There has been an increase in the suicide rate for lower-class middle-age white people. Ross Douthat gives us some interesting discussion. This new trend seems to be tied in to the economic stagnation of the past decade, and Douthat notes that latinos and blacks have not suffered higher suicide rates. Aside from the unlikely possibility of new explosive economic growth and a more generous welfare state, he cheerily recommends that "maybe working-class white America needs to adapt culturally, in various ways, to this era of relative stagnation, and learn from the resilience of communities that are used to struggling in the shadow of elite neglect." That should be happily received by poor whites: you are losers and should just accept being like colored folks! Get to the back of the bus!

[Source: Ross Douthat at The New York Times]

The mood brightens for pentamilllionaires. Or so say the 195 respondents with $5 million or more in investable assets who spoke to PNC Wealth Management’s Wealth and Values Survey Investors’ Outlook, released today.

The survey, conducted in August and September, found 23% of pentamillionaires are optimistic about the state of the U.S. economy, still modest but a considerable jump from just 7% last year, when a whopping 78% majority were pessimistic about our economy. This year the bearish sentiment is down to 55%. However, 70% said they are pessimistic about the state of the world economy.

[...]

Most pentamillionaires surveyed say they’ve increased their net worth since 2007. Forty-two percent boosted their net worth 20-50%, and 13% reported they’ve done even better than that. Thirty-three percent said they’ve stayed about the same.

-- Christiana Cefalu at Barrons

Well, I am glad someone is doing alright and is all happy about the future. We can all be thankful. I am sure they will be even more relieved under a Romney presidency, though they obviously do not have much to worry about under an Obama presidency.

Are you aware that "Atlas Shrugged" the movie, part two, has come out? Maybe, like me, you found it drowned out by all the double-oh-seven buzz. David Futrelle gives us a nice discussion of the "Atlas Shrugged" phenomenon in "Time" magazine. Speaking of the lack of success of the first movie:

The first installment, out last year, didn’t exactly set the world on fire; it was panned by critics (and even some Ayn Rand fans) as tedious and talky and just plain awful all around. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote that the “low-budget, no-talent treatment” of Rand’s novel “sits there flapping on screen like a bludgeoned seal.” Having seen the film myself, I can only say that this description makes it sound a lot more lively than it really is. The film fared no better in the marketplace than it did with critics, earning back only a fraction of its less-than-extravagant budget.

However, Mr. Futrelle goes on to talk about how the Ayn Rand love only grows stronger off the screen, as some of our rich folks are seriously seeking to create their own Galt's Gulch, their libertarian heaven on earth:

These days, as Quartz reports, libertarian utopians are setting their sights on Honduras. Inspired by the ideas of American economist Paul Romer, who for years has urged developing countries to give small chunks of their territories over to autonomous “charter cities,” the Honduran government last year agreed to set up Romer-esque Special Development Regions. In September, the government signed an agreement with a consortium headed by an American libertarian named Michael Strong, who hopes to carve out a space in an undeveloped area of the country to build what he hopes will be an “anarcho-capitalist paradise.”

Such is our world today.

(Source: David Futrelle, "Atlas Shrugonomics" in "Time" Magazine)

Here is a stirring call to the nineteenth century and the pre-New Deal America, the song of the rugged individualist:



On the other hand here is a less charming news story about for-profit food inspectors that give gold stars to food producers and then people start getting seriously ill and dying in droves: "Food Sickens Millions as Company-Paid [Inspectors] Find It Safe" at Bloomberg.

I know: the trick is to avoid the extremes. It's just such a funny world in a kind of sad way.

Nicholas Kristof takes another shot at painting for us the lurid picture of American inequality, and since I am feeling a little depressed after last night's debate, as we stare down the barrel of a possible Romney victory and the effective consolidation of plutocratic rule, I will keep Kristof's cute little morality play.

Before we do that, though, one substantive point that he raises is worth highlighting. He notes that when Americans are asked which country they would prefer to live in, in terms of wealth distribution, America or Sweden, 90% of Americans actually prefer Sweden, at least when the national labels are not used but are only denoted by their distribution. You have to wonder why the Democrats cannot win when they have overwhelming facts like this on their side, but as Kristof concludes: "Perhaps nothing gets done because, in polls, Americans hugely underestimate the level of inequality here. Not only do we aspire to live in Sweden, but we think we already do." But why can't we get past this lie, when it is not even a close call?

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Reading a "Forbes" magzine article, I am reminded of how hard the ideological lines are drawn, as our financier-devoted right-wingers continue to maintain what we like to call the Ayn Rand science-fiction fantasy:

if jobs are truly your goal (they always are among politicians and columnists), your desired tax rate on investment (Romney’s primary source of income) should be zero.

