Ben Stein Digests Our Terrifically Broken Economy
I was scanning the Wall Street Journal op-ed page this morning and saw this:
The Expansion Continues
The latest jobs report is further evidence that the doomsayers aren't right about the economy.
Well, according to Ben Stein (of all people) writing in the American Spectator (of all places) that's only, um, half the picture:The average wage of the American worker adjusted for inflation is lower than it was in 1973. The only way that Americans have been able to maintain their standard of living at the middle and lower ends has been to send more family members to work and to draw down savings or go into debt or both.Trust me, the article goes on for quite a bit in the same vein:
The most sought after jobs in the United States now are jobs in finance in which basically almost no money is raised for new steel mills or coal mines, but immense sums are raised to buy companies, recapitalize them -- which means pay the new owners immense special dividends and other payments for going to the trouble of taking over the company.It is a bleak view from a guy who used to be an apologist for Bush conservatism. Now he sounds like your basic class warrior:
Starting MBA's at hedge funds, which are basically gaming enterprises, get paid multi-six figure sums. Starting teachers in the state of Florida get paid $28,000 a year.What did this guy have for breakfast?
there is real poverty among the soldiers who fight our wars. There are fist fights to get children into $30,000 a year kindergartens and pre-schools in the right neighborhoods in Manhattan. There are 40 million Americans without health care insurance. There are almost 40 million baby boomers with no savings for retirement. There is a long waiting list for Bentleys at the dealership in Beverly Hills.Where's my happy juice?
There are soldiers' wives selling blood to buy toys for their kids. There is a man selling non-functioning body armor who threw a $10 million Bat Mitzvah for his daughter.Bueller? Bueller?In Brentwood, where the houses start at $3 million, the housewives complain about what a terrible country America is. In Clinton, South Carolina, where the textile mill closed fifteen years ago and there is real hardship, the young men still believe in America and their fiancees at Presbyterian College wait for them while they fight in Iraq.
(HT to scoreboard27)
Is this what they call the conscience of a conservative?
More of this please, even if it is too little too late.
True conservatives are appalled at where George Bush and Dick Cheney (and their congressional lackeys) have taken the country. Turns out, there just aren't nearly as many of them among Republicans as once was assumed.
Go figure.