Of course, in recent months, the bureaucracy—the Federal Reserve, the Federal Housing Authority, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac—has generally ignored the struggles of poor homeowners.

This is asinine. Those agencies--collectively called "bureaucracy" are the very ones that have encouraged the lenders to make loans of questionable veracity to questionable abilities to pay. One can claim, as people often do, that all of banking is a racket and "predatory" loans are racketeering, but there is a reason for the funny money in the first place: Like high crdit card interest rates, you have to give yourself (as a lender) the ability to at least get part of your money back from people who have no business investing in a house in the first place with a job from Boo Boo Burger as their collateral.

Grossman is no dobut correct in that the "overclass" has many of the same separations from the Commonweal concerns of life in their own way as the "poor" do from theirs. But this is a relative comarison, always. Our American poor are the envy of much of the world. If you are going to pretend to be down and out, this is the place. You have much "bureacracy" to support you from food stamps to housing.

The issue is how you do the comparing. In real dollar terms yes the differences in rich and poor are vast and getting wider due to the creative techniques emerging for wealth accumulation not available to people whose insight is limited to menial labor and even many kinds of workaday service, etc.

Now, on the other hand, when it comes to the overall effects of this underclass's eternal dependency on Washington? The trillions spent to alleviate poverty have done so ONLY if "in kind" payments are taken into account, but NOT if the goal of "self-sufficiency" is taken into account.

Voting for a living is not (to me) a legitimate profession.

The Rich don't annoy me all that much, since anyone is capable of stupid and idle antics. I make money off of them and develeped a career on property valuation and brass ring employee relocation. Can't say I could do this with the poor.

The rich hide from the middle class for the same reason the middle class would like to hide from the government created permanent underclass. They don't want a knifing over a wedding ring in your own driveway.

It must be nice to sit on your comfortable middle-class thrown, aspiring to no more than the accumulation of great wealth and all it can buy, rather than gaining some small understanding of the American reality vs. the American dream. If everyone shared your same pitiful, soul-scorching dreams, tell me, who would remove your garbage from the curb, sir?

Respect for others is something I learned very early on, in kindergarten, but I don't know about you. I have never judged a person by their ability to accumulate money and consumer goods, but rather their ability to command the respect, friendship, love, loyalty, and admiration of others. Whether a man or woman works at "menial" labor, or pushes papers and people around for a living, I should think they deserve the same respect afforded any other - when they have proven themselves a person of character and worth, doing their best to be productive in our society.

The problem is not with the intelligence or work ethic of the underclass, or the sense of entitlement the overclass wishes to remain accustomed to, the problem is with America's short-sightedness. Every child born in this country has the capacity to benefit our society in one way or another. I don't think shelter, a plate of food, and an education is too much to offer to those in need, those born to working class or poverty-stricken parents. It is the eternal shame of our supposedly enlightened society that we do not treat every citizen as an asset - unless, of course, they have the great good fortune and foresight to be born to white, wealthy, privileged parents.

With these sort of "class" distinctions, based on wealth rather than anything concrete and real, comfortably ensconsed in our collective psyche, should it surprise us that people like you sit back and self-importantly sneer at the "little people" whose "insight is limited to menial labor," etc.?

Apparently, the poor in America don't deserve even the barest necessities, simply by virtue of being born poor. The same "necessities” which you, of course, are entitled to, being born into a world with every possible "edge" in order to have the dream of accumulating wealth in this country.

Those "creative techniques" you so proudly boast of - known only by the wealthy intelligentsia, of course - are most usually of the "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" ilk, where money, power, and connections are all you need to get things done.

This brings shame on us all. And shame on you for perpetuating this trashy, unfeeling, unproductive mythology.

Where sir on earth do societies share your pitiful, bleeding heart dreams? And tell me, do they have air conditioning, color tv's, and cell phones?

I'll take that jaundiced view of freedom as evidence that Hugo Chavez is closer to promulgation of the American Dream in his planning psychosis than boards of directors for various companies. Beyond that rather long rehash of trying to remake America into Sweden and some interesting speculation on to what I think of menial labor, where this "respect" for all manner of whatever is transmogrified into making sure that one only has to sit on the fanny eating ice cream cones and get the current pitch, with not much melodrama or questions any more, we have the following: So-called "free" medical care, free housing, free food, free social services for the kiddies, daycare for your child born out of wedlock, "free" job training, "free" washbasins and piss pots, "free" computers, "free" gardens, "free"....well, everything. Make it all FREE! But just as it is understandibly unfair to place on people ultimate blame and complete responsibility for all woes and situations of birth, so too it must ALSO be unfair and unkind and condescending to boot to place on people NO responsibility for their own station in life, or their personal outlook. I realize I'm outmanned here. Few people even use the word "individual" next to the word "responsibility" in order to forge a phase from the two. Certainly none of the current pumpkinheads vying for President. But then that begs the question whether the President or for that matter even hard core dictators should direct entire economies. We fought the cold war over the difference, or so we are told. The issue is not any slamming of menial labor. Hardly. I have only respect for people who shovel and grab and fix things in the blistering heat and bugs as I once did in another life working in places various as warehouses cleaning crap off the floor to golf courses listening to jackasses talking about getting back from Zurich and complaining about the staff. All the while cleaning pine cones out of sand traps for these man children babies. Yes, I dig your angle. Honestly. But the point I was making is that whether we like it or not, some positions (including my former one) are not ready made for high powered finance or for that matter upgrades to tile and granite in the kitchen for homes. We can't do it all. More often than government programs are the personal initiative and ideas that actually move people away from this and into the kinds of positions where there is more likely to be a connection in YOUR work and company performance. This is rare, and yes very difficult. This is not a slam of anyone's position, but just candor. No one is going to pay 50 grand a year to flip burgers. The market can't handle that. It won't. And we do no one any favors pretending there are easy, ready-made solutions from government to circumvent this reality. Nothing in this wretched world is "free." Now, having said all this, your railing at white folks being mostly of "privilege" with little reference to Appalachia where these kinds of whites (and most of all welfare recipients ARE white, come to think it) might bring dividends--politically. It always does. The aforementioned Sweden, with almost half of all kids born out of wedlock and a social and economic environment that encourages not only this but a divorce rate higher than even ours (!)is the dream come true for social planners. The white folks live in the very social distress actually caused by government that liberals like to advocate over here in their promotions of dependency. As to me personally? Yes, I have values that go FAR beyond mammon and things. But that was not being addressed here or in the article.