I lived in Los Angeles for 20 years, and I remember reading that L.A. was one of the most prominent places in the world where you could see fabulous wealth and grinding, almost third-world poverty within just a few blocks of each other. There are hundreds of thousands of people in that second category who will never be able to escape it, no matter how hard they work or how closely they follow the rules.

In fact, although I think some of the rage is misplaced, we're seeing some of the same anger now from the Tea Party crowd. They too played by the rules only to find that they just aren't making it anymore. Their rage is directly not only at the folks above them, but also at the ones below them that they feel are getting special treatment.