All hail the upper crust: as one economist sees it, we should all invest in luxury stocks.

Every once in a while, someone advances a theory that should strike terror into the hearts of all sentient beings. Just such a theory was recently set forth by economist A. Gary Shilling in his Forbes column. In it, Shilling, president of an economic consulting and investment advisory firm that bears his name, argued that because the United States is rapidly dividing itself into two nations--one rich, one poor--investors should stop buying stock in companies that cater to the masses. This seemingly glamourless category embraces everything from appliance manufacturers to mass-market retailers to automotive companies. Instead, savvy investors should put their money into companies that sell luxury cars, fabulous yachts and miraculous vacations--or companies that supply the congenial menials who clean up after the people who buy these goods.

Shilling's comments are particularly relevant at a time when the Bush administration is proposing a massive overhaul of the Social Security system. One of the most divisive issues is whether taxpayers should be allowed to invest a portion of their savings in personal retirement accounts. It is no secret that most of the taxpayers who will depend on Social Security checks during their golden years are members of the cash-strapped, credit-addicted classes who buy all the mass-market merchandise that Shilling views as an investment dead end. Thus, if we follow his thesis through to its conclusion, poor Americans can best cushion themselves against economic misfortune by investing in companies that make products that people like them could never afford. Only by investing in companies that make yachts or build turreted castles or design $500,000 cars can poorer investors ensure they will still have enough cash lying around during their retirement years to shop at the Dollar Store, Merv's House of Affordable Sundries or Downscale & Sons.

Opponents of President Bush's Social Security overhaul argue that ordinary Americans lack the expertise to invest their retirement money wisely. This argument is noteworthy here, because if Shilling is correct, less well-heeled investors should never invest in companies that make products for losers like them, but should stick to companies that build yachts and racecars. But we have no way of knowing whether low-income investors are sophisticated enough to grasp this concept. What is most worrisome here is that ordinary Americans, partially because they lack this vital expertise in the investment arena, and partially because of lingering class resentment, will avoid investing in yachting empires and manufacturers of private airplanes and instead pour their hard-earned cash into dead-end companies that make low-margin products for pathetic riffraff like them. This could accelerate the division between the two Americas, leaving one tiny nation of smart investors who either own yachts or at least have the good sense to invest in companies that make them, and one enormous nation of penniless vagabonds forced out into the street because they were too unsophisticated to invest in yacht makers while they could still get in on the ground floor.

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Personally, I find Shilling's arguments extremely persuasive, so much so that I am actively encouraging everyone I know to dump their holdings in companies that provide goods and services for the Great Unwashed and instead channel all their disposable income into companies that sell exotic perfumes at $40,000 an ounce. Alas, many of my friends and colleagues refuse to listen to reason. Seduced by a sentimental attachment to companies that make economy cars or computers or clothing or cookies, they refuse to make the switch to a portfolio consisting entirely of publicly traded yacht makers and upscale pet grooming services. Many are reluctant to desert old investment standbys because they have stood by them in such good stead over the years, while others resent the whiff of class warfare that can be detected, however subtly, in Shilling's thesis.

Frankly, I am astonished that months and months after Shilling's column first appeared, a firestorm has not yet erupted. When I first read the essay, I expected Shilling to encounter high dudgeon, the opprobrium of the chattering classes or, at the very least, knee-jerk, bleeding-heart tirades in The New York Times. So far, this epidemic of rancor has failed to materialize. As far as I can tell, Shilling's provocative essay has been greeted with almost unanimous silence. I can only assume that this is because Shilling is an economist, and no one can remember the last time a famous economist got anything right.