There is really no contradiction between these. Lenience and forgiveness and joyous creativity for one group while the other gets a biblical-style beatdown—these things actually fit together quite nicely. Indeed, the ascendance of the first group requires that the second be lowered gradually into hell. When you take Clintonism all together, it makes sense, and the sense it makes has to do with social class. Think of it as a slight variation on Stiglitz’s observation about the superiority of speculation to all other occupations: What the poor get is discipline; what the professionals get is
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