At the beginning of every recession, there are people who see the downturn as an occasion for moral revival: Americans will learn to live without material extravagances. They'll simplify their lives. They'll rediscover what really matters: home, friends and family. But... The cultural consequences of recessions are rarely uplifting.

In his piece, Brooks posits that the last to achieve middle class status are likely to be the first to lose it during this downturn. Brooks says these people will form a new social class – the formerly middle class.

He writes:

Over the past decade, millions of Americans have had unprecedented access to affordable luxuries, thanks to brands like Coach, Whole Foods, Tiffany and Starbucks. These indulgences were signs of upward mobility. But these affordable luxuries will no longer be so affordable. Suddenly, the door to the land of the upscale will slam shut for millions of Americans.

And he suggests that old bromides such as how we'll all just stay home and snuggle our way through this recession – glued to happy Life According to Jim and King of Queens reruns – simply will not be true for families that are about to lose everything.

In Brooks' mind, this all adds up to much more than a loss of homes and jobs. Many people in the US are about to suffer a major loss of social identity... status symbols and a high place on the social ladder.

He suggests this:

These reversals are bound to produce alienation and a political response. If you want to know where the next big social movements will come from, I'd say the formerly middle class.

So, where does this leave us... where among a shrinking middle class trend do you find potent and new investible ideas?

One guess might be infrastructure plays... steel, cement, asphalt and lumber. Don't, however, run out and jump on them today.

But, should the US plan on New Dealing its way out of this crisis, then companies that make the stuff that fixes roads, repairs bridges or builds ethanol plants might be worth a serious look.

And, don't lose sight of this. Getting all crazy and bothered over the political or dead-economist implications of national programs aimed at stimulating the economy is one thing... getting so caught up in a self-righteous rant that you miss the investible moment is another thing altogether.