Come to that, it’s a miracle the world is doing as well as it is. The Malthusians thought we’d be eating each other by now.

The percentage of people living in poverty around the world has been dropping steadily. Life expectancies have increased. Third World nations are moving into the Second and First Worlds. Sucks for our former monopoly, but pretty good deal for them.

Of course, what this really means is that it really doesn’t matter who did or didn’t cause the recession, that there is really nothing anybody can do about the fundamental, systemic problems of the global economy (or at least, the US economy), and that regardless of what philosophy is adopted by the society, we have essentially little to look forward to but plutocracy and oligarchy.

So what the hell are we arguing about all the time?

“The strong market was partly because European countries and Japan were still rebuilding their manufacturing capacity, destroyed during the war. Also, a lot of technology that has since replaced labor hadn’t come on line yet. Levy says these factors provided ‘a lot of jobs in manufacturing and other related occupations.’ “

I think this is probably most of it. Basically, in recent decades, a few more billion people have been added to the blue and white collar labor force. I hate to say it, but there isn’t much you can do about this. It’s actually a miracle we’re managing to stay level.

Not sure where they’re going with the higher education thing. According to the data, that 30 percent is actually a peak. Back in 1975, it was more like 22 percent.