"Why does rising inequality matter?:
Oligarchy, American Style, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: Inequality is back in the news, largely thanks to Occupy Wall Street, but with an assist from the Congressional Budget Office. ... The budget office ... documented a sharp decline in the share of total income going to lower- and middle-income Americans. ...
So who is getting the big gains? A very small, wealthy minority.
The budget office report tells us that essentially all of the upward redistribution of income away from the bottom 80 percent has gone to the highest-income 1 percent of Americans. That is, the protesters who portray themselves as representing the interests of the 99 percent have it basically right, and the pundits solemnly assuring them that it’s really about education, not the gains of a small elite, have it completely wrong.
If anything, the protesters are setting the cutoff too low..., almost two-thirds of the rising share of the top percentile in income actually went to the top 0.1 percent..."at http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2011/11/paul-krugman-oligarchy-american-style.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EconomistsView+%28Economist%27s+View+%28EconomistsView%29%29
