remedy -- raise taxes and tighten regulation. But if you believe, as Mr. Obama does, that a larger and largely welcome economic transition is also at work, figuring out how to rescue its victims becomes a more daunting challenge. To understand the scale of the problems the Western middle class faces, consider how it looked to Indian business leaders I recently spoke with in Mumbai. S. Gopalakrishnan, co-chairman of Infosys, the pioneering Indian outsourcing company, told me bluntly that the per-capita consumption of the Western middle class would have to decline as the developed and developing worlds "meet somewhere in the middle." The second consequence of Mr. Obama's chosen explanation is political. As is his wont, he took great pains to unite rather than divide: "Those aren't Democratic or Republican values; 1 per cent values or 99 per cent values. They're American values, and we have to reclaim them." But it might not be quite that easy. He shared the jaw-dropping facts that the average annual income of the top one-100th of the 1 per cent is $27-million, and that the typical CEO makes 110 times more than his typical worker. Mr. Obama wants to believe that "all will benefit" from the vision of America he articulated. But if the problem you are trying to fix is a winner-take-all society, it may take more than rousing rhetoric to persuade the winners to back your plan. Photos Enjoy the convenience of having The Globe and Mail delivered right to your door,