THE TWO INCOME TRAP, CLIFF-NOTES-VERSION: The authors of The Two-Income Trap (book details and initial statement of their logical error here, followup here,) are no better with the short form (registration required) of their argument, couched in the form of an open letter to Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. Key point: "Mr. Greenspan, you are widely credited with a long-running economic boom and a soft recession. But what has happened to middle-class families during your reign? A generation ago, the average American family lived on one income, put away 11 percent of its take-home pay in savings and carried a consumer debt load of less than 4 percent. Today, for a typical two-income family, inflation adjusted income has risen 75 percent, but by the time they pay the mortgage, health insurance, car payments, taxes and day-care bills, they have less to spend on everything else, from food and clothes to life insurance and vacations. And they put away a scant 1 percent in savings, while shouldering a whopping 12 percent in consumer debt load--triple the load their parents carried."

Yeah, we were a lot richer when all the women were at home barefoot and pregnant and mindin' the youngins. Curiously, a lot of those women, and not a few of the men who appreciated them, thought differently. There are laws of conservation in economics, of which the Say Aggregation Principle is an important one. There's more to the middle-class squeeze than monetary policy. There are also coping strategies available to families. Don't buy the McMansion in the first place. Ditto the SUV that looks like a Kenworth bobtail. Homeschool. Ditch the organized sports and let the kids organize their own recreation. Encourage the kids to work their way through college. Cut up the credit cards. Start a victory garden.