darn... Music got it first. ah well.

Oh, dang. Did I say "one"? I meant two. If you can hack a drop-ship from something like Amazon, PM your delivery info.

So yeah. It's Sunday morning and i have a lot to say on this subject, but ya know what? It's too damn nice outside.

/me, loading up Empeg and boat stuff to go for a sail...

So i'll just leave it at this...

It's not the size or profits of the middle class that's important... it's the incredible growth of the "lower class". The amount of people living at or below poverty level in this country... THAT is what we should be looking at... the people who could give a [censored] what a stock dividend or margin account is... because they'll never be able to afford one anyhow thanks to the beautiful thing we call capitalism where the few in power (politically and financially... which are intrinsically linked in case you haven't noticed) will never relinquish it (meaning $ and power) without a fight.

American political life seems mired in what I would call a bipolar, "yer either fur us or agin us!" mode. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, nearly anything "left" or liberal was discredited and, with the collapse of communist states, it seemed like the "winner" -- capitalism -- enjoyed new, unquestioned status as the right path.

The fact that the U.S. declined on a number of very objective metrics (infant mortality, say) over the past 15 years seemed to get little attention. Generally, I'd say that the whole "a rising tide lifts all boats" was the working proposition and that the middle class was feeling satisfied. Poverty-related issues and positions got less attention. Democrats fell over themselves to assume "moderate" positions (witness Clinton's aggressive welfare reform/dismanting. Whatever you think of it, it is amazing from the standpoint of who was now wielding the axe).

Me? I have continued to have the apolitical blues. With what i consider to be fewer and fewer distinctions between the two dominant parties, what I don't see is a coherent emerging alternative, nor have I been able to invent one myself. Phillips doesn't ignore poverty. However, in graphs like this I think he spends more time looking at middle-class effects -- I think because the perceptions of an ascendant middle class have provided the underpinnings for overall acceptance of the recent social/economic compact.

I can't shake the feeling lately that some nasty stuff is going to go down in my lifetime.

Why, hasn't it already? I don't consider myself prone to conspiracy theories or prophesies of doom, but am concerned that life for folks half my age (nieces, friends' kids, people I don't know half a world away) is going to be harder, not easier.

/me What a cheerful guy you are, Jim!