[...]

rather than complaining that he “only” paid millions to the capital destroying federal government at a rate of 14%, we should be horrified that the job-worshipping political class and commentariat thinks his rate too low. If they love innovation and jobs, they must once again love investment, in which case Romney’s tax rate is way too high. It should be zero.

Yeah, Romney and his ilk should not have to pay any taxes. We are blessed enough that they deign to walk on the same earth as we do. It can make one think that they will only understand the guillotine. Oh god, let the current polling trend hold and let Romney and the Republicans get thrashed in November, pretty please! I'm mainly afraid that the Republicans are locking down the fix, with their voter-suppression efforts along with Florida-style 2000 tactics.

Apparently J. K. Rowling really is pretty cool. We know that, as amazing as it may sound, the Ayn Rand science-fiction fantasy has been capturing the imagination of the rich folks across the West. And now it seems that Ms. Rowling has felt some pressure to respond to the call of the rich to strike, that is, to leave their country rather than see their wealth taxed, or as they put it, confiscated.

__ __ __

I chose to remain a domiciled taxpayer for a couple of reasons. The main one was that I wanted my children to grow up where I grew up, to have proper roots in a culture as old and magnificent as Britain’s; to be citizens, with everything that implies, of a real country, not free-floating ex-pats, living in the limbo of some tax haven and associating only with the children of similarly greedy tax exiles.

A second reason, however, was that I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism. On the available evidence, I suspect that it is Lord Ashcroft’s idea of being a mug.

-- J. K. Rowling

__ __ __

I am starting to lean a little more toward buying her new book.

For those who may have been a bit wigged out by the David Brooks post, we happily have the Paul Krugman corrective. He takes on the big news of Romney's candid, impolitic comments, and lays out the case for how this is an attitude that is now endemic to the Republican Party, and not just toward supposed moochers but to the working class and the poor as a whole. They really don't like us! Okay, this is hardly a revelation, but it has never been exposed so nakedly before.

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I guess we’re all supposed to be talking about how to build the middle class these days and look askance at the top 1 percent. But would you mind if I interrupted this cultural moment to point out that capitalism is an inherently elitist enterprise?

Prosperity is often driven by small enclaves of extraordinary individuals that build new industries and amass large fortunes. These driven, manic individuals are frequently unpleasant to be around. But, if your country is not attracting and nurturing them, you’re cooked.

-- David Brooks at The New York Times

A moment of silence, please, for this Ayn Rand moment! I think Mr. Brooks is feeling a little defensive, since the Republican establishment has really fallen on his head for jumping on the bandwagon that mocked and excoriated Romney for his contempt for the bottom half of America. Brooks is not being crazy, of course, as individuals can and do make a big difference. People really are not all equal when it comes to our intellectual, emotional, physical capacities. I just don't know if we really need to support their God complex.

We should tune in to the Romney and Ryan show

The myth of a democratic socialist society funded by capitalism is finished

-- Janet Daley at The Telegraph

Right-wingers in Europe are getting excited by what the Republicans are doing, in being on the verge of unraveling all the New Deal and progressive legislation of the twentieth century in favor of Ayn Randian fantasies.


_ _ _

Whatever the outcome of the American presidential election, one thing is certain: the fighting of it will be the most significant political event of the decade. Last week’s Republican national convention sharpened what had been until then only a vague, inchoate theme: this campaign is going to consist of the debate that all Western democratic countries should be engaging in, but which only the United States has the nerve to undertake. The question that will demand an answer lies at the heart of the economic crisis from which the West seems unable to recover. It is so profoundly threatening to the governing consensus of Britain and Europe as to be virtually unutterable here, so we shall have to rely on the robustness of the US political class to make the running.

What is being challenged is nothing less than the most basic premise of the politics of the centre ground: that you can have free market economics and a democratic socialist welfare system at the same time. The magic formula in which the wealth produced by the market economy is redistributed by the state – from those who produce it to those whom the government believes deserve it – has gone bust. The crash of 2008 exposed a devastating truth that went much deeper than the discovery of a generation of delinquent bankers, or a transitory property bubble. It has become apparent to anyone with a grip on economic reality that free markets simply cannot produce enough wealth to support the sort of universal entitlement programmes which the populations of democratic countries have been led to expect. The fantasy may be sustained for a while by the relentless production of phoney money to fund benefits and job-creation projects, until the economy is turned into a meaningless internal recycling mechanism in the style of the old Soviet Union.

Or else democratically elected governments can be replaced by puppet austerity regimes which are free to ignore the protests of the populace when they are deprived of their promised entitlements. You can, in other words, decide to debauch the currency which underwrites the market economy, or you can dispense with democracy. Both of these possible solutions are currently being tried in the European Union, whose leaders are reduced to talking sinister gibberish in order to evade the obvious conclusion: the myth of a democratic socialist society funded by capitalism is finished. This is the defining political problem of the early 21st century.

-- Janet Daley at The Telegraph