Slate is different from you and me. Slate can publish idiotic stuff like this essay by Daniel Gross, coyly pretending to describe the real "problem class" in America -- the "dysfunctional overclass," i.e., the super rich:

There are important differences between the underclass and the overclass, notes Susan Mayer, dean of the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy Studies. The overclass is better connected, and it can cause more damage. "Poor inner-city kids selling drugs to suburban kids can harm people," Mayer says. "But financial markets can bring thousands and thousands of people to ruin."

Do they study economics at the University of Chicago? I had thought so, once, when I went there to get a free lunch once. But gosh, what stupid reasoning. "Financial markets can bring thousands to ruin"? "Financial markets" -- the ones that build trillion dollar economies? They're more "dysfunctional" than drug dealers because sometimes some people on Wall Street make a preposterous amount of money, even when they don't "deserve" it?

I love Slate. It's the best magazine of thought on the Internet. But ultimately it still plays to deeply-held liberal class envy, and when that's in gear cold analytical reasoning goes out the window. That's usually the case whenever economics is the topic, too -- unless, of course, the super-rich involved are highly-productive members of the permanent liberal political class (hat tip to Insty for that). Then being super rich is super cool, and of course, in the case of that model couple, Bill and Hillary Clinton... super, duper functional.

Cross-posted at Likelihood of Success, which Ron Coleman would like to see added to a few more blogrolls, you know.