The Kool-Aid’s working just fine

OK, so more US citizens are in poverty that ever in the past 50 years. Home values are still dropping. Interest on savings accounts will add pennies a month to your investment, while the stock market’s a crazy roller-coaster ride only for gamblers who can afford to lose. The economy’s not yet adding net new jobs, much less adding them fast enough to keep up with population growth. And this past weekend I saw an ad in the local Craigslist from someone desperate to find a cheap, used RV or trailer because he has a wife, two kids and is “soon to be homeless.” But 20 percent of Americans think they’ll be millionaires by 2020?

Right.

Advertisement

 

Who rules America?

This find of the day is “Who Rules America?” by Bill Domhoff, a research professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The website (and book with the same name) provides some fascinating insights into “how power and politics operate in the United States.” Among its recent posts is “An Investment Manager’s View on the Top 1%,” a guest article that explores the differences — and they’re huge — between being merely in the top 1% of the nation’s wealthiest and being in the top 0.1%.