Because this decade is very different. This decade is worse for upward mobility than last decade, which was worse than the decade before.

The small wage-earners are being sacrificed on the altar of the holders of stock options. The holders of stock options are buying legislators and members of the executive branch left and right (you may take both meanings). They are getting exceptions to rules, and free passes on taxable income. The lower income people are not.

Yet the response of the Radcon Guardians of Public Morality? Silence. When someone is caught, one can hear the rug being lifted, the better to brush the problem underneath. Does anyone really think that a few high-profile executives who are unwary enough to be caught duped their lawyers, their accountants, their executive assistants, all their subordinates, their boards of directors (which, in many cases, they appointed)? Yet all these people, the infrastructure of the frauds, are still working, free to continue business as usual, because the oversight is not there.

Gay marriage will undermine the fabric of society, but defrauding small investors and crippling wage-earning families is the tough love of the market. Uh huh.

You think I think the government should give people cars? I never said that. But since the government is in the business of giving away the safeguards against fraud to satisfy their private sector cash cows, I'd say that, instead of giving six cars to people who already have five, how about giving one to those who have none?

In the alternative, government can give no cars to anyone, and make sure that the rich guys quit bribing people to look the other way while they drive them off the government lot.

I'm glad you grew into a better life, McFly. Tell me, when you were growing up, did your parents have to choose between food and medicine? These are the stakes in many working families. I become very angry when I think about the Radcon response to their problems: "Let them eat peanut butter." When backed against the wall, they deny it, but the contempt for those who work and work but can barely keep up is palpable. It's the new Social Darwinism.

Or maybe they figure that this is the source for their next wave of recruits, when Phase Three of USA Conquers The World is introduced. After all, the armed forces aren't just an adventure: they're a job.