Nice piece that echoes a favorite argument of mine on the middle class

OP-ED: "What You Don't Know Makes You Nervous," by Daniel Gilbert, New York Times, 21 May 2009.

I argue just about every chance that I get that the poor want protection from their circumstances and the rich want protection from the poor. But the middle class? What they want from their government is more complex: protection from uncertainty.

This piece nicely argues that it's not the loss in income that matters to most Americans (we can adjust) but the loss of certainty. We can always belt-tighten and money only makes you so happy (no rise in happiness above $20k per capita per year--the world over), but this sense that we don't know what's coming next in the economy is truly paralyzing.

A nervous middle class is an unhappy middle class, and an unhappy middle class is an unstable polity.

Great line: "An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy present with nothing to do but wait."

Everybody loves to anticipate. Nobody loves to wait.

Comments

[Steven J.]

One would think that when faced with all the facts and stats that support how globalization has raised living standards around the world and created a global middle class, that America would partake in the joy. After all, we Americans have a pretty good 15-20 year run ourselves.Now reality sets in and we see that we will have to compete in a global work force 2 times it's previous size.The U.S. unskilled labor felt it first. And now our skilled labor is starting to feel the pain (which won't be going away anytime soon).Now that the so called upper middle class is feeling the pinch, keep an eye out for Protectionsim catching steam.Which makes me think of the saying "I've got no problem with you getting ahead as long as you don't get ahead of me".

[Tom Barnett]

Very well put.