Two Cheers For New Jersey! (Mark Schmitt & Kevin D. Williamson)

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In all fairness to Kevin, who manages to make me angry in every episode, the second section is provocatively mis-titled because that's not really what he meant. In fact, he agreed with the OWS sense of malaise, re: falling individual wages, stagnant family wages, etc.

However, he is wrong that this has nothing to do with jerks on Wall Street getting big bonuses. This is highly relevant, because there is a sense of entitlement loose in the world, and this manifests in people believing that if you work in the financial industry you are a special and chosen and deserve to get a large bonus no matter what the facts on the ground are. You can manage to make a quarter look good at the expense of everything after the quarter, and still count on your bonus, which you believe you are entitled to.

As Kevin points out, this sense of entitlement occurs other places, for instance in believing that you are entitled to some sort of fancy education or the best house you could possibly afford. But the people who have come to control capital feel equally entitled, and I have no trouble believing that it has driven the economy bad places for all of us.

You can tell me all you want that it wouldn't matter if bosses made only 40 times more than the lowliest employee, flew coach, and drove Hondas, but the fact is that it does. Because this sets the tone for the rest of society.