The Great Divergence

All this talk about the one percent did not happen overnight. For 30 years the income gap in this country has grown geometrically. The middle class, that once provided the engine of American growth in the second half of the 20th century has shrunk and even with globalization the US is seeing economic mobility declining as compared to other western nations. How did we get here? Was it serendipity, tax policy, partisan political action or is it the inevitable result of the invisible hand of capitalism? New Republic “TRB” columnist Timothy Noah in The Great Divergence: America's Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do about It gives us the essential background we need to begin to understand the answers to these questions.

My conversation with Timothy Noah: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}