Thus The Guardian today. “OECD report rejects trickle-down economics, noting sizable and statistically negative impact of income inequality,” elaborates the newspaper. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is trumpeted as the so-called west’s leading economic think tank. The Paris-based organization purportedly offered the first clear evidence of the link between inequality and growth. Thus it proposed higher taxes on the rich and policies aimed at improving the lot of the bottom forty percent of the population. Trickle-down economics was a central policy for Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the Eighties. The OECD now claims that income inequality has a sizable and statistically negative impact on economic growth. According to the report, America lost almost seven percent of its potential growth between 1990 and 2010, while Britain lost nearly nine percent in the same period. Interestingly, the OECD claims that the lack of investment in education was the key factor behind rising inequality. Fewer educational opportunities had the effect of lowering social mobility. All this sounds plausible enough, but I still have a feeling that the vaunted think tank has become the voice of the impoverished middle class. Or the “squeezed middle,” as it is known in Britain. The downtrodden petite bourgeoisie is fighting back in many ways, including its growing opposition to immigration and the European Union. At any rate, I am quite sure that Marine Le Pen, Nigel Farage, and Geert Wilders will all be quite enthusiastic about the OECD’s argument.