At the American Prospect, Sam Ross-Brown writes that the wealth gap is worse than we thought:
Over the past few months, Bernie Sanders has repeatedly declared that the top one-tenth of 1 percent of U.S. earners own nearly as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. That claim has drawn the skeptical scrutiny of PolitiFact, which attributed it to a study by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman late last year. PolitiFact’s verdict: Mostly True.
But a new study released Wednesday by the Institute for Policy Studies shows that Sanders is spot on—and that he may even be underestimating the nation’s yawning wealth gap. Not only do the top one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans own more than most Americans put together, but the nation’s top 20 richest people own as much wealth as the entire bottom half of U.S. earners. That’s a sliver about 15,000 times smaller than the already superrich one-tenth of 1 percent.
Put another way, the 20 individuals who possess more wealth between them than 152 million Americans can fit together comfortably inside one Gulfstream G650 luxury jet. And just who are these 20? Not surprisingly, the list includes the likes of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates; billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch; casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett. [...]
While previous studies, like the Saez-Zucman paper that bolsters Sanders’ claims, have used Federal Reserve data on household wealth to explore stratification, Wednesday’s report for the first time compares those figures with a much smaller group, namely the Fortune 400 annual list of the wealthiest Americans. That group has a combined net worth of $2.34 trillion, the study found, more than a full 62 percent of Americans—more also than the nation’s entire black population
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2002—The Bush administration is out of control:
Bush is enraged that—get this—UN weapons inspectors are not finding any hidden weapons.
The lack of a confrontation thus far between Iraq and inspectors has the White House worried that the Iraqi president might be winning the early public relations battle by creating an impression that he is complying. Aides said those fears prompted the president and Vice President Dick Cheney (news-web sites) to deliver separate speeches Monday casting doubt on Saddam's intentions.
How about this—if the Bush Administration has proof that Iraq is hidding weapons of mass destruction, then release this evidence! Otherwise, shut up. It's telling that the best the Bushies can do is whine.
On today's Kagro in the morning show: Gun rules? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Greg Dworkin rounds up polling, the media’s Trump dumping & Rubio vs. Cruz. Armando calls in to disagree with Greg, and preview his upcoming Sunday post on competing policy models for college tuition assistance.
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