A Downton Abbey economy?

More trouble for the minimum wage – a congressional report says raising it to $10.10 would raise the incomes of 16.5 million people by 2016, but it could also throw half a million out of work altogether, or it could throw no one out of work. It’s another report that both sides can spin to their liking.

But what we do know is that most voters are hardly up in arms over the minimum wage. Indeed, they keep electing members of Congress who believe the government should keep its nose out of business’s business.

And a new study from Britain seems to explain why we haven’t gone all Ukraine over the country’s economic doldrums.

Two British economists surveyed lottery winners and compared their views before and after winning.

They found that winning a prize of 500 pounds was enough to make a Labour Party supporter 5 percent more likely to become a Conservative, and to believe that income distribution is just fine the way it is. And the bigger the prize, the more conservative people become.

So it doesn’t take much to make people side with the 1 percent.

Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers had the most colorful class warfare quote so far this week – warning that the U.S. is in danger of becoming a Downton Abbey economy.

But face it, Americans love that show, “Why don’t we have a party to cheer ourselves up?”- Mary

The Crawleys are very nice people, but their money hasn’t made them happy. All the fun is down in the kitchen, which is where we’ll all be working in a few years.