Last week's Economist devoted its center section to a really excellent survey of the state of the world's economy. Definitely worth reading -- the depth and caliber of their writing about such issues makes American newspapers look like children's books. Anyway on the specific issue of the "squeeze of the middle class" they make a convincing case that it's being driven by macroeconomic changes way beyond the reach of any nation's specific tax or economic policies. (And that those macroeconomic changes are on balance vastly beneficial for humanity as a whole, on a scale that when I was in college was the province of only the most wild-eyed progressive dreamers.) I actually posted a summary of the Economist report in a private bbs which unfortunately is not currently accessible by nonmembers (long stupid story there), I could paste it in here if anyone's interested.