Try this thought experiment: Maybe America’s Great Stagnation isn’t happening because we’re failing — maybe it’s happening because we’re not. To illustrate, consider the most straightforward example: Wall Street megabanks were propped up and lavishly resurrected, and your grandkids will likely still be paying the price — because they were too big to fail. But if you look closely, you might see those dynamics just about everywhere. Detroit, of course, received a de facto bailout, too, but that’s the tip of the iceberg: when you stop and think about it, the economy’s rife with subsidies, hidden and overt, to largely industrial-age stuff (the McMansions that were subsidized by Fannie and Freddie, the oil that’s subsidized by whomever’s going to clean up the sky should there be anyone left to do so, the McBurgers whose water, beef, and obesity are all loaded not just with calories, but with tons of agro-subsidies). And that’s just the economy. What about the polity — Congress? Rarely have more constituents been more disappointed with their so-called representatives — but the whole lumbering institution’s too entrenched and cronified to fail. More>>