Pricey Whine

For the record, I do not think we’re “a nation of whiners.” And I do think it pretty rich for a very wealthy, powerful banker to shake his critical finger at people having trouble keeping up with inflation and paying their skyrocketing health-care and property-tax bills. Suck it up, lower orders! I am!

(Phil Gramm’s outburst recalls the caption of a 1964 cartoon showing presidential candidate and retail heir Barry Goldwater looking irritably at a group of beggars: “If you people had any initiative, you’d go out and inherit a department store!”)

That said, how bad off are we? Inflation, resetting ARMs, and lost employment aren’t exactly the stuff of champagne and roses. Still, based on statistics and anecdotal evidence, it seems pretty clear that we’ve over-consumed—too-big houses, too-big gas-gulping vehicles, too-big TVs, too much worthless crap. (And maybe too many Baconators!) Now we’re paying for it—or trying to.

In other words, most of us aren’t suffering as badly as we think. Or if we are, it’s because we didn’t do what grownups are supposed to do: be thrifty, save money, don’t let our eyes get bigger than our stomachs.

Wage inequality has certainly increased over the past few decades. The reasons for this remain a matter of debate. But even this may not be as problematic as some populistic types have asserted. It could largely be a matter of the different ways different demographics spend their money.

Don’t get me wrong. We still need to better regulate a financial industry (or at least sectors of that industry) that has privatized profits and socialized losses. The long-term economic security of this country requires it. Reforming consumer-screwing credit-card practices and perhaps even doing away with the regressive, employment-slowing payroll tax are also overdue.

But except for a few of us, we’ve no reason to believe it’s all their fault.