I’m curious. Why do so many middle-class Americans so vehemently defend the rights of the rich? It’s like they actually know these people. Or maybe they think that they, too, might join the ranks of the elite one day and are merely protecting their own futures. These minions of the wealthy have been duped into thinking that taxing the rich is somehow anti-American.

Factually, only since the Reagan era have taxes on the rich fallen, creating enormous income disparity. Let’s look at some numbers.

Between 1980-2007, households in the top 1/1000 income bracket saw their incomes rise 550%. The gains for the merely affluent (top 1%) rose 50%. During this time period, tax rates on these income tiers have fallen from a high of 90% in the 1960’s (yes, that’s correct – 90%) to a mere 35%. This is by far the largest DEcrease in taxes of any other bracket.

Contrast this with income increases for you and me. We’ve seen our wages increase less than 20% in almost 30 years. Our neighbors on the lowest income rung have seen incomes increase a mere 12%. Farmers have faced tax INcreases of 60%.

By 2007, the top 1% of earners in the United States took home almost 25% of ALL income. As in prior posts, I beg the question “Where is the trickle down”?? There is none. It’s a myth. Quit defending these people!

I’m not writing this as a result of envy or to suggest that we flatten income disparity simply because it’s not fair for one guy to have more than another. I’m writing this because those with money also wield an unfair advantage of power and influence in our supposedly free and democratic society. Concentrated economic and political power is hurting the majority and we’re reaching a breaking point. For the past 30 years, the super-rich have compounded their wealth 500 times over at the expense of the American commoners and they’ve done so because they’ve been able to win favorable government contracts, decrease their tax rates, and destroy all financial regulation of their businesses. This isn’t capitalism…it’s cronyism; it's corruption.

More striking about the data on inequality is the extent to which the incomes of the very rich are tied to the stock market, as opposed to actual economic products. Unlike the Gilded Age when hard-working entrepreneurs were building industries and cities, income increases since 1987 were largely due to the sale of assets back and forth. Sure, the Technology Revolution contributed some real economic growth, but the majority was just paper…just fluff…just financial engineering. Debt creating more debt. As Mohamed A. El-Erian, Chief Executive of Pimco, so succinctly stated, “You had wealth creation that could not be tied to the underlying economy. The benefits were very skewed: they went to the assets of the rich.” Um, not capitalism.

From my vantage point, I say tax the suckers. WE are the majority. Why are we allowing the top 1/1000 to run the show? Higher taxes on the rich means that they’ll need to find ways to reduce their taxable income…like through charities, scholarships, research centers, hospitals, and foundations. Ever heard of Carnegie Music Hall, Rockefeller Center, Vanderbilt University, the Ford Foundation? These are tangible examples of “trickle down”. And it only happens when the elite minority is controlled by the median majority. I think the founding fathers had in a mind a "Government for the people, by the people" not a "government for the elite, by the elite".