OVER the past two months, consumer sentiment has ebbed to its lowest level in almost 30 years. The drop is at odds with much of the data-economists now believe, for example, that economic growth in the second quarter was around 2 percentage points, hardly a cause for deep melancholy. The unemployment rate hovers around 5.5 percent, about its post-war average.
What explains this low morale in a moderate economy? Democrats and Barack Obama offer a populist story: While the economy as a whole has not done that poorly during the Bush years, the little guy has fallen farther and farther behind. Americans yearn, the story goes, for massive redistribution.
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