I cross posted with Toadfrog, and would've trimmed mine if I'd read his.

Anyway John H, I had to look up "incendiary"--huh? I didn't think I was implying ruthlessness because it's a matter of facts, not theories, but maybe I'm engaging in "class warfare". Whoops.

I did do something besides add moral motivation and stir up trouba--and I did read the parts you re-posted, but simply didn't take issue with them. I took issue with your main models of economics, and thought that was my main point. To say the economy runs on productivity is like saying a 91 Chevy Caprice runs on energy sources. Things don't run on abstractions. And you condescendingly explain this to "liberals" who believe that the economy is a pie that runs on "money"--Why don't they just print more money, mom? I've heard you run through this lecture four times now, and it wears thin.

   Incendiary? I'm a fairly easy-going liberal, I don't believe that the extremely wealthy are proportionally more guilty than, say, me--success can happen to anybody. There but for the grace of god go I. I'm much wealthier than a great many people in the world. Yahoo. And I don't believe the top per cent are proportionally more "rewarded" or happy either. I don't intend to scapegoat anyone, but don't care to be an apologist for them. I think some factors of excess would be undermined if people simply refused to reflexively honor and respect economic success for it's own sake, and afforded noble economic failures the respect they sometimes deserve. Surely most folk music folks can agree about that.