Mr. Krugman is back reminding us that America is still heading down two paths economically: one for the rich and another one for everybody else. Which, of course, is exactly how the haves would have it if they could keep having things their way: a class-based society. In fact, just to taunt those muscle-heads from the right, Mr. Krugman actually typed the phrase "Class Warfare!" into his CPU. Can you hear that thin, shrill wailing and gnashing of broken teeth? Yep, it's those right-nutters railing at the fates that rendered their worst enemy too smart for them to answer back with facts instead of more stale old ad hominem bluster.
It was a merry Christmas for Sharper Image and Neiman Marcus, which reported big sales increases over last year's holiday season. It was considerably less cheery at Wal-Mart and other low-priced chains. We don't know the final sales figures yet, but it's clear that high-end stores did very well, while stores catering to middle- and low-income families achieved only modest gains.
Based on these reports, you may be tempted to speculate that the economic recovery is an exclusive party, and most people weren't invited. You'd be right.
Commerce Department figures reveal a startling disconnect between overall economic growth, which has been impressive since last spring, and the incomes of a great majority of Americans. In the third quarter of 2003, as everyone knows, real G.D.P. rose at an annual rate of 8.2 percent. But wage and salary income, adjusted for inflation, rose at an annual rate of only 0.8 percent. More recent data don't change the picture: in the six months that ended in November, income from wages rose only 0.65 percent after inflation.
Why aren't workers sharing in the so-called boom?
It's a very sobering question, which Mr. Krugman answers in his inimitable style of wordsmithing in today's The New York Times...
