Most boats lifted

Interesting fodder for socio-economic arguments, especially in the wake of Katrina: a study of wages in California in the last 25 years found that the tech boom helped most workers -- except for the bottom 20 percent, since demand for lower-skilled workers went down.

Yes, a lot of restaurants and retail spurred by the boom do employ low-wage workers, but their wages remained flat; they have 5 percent less "purchasing power."