It's the plutonomy, stupid!

After the Justin Timberlake concert on Saturday, Sarah and I waited in the heated St. Paul Hotel lobby for our cab, an ordeal that lasted approximately ninety minutes (market failure due to restricted cab supply plus dumb border-crossing regulations for Mpls cabs). Soon after we got through to a cab company (name withheld because they never showed), this gigantic tour van pulled up and unloaded an odd, genetically-perfect queue of caucasions in jeweled tiaras, plus an obese cowboy and a jester. Probably a party related to the Winter Carnival, I'm sure, but something in their alienated superiority (including a crosseyed disacknowledgment of the proles waiting for cabs in that shivery lobby) struck me. "This is new," I thought. Wealthy play-actors who have never known need or hunger, utterly solipsist in their sense of entitlement. What is going on here? Is this Minnesota? I kept it to myself, until just this week I read some fantastic tips about the "plutonomy" coming from a most unlikely source, Citigroup.

Citigroup is always very growth-driven, the fattest nesting doll dipping their wand and enlarging the coffers and phantom assets of god knows how many hundreds of happy (mostly wealthy) investors. As market watchers, they know profit abhors deception and lies, so their recent report on the "plutonomy" comes as no surprise: the economy is driven by the rich. The middle and the bottom contribute nothing, indeed (what the hell) they might even be a drag on profits. Such reality-based sentiments have prompted an icy seam of guilt in many quarters. Let me just introduce this "plutonomy investment strategy", which drops the guaranteed-dividend tip at the same time it tells you to frown and self-flagellate all the way to the bank: "So you should make adjustments to your investment strategy, but if you find this growing gap between the rich and everyone else disturbing, you may want to consider working for political change too." You read it here first.

Last week, in a red-faced coda to the comic State of the Union Address (see Chuck's post below), a passionately contained Senator Webb put this issue out to a mass audience.

In the early days of our Republic, President Andrew Jackson established an important principle of American-style democracy ­that we should measure the health of our society not at its apex, but at its base. Not with the numbers that come out of Wall Street, but with the living conditions that exist on Main Street. We must recapture that spirit today.

Well, what do we do? Does the invisible hand really act for the greater good, or does it just generate mountains of jeweled tiaras for the luxury class? What is the government here for, to wage sad wars and roll out some low comedy? Who is today's Andrew Jackson? Not audaciously hopeful Barack Obama (an ideological cop-out until he abandons this bipartisan "hope" -- which always accomplishes zilch and doesn't even feed your constituency); definitely not morally bankrupt bankruptcy reformer Senator Clinton. Maybe Senator Webb -- throbbing crimson neck, shyte novels, sexual harassment rumors and all -- is the sort of thing we lefties should support. Clearly he hates the plutonomy, and he damn near socked Dubya at a mocktail party, didn't he? Anyway, Democrats better put wolves (rather than a sheep in robot's clothing) (are you listening, Senator Biden?) out there before the primaries next year, because I refuse to allow the plutonomy to decide my vote again. In summary: as announced candidates go, I'm for John Edwards.