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Joel Kotkin's latest piece on the "gentry presidency" is worth reading. In important ways he hits upon themes that Boehner touched upon in his speech today, but with greater depth and insight.
There's no need to summarize Kotkin. Here are the important passages:
Unlike previous Democratic presidents, including John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton, President Barack Obama’s base primarily lies not with the working and middle classes, who would have demanded effective job action, but with the rising power of the post-industrial castes, who have largely continued to flourish even through the current economic maelstrom...
The major winners of the Obama years have been the big nonprofits, venture capitalists and, most obviously, the financial aristocracy. These have all benefited from the Ben Bernanke-Timothy Geithner — previously the Bernanke-Henry Paulson — policy of cheap money and near zero-interest rates, which have depressed the savings of the middle classes but served as a major boon to Wall Street...
The essential problem of gentryism...is that it fails to address the fundamental economic needs of the vast majority. It is also tied to policy prescriptions that either fail to spur broad-based growth or, in some cases, hinder it...
Overall, gentry rule has fostered a sense throughout the American public of national decline and diminishing personal expectations. Small property ownership, the key to a democratic capitalist society, is fraying...
Kotkin says that the Obama Democrats' obsession with green regulation has caused much of this, but more than that, it's an overall mindset that has no trouble using unions and populist rhetoric while strategizing with financial interests and green elites.
He proposes a flat, or flatter, tax that gets rid of loopholes for the rich.
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