The great balancing act........................

As painful job losses wiped out a huge swath of America's "middle class," life in much of the "third world" has improved:  
"The same machine that has increased inequality in rich countries has leveled the playing field globally for billions. Looking from afar, and giving, say, an Indian the same weight as an American or a Frenchman, the last 30 years have been among the greatest in human history for improving the lot of the poor."
-Kenneth Rogoff, as excerpted from here
thanks Greg