"In a process that had begun in the 1980s and suddenly accelerated in the early 2000s ... [t]he peaks of great wealth grew higher, rising up beyond the clouds, while the valleys of poverty sank lower into perpetual shadow. The once broad plateau of the middle class eroded away into a narrow ledge, with the white-knuckled occupants holding on for dear life."

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The longest time that man may live, The lapse of generations of his race, The continent entire of time itself, Bears not proportion to Eternity; Huge as a fraction of a grain of dew Co-measured with the broad, unbounded ocean! There is the time of man--his proper time, Looking at which this life is but a gust, A puff of breath, that's scarcely felt ere gone!

— James Sheridan Knowles