Maybe it started when the New Deal made the US worker more expensive. Subsequent legislation such as the minimum wage exacerbated the problem. The industrial growth after World War II masked the effects for a while. It became worse when the Great Society created an idle underclass with no reason to work. All the while, various immigration laws made it more difficult for unskilled workers to legally enter the US at a time when corrupt political systems in Latin America exploited them. Then Reagan had to go and fix the economy and the resulting decades of growth created an insatiable demand for workers. And that is how we got a half million illegal aliens marching in the streets of LA.

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When a new buzzword enters the lexicon of news anchors, go long on it costing taxpayers a fortune as soon as lobbyists figure out how to use it to pan for gold in legislatures across the country. If there is moral opposition involved, it’s a safe bet that those opposed will be marginalized, painted as Neo-Luddites, and have their serious moral reservations offhandedly dismissed. The current debate over public funding of stem cell research is a good example.

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Professional athletics is a curious meritocracy where performing some inane activity in the top fractional percentile can result in income statements that are the envy of several NASDAQ firms. Last December, news hit that Tiger Woods was going to put 40 million on his double platinum card to buy an exclusive Palm Beach estate with plans to raze the perfectly excessive main house and build one more suited to his liking. That his ability to swing a club and hit a ball provided him the means to accomplish this dubious endeavor could be the subject of a column or two but not this column. Instead, the subject is whether society has a right to complain about his choice to use his money in this manner.

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