I Hate What You Just Said

The current trajectory of wealth distribution in America must certainly be making this man proud. For the rest of us, The Nation has devoted its June 30 issue to the growing problem of profound inequality.

The handy “guide” to extreme inequality is filled with useful links.

And the piece titled “The Rich and the Rest of Us,” by John Cavanagh and Chuck Collins, is on the money (bad pun intended):

Over the past three decades, market-worshiping politicians and their corporate backers have engineered the most colossal redistribution of wealth in modern world history, a redistribution from the bottom up, from working people to a tiny global elite.

Indeed. And part of the problem is about changing the discourse:

To reverse this reckless course, we need to change our nation’s dominant political narrative and restore faith in the critical role that government must play to protect the common good. But we can’t stop there. We need to confront directly the threat posed by this inequality.

That won’t be easy. Too many Americans see the enormous concentration of our nation’s wealth as a symptom of a sick society, not a cause. Indeed, most of our politicians and pundits refuse to treat it as any sort of problem at all. They may sometimes bewail particularly unseemly CEO paychecks. They may twitter occasionally about the latest bilious billionaire extravagance. But that’s it. The Senate couldn’t even manage to eliminate a tax loophole for gazillionaire hedge-fund managers last year. And even progressive wish lists tend to call only for a return to pre-George W. Bush tax rates, a step that would undo a mere one-sixth of the rise in income inequality we have experienced since the late 1970s, according to the Brookings Institution.

(I seem to recall some other dude striking similar notes recently).

In any event, we best address our nation’s economic woes quickly. That way, we can get back to tackling the really serious issues, like the War. On Christmas.

These are not care-free times. Recession is in the air. Americans face not only soaring gas prices and foreclosures, but also a generalized sense of economic uncertainty.

And the startling growth in economic inequality in America is alarming. Like, you know, it’s eve-of-the-Great-Depression kind of alarming. Some of the trends:

The top one percent of households received 21.8 percent of all pre-tax income in 2005, more than double what that figure was in the 1970s. (The top one percent’s share of total income bottomed out at 8.9 percent in 1976.) This is the greatest concentration of income since 1928, when 23.9 percent of all income went to the richest one percent.

And:

Between 1979 and 2005, the top five percent of American families saw their real incomes increase 81 percent. Over the same period, the lowest-income fifth saw their real incomes decline 1 percent.

But this is no time to be a gloomy Gus! Why not focus on the good news?

From the Boston Globe:

The recession gripping the country has left a broad swath of Americans agonizing over $60 gas fill-ups, ballooning grocery bills, and homes lost to foreclosure. But for the region’s class of superrich, downtimes have made for a bonanza of deals on luxurious pleasures, from sports cars and yachts to pieds-a-terre and airplanes.

At the Rolls-Royce dealership in Wayland, the Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead is sold out into next year, and orders are still rolling in. Ferrari Maserati of New England in Foxborough notched more sales in April than in any of the previous 14 months. Boston Yacht Sales of Weymouth last week closed on three boats valued at a total of $1.6 million, helping to push business up by 9 percent over last year. Business has been so brisk at Shoreline Aviation in Marshfield that the wait time to purchase a sleek Cessna Citation jet is two years. Million-dollar condo sales, far from stalling like some other sectors of the real estate market, have continued at a pace about like last year’s.

How long before we actually become Brazil?