Mobility

Now look, every economic expansion is going to be latched onto by the party in charge, be the Democrats of Republicans, so it's not surprising to me that we've gotten to hear a lot about the economic growth of the last two years. What annoyes me, however often it is the case, is when the conversation is kept at an absurdly basic level. We hear about how great it is that the GDP is up, but they never talk about what effects that has on normal people. It's always just assumed that bigger numbers are better and that the old Adam Smith maxim of "A rising tide lifts all boats" holds true. Every once in a a while though, a study comes out that shows the middle class shrinking, or social mobility becoming more constrained, or large portions of employment increase correllating to some degree with people taking multiple crappy jobs to replace the really good job that got shipped overseas.

I can't convey to you how much I would love to see these issues brought up on Russert's show or Mathews', but I know they'll just talk about what good news the economy is for the administration.