Signs of the end times? Or just new times ...

First - Crooked Timber: I think I’m going to be sick: The Economist’s new venture is:

...an inspirational lifestyle magazine which instead of helping readers make decisions in their professional life, helps them do the same in their personal life”...

... Take white-collar boxing – the latest stress reliever for Wall Street and City elite. Tired of punching a bag at the gym, they have now moved on to punching each other in front of a paying audience. ...

... If smacking around your colleagues doesn’t sound appealing, how about brushing up on your space travel tips so you can be first in line to book your space flight?

... Other articles include the latest on gadgets, health innovations, luxury items and how to order your own bespoke car.

and ...

The April 22, 2005 business section of a "local" paper, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, printed the compensation rankings for the CEOs of publicly traded Minnesota companies (the numbers are in millions of dollars, they don't distinguish between CEO-founders and CEO's hired into a mature company):

1. William McGuire, UnitedHealth Group: 125
2. Robert Ulrich, Target: 40
3. Jerry Grundhofer, US Bancorp: 39
4. Steve Sanger, General Mills: 18
5. Randall Hogan, Pentair: 10
6. Joel Ronning, Digital River: 8.6
7. James McNerney, 3M: 8.5
8. Kendrick Melrose, Toro: 8.1
9. Richard Rompala, Valspar: 7.8
10. Arthur Collins, Medtronic: 6.7

and

• the Wall Street Journal has a front page essay on America's rigid class structures
• the New York Times runs an entire series on the same topic
• Cohen and DeLong write in The Atlantic about globalization and class upheaval in near-future America. The primary thesis? There will be vastly more money and wealth going to multinational companies, but it will not go to workers exposed to the income pressures of globalization. Where it will end up settling (deflation, shareholders, senior management) is unclear and may depend on social factors such as corruption.
  

There's more, but the above provides a decent overview. We are an aging society, so we may respond to these circumstances with less social upheaval than we would have 80 years ago. All the same, I do expect a green/socialist party to emerge in America in 2012, rather to the shock of pundits everywhere. (I'm a middle-of-the-road Clinton Democrat myself btw, but I'm old too :-).