The new Gilded Age
A couple weeks ago, a POLJUNK commenter asked how to define "wealthy." I think the New York Times gives an adequate definition in The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age:
Only twice before over the last century has 5 percent of the national income gone to families in the upper one-one-hundredth of a percent of the income distribution — currently, the almost 15,000 families with incomes of $9.5 million or more a year....Such concentration at the very top occurred in 1915 and 1916, as the Gilded Age was ending, and again briefly in the late 1920s, before the stock market crash. Now it is back...
It would be hard to argue that those people are not filthy fucking rich.
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Comments
I've had this idea for a while that the Republican Party is really dedicated to returning our society to a state of feudalism. The modern version would have old-money families and select corporations as the centers of economic and political power in lieu of a series of actual kingdoms, but the net effect would be similar - they would own all of the property and means of production and the rest of us would be reduced to wage-slaves. Hence their hatred of wealth redistribution.
The Republican dream is to crate a South American-style banana republic. They're well on their way.
Posted by: Jude | July 16, 2007 9:23 PM