that exists today is a result of government policies. Spiegel: Can you give us an example? Stiglitz: In 2008, President George W. Bush claimed that we did not have enough money for health insurance for poor American children, costing a few billion dollars a year. But all of a sudden we had $150 billion to bail out AIG, the insurance company. That shows that something is wrong with our political system. It is more akin to "one dollar, one vote" than to "one person, one vote." ... Spiegel: So your answer to the inequality problem is to transfer money from the top to the bottom? Stiglitz: First, transferring money from the top to the bottom is only one suggestion. Even more important is helping the economy grow in ways that benefit those at the bottom and top, and ending the "rent seeking" that moves so much money from ordinary citizens to those at the top. ... Nothing particularly new here, but I wanted to highlight the point about rent-seeking, anti-competitive practices, etc. once again since I don't think this cause of inequality receives enough attention. It contains just what you'd expect from both the paper and the writer, things like: Mitt Romney hit the bull's-eye with his comments regarding the 47 percent of Americans who do not have any skin in the game as it pertains to paying federal income tax. Facts are facts. Romney did hit a bull's-eye, I'll agree with that, but he scored for the wrong team.