Driving up from Baltimore one day I found myself tuned into one of those radio call-in talk shows. You know the ones. People call in to have their lives straightened out in less than a New York minute.

To kill a few hundred miles, I thought I would eavesdrop on a few words of wisdom.

A young man called in seeking financial advice for his recently laid off father who happened to be a skilled mechanic. The host of the radio program sounded like he was going to wet himself with excitement and repeatedly told the caller that his dad was in the cat-bird…