Naked Capitalism Link of the Day

Today's link: A Land of Haves and Have-nots, at ConsortiumNews:

Yet with all the calumnies that are committed on an hourly basis behind the facade of our nation’s capital, what had local media there outraged a few days ago? Lemonade.
Seems a TV news cameraman caught a county inspector in an affluent Washington suburb trying to shut down a kid’s lemonade stand just outside the Congressional Country Club during the recent US Open.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, he slapped the enterprising tikes – who were raising money to fight pediatric cancer – with a $500 fine.
As the June 18 Washington Post reported, for a while it seemed “the all-American rite of passage might instead become a master class in government overreach,” yet public anger was so immediate and vociferous the fine was quickly revoked and the youngsters permitted to reopen down a side street a few yards away.
But these weren’t your garden variety, neighborhood moppets, selling drinks from Mom’s Tupperware pitcher on a card table near the sidewalk.
For one thing, according to the Post, “There was a tent for shade, five plastic coolers, and a couple of industrial steel ones packed with ice and cans of Coke and Diet Coke. For the fundraiser, the kids’ parents had also secured cases of bottled lemonade wholesale…”
For another, among those helping out and defending their boys and girls were the former head of Lockheed Martin and the Red Cross and members of the Marriott family.
“When something’s right you stand up for your beliefs,” Carrie Marriott, wife of the hotel heir, said. “That’s what America’s about. It’s about free enterprise. It’s about taking an idea, making it happen, and making it successful.”
Coincidentally, the very next day, the Post reported that total compensation was up an average of more than 20 percent last year for the Washington area’s highest paid executives.
Among them, Ms. Marriott’s father-in-law, J. Willard Marriott, Jr., who in 2010 earned nearly $10 million. The report was part of the newspaper’s investigation of so-called “breakaway wealth” among the nation’s richest.

What?  Kids of super-wealthy families selling lemonade to other super-wealthy folks at the U.S. Open get busted by a suburban official and fined?  What a bunch of crap on all sides.  I'm sure these folks are teaching their kids a lot of valuable lessons in hard work and ignoring regulations.  Is there a non-reprehensible adult involved in the story?  I am glad this story wasn't on my local news.