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Just a few concluding notes here on my end: Yes, I understand why people are angry. People get angry about all number of thigs, more or less justifiably. The problem is that most of the cures being proffered for this percieved unfairness will not solve the problem. To reduce the disparity between the wealthiest and the rest, are people talking about, you know, ending mortgage and property tax deductions, liberalizing the education sector, permitting more housebuilding, ending moral-hazard-generating bailouts of companies and banks? A little, but hardly. What you hear is that the "people" want tariffs (impacting the poorest, who disproportionately consume cheap imports), higher minimum wages (which slightly raise the incomes of some workers, at the expense of making youth, people with minimal educations, ex-prisoners and the disabled unemployable), and trade unionization (which benefit those in the union, but those shut out of the union scarcely at all.) I'll also note that this era of stagnation for the developed-world middle class has also coincided with a huge growth in the incomes of most of the rest of the world - these are not totally unconnected. Sure, we can be nationalists about it, but there are big benefits to the rest of the world from globalization. I think there are sensible ways to diminish these income disparities. But I don't really that many people advocating for them - mostly I hear the old protectionist mantras, and I just do not agree with that. |