer Bachus, the Alabama Republican who chairs the House Financial Services Committee. There are many, many others.  "How do politicians who arrive in Washington D.C. as men and women of modest means leave as millionaires?" Sarah Palin asked.  "How do they miraculously accumulate wealth at a rate faster than the rest of us?" The answer is, by running a pig farm on the Potomac.

Last week (11/16), the Cato Institute held its annual monetary conference. Speakers included high-ranking officials from the Federal Reserve and monetary experts from the academy, think thanks and financial institutions. There was unanimous agreement that the world monetary system is in deep trouble, which is obvious to anyone who keeps up with the news. It is easier to observe the problem than to come up with a solution. The problem is that the major world governments are in the process of destroying the value of the money their citizens hold.

Shanghai.  "Air in many China cities remains highly polluted." No, this is not a headline in the Onion (satirical newspaper), but the front-page lead headline in the Shanghai Daily on Nov. 8. Shanghai is a city of 23 million people, which at first glance appears to be the most modern city on the planet. The architecture is spectacular and varied, with some of the new edifices exceeding 100 stories. It looks prosperous - nicely dressed people; wide, tree-lined streets; well-maintained flower beds; and the world's newest auto stock on its many crowded expressways. To a lesser extent, the same thing can be said about Beijing and other Chinese cities. China, arguably, has today more people with a middle-class or higher standard of living than any European country and even Japan, only trailing the United States. However, more than 80 percent of its people have yet to enjoy most of the fruits of this prosperity. It is a bit ironic that a country that calls itself communist has, perhaps, the greatest income disparity on the planet. China is both rich and poor at the same time.