Slate’s Daniel Gross argues that the “culture of affluence” endangers America and its values more than the “culture of poverty”:
In the underclass, unmarried, young fathers don’t take responsibility for their children. In the overclass, twice-married, middle-aged Wall Street daddies don’t own up to the consequences of their insane financial miscues. Wall Street titans are almost incapable of seeing the problem with taking nine-figure payouts in years in which their stocks plummet. “There’s just a total disconnect between the compensation and the responsibility for their actions,” says William Cohan, a former Lazard banker turned author.
***
There are important differences between the underclass and the overclass, notes Susan Mayer, dean of the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy Studies. The overclass is better connected, and it can cause more damage. “Poor inner-city kids selling drugs to suburban kids can harm people,” Mayer says. “But financial markets can bring thousands and thousands of people to ruin.”
Much could be written about the presumptions packed into Mayer’s quotes; I’ll leave that for commenters. Instead, I want to note — as the Gross piece does — that Gross “is the author of Pop! Why Bubbles Are Great for the Economy.” As summarized by Publisher’s Weekly:
Three cheers for “exuberant, foolish, mad overinvestment!” Slate columnist Gross takes a counterintuitive look at economic bubblesâ€â€those once-in-a-generation crazes that everyone knows can’t last, and don’t. With each one, we lament having gotten in too late, and then not having gotten out soon enough, and finally shake our heads at the inevitable bankruptcies and lost jobs and general financial wreckage. The pattern is all too familiar, which is why Gross’s argument is so intriguing: that these bubbles, with their hype and madness and overenthusiasm, are not to be fearedâ€â€they’re actually a primary engine of “America’s remarkable record of economic growth and innovation”…
Apparently, that view is so 2007. What happened? Did the book not sell, or is Gross just in election-year mode?
House just TRIPLED Bush’s budget to 50 BILLION DOLLARS for AIDS Africa. The money is used to go around US and UN sanctions and pay their militaries. HOUSE SURE IS RICH. Who’s is stealing? Bush isn’t. House is and they’re getting paid for the cash.
Exactly what percentage of the population is this category of overclass, twice-married, middle-aged Wall Street daddies of which he writes? It sounds more like the concern of some one living in an urban liberal bubble of Manhattan or San Francisco than a broader based phenomenon, but then again those people always magnify their self-importance all out of proportion to the rest of the country. Go figure.
1 WITCH. Round about the caldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.â€â€
Toad, that under cold stone,
Days and nights has thirty-one;
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot!
ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
2 WITCH. Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and owlet’s wing,â€â€
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
3 WITCH. Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf;
Witches’ mummy; maw and gulf
Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark;
Root of hemlock digg’d i the dark;
Liver of blaspheming Jew;
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse;
Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips;
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,â€â€
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,
For the ingrediants of our caldron.
ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
2 WITCH. Cool it with a baboon’s blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.
So this author previously those these were good, but now they are bad, and threaten the very underpinnings of our entire system. All within a year. Kerry-esque.
Dan,
Intriguing.
Incidentally, financial markets can’t bring thousands of people to ruin; the failure of financial markets can. Liberals love to blame the gears for the sand they’re about to throw into them.
Liberal: Government owes us. Mount class warfare! Legalize envy and theft!
Republican: Hoorah. Bubbles are good. More, faster.
Realist: The American economy is currently pinned on nothing more than hope, from which bubbles are seen as growth — tech, real estate, infrastructure. Inflation-adjusted stock markets appreciate annually at less than 2%. The dollar is over-leveraged and must correct. Which it is.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_cur_acc_bal-economy-current-account-balance
http://homepage.mac.com/ttsmyf/
Kerry-esque? Oh, JD, please. That is, in your parlance, so 2004. It’s McCain-esque. McCain opposed torture until he supported it. He opposed tax cuts until he supported them. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were agents of intolerance until he supported Robertson’s endorsement. I guess he opposed the Religious Right until he supported them?
Keep up, JD, On the plus side, when you watch the Republican convention this year, you can bang flip flops together and hand out Purple heart band-aids! Consistency is truly a hobgoblin of small mind, eh, JD.
As for Karl, that was sure a pretty apple (the super-rich and their 100 million dollar a year salaries have distorted moral values) you compared to that nice orange (speculative bubbles are actually good for the American economy). But, since you’re the sort of fella who thinks presidential candidates (at least the Democratic ones) are responsible for what their plumbers, car mechanics, preachers, and accountants say, then I can see where the apple/orange distinction fails to find traction.
huh, because I saw it as overinvestment is okay…or not… depending on what you’re investing in. but then some people will just always be contrary.
“Poor inner-city kids selling drugs to suburban kids can harm people,†Mayer says. “But financial markets can bring thousands and thousands of people to ruin.â€Â
You know what else I hate? Cancer. It harms a lot of people, I think.
Definitely! I can’t see how people can earn that much for just being a talking head, and not be held accountable when they screw up!
Oh, wait. They’re not talking about reporters, are they?
You know what I really, really hate? Hate. I just hate hate. I’m a hate-hater. I drink the hate-haterade.
I have to agree with Gross – wealthy Wall Streeters are destroying America. We need to stop them, because as we all know, derivatives, they are the futures. Evaluate them well and let them lead the way. This is a proven true fact.
IJS,
Not that your reading comprehension is ever going to improve, but Gross clearly argues in the Slate piece that America is harmed by the “crazy risk-taking” behavior of the overclass.
Nor have I argued that Obama is responsible for what Rev. Wright said. I have argued that he is responsible for choosing to attend a radical Left church and having a hatemonger for a spiritual advisor for 20 years. But that takes us back to your lack of ability to follow an argument.
IJS – You have a personality that only your parents could love. What suggests I like McCain?
Bob told him so, JD.
Th esuper rich threaten America?
So when are Kerry, Kennedy, and Rockefeller going to be run out of the Senate?
What about Corzine? Rich bastard.
Wall Street titans are almost incapable of seeing the problem with taking nine-figure payouts in years in which their stocks plummet.
I can’t read silliness like this anymore without hearing Jethro Bodine’s voice: “I ain’t gonna be no Hollywood producer no more Uncle Jed, I decided I’m gonna be one o’ them there Wall Street titans!”
IJS – McCain supports torture? Do tell. Another lefty misinterpretation of a position.
#8
Rich people create jobs. Super rich people create lots of jobs and make other people rich as well. How many jobs have you created?
How many jobs have you created?
Getting fired doesn’t count.
Infidels, Burn!
Alas, this isn’t a bubble, it’s about insider corruption and making gazillions w/o toil and trouble.