<HTML> Dear Doug and the LBOers, So far I've gotten to page 85 of  Galbraith the youngers book. Like Alec, I too wondered about the "unobserved skills" business.  I interpreted this as an allusion to social skills i.e. boot licking, apple polishing, butt smooching etc.etc.  Of course the more egregious types do it in public, so you couldn't call it unobserved. On page 49 Galbraith writes.  My thesis is that unstable economic performance---the external conditions that sometimes favor certain monopolistic groupings, sometimes others---is the main culprit that has fostered the rise of the new monopolies,...(gee whiz.) In general I like Galbraith's arguement about the "skills fallacy" and his use of the office tower analogy to describe the income strata.  Where he misses the mark is that both public and private studies and surveys have shown that we have one hell of a problem in this country with basic literacy and numeracy.  Basic task oriented stuff that people can't do.  There are millions of people out there who couldn't even find the basement of Galbraith's office tower. Sincerely, Tom Lehman    </HTML>