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unhinged
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of wealth inequality from the book 'under the affluence: shaming the poor, praising the rich and sacrificing the future of america'
' as of 2014, the four hundred wealthiest americans were worth $2.3 trillion. this is more than double what the same group was worth a decade ago, $300 billion more than what they were worth just *one year earlier*, and $600 billion more than in 2012. the average member of the forbes 400 now has 70,000 times the wealth of the typical american family, no doubt because they have worked *exactly* 70,000 times harder or are *exactly* 70,000 times smarter.
as of 2013, the wealthiest thirty people in the united states owned $792 billion worth of assets, which was the same amount owned by the poorest half of americans: about 157 million people in all.
from 2011 to 2014, nine of the wealthiest people in america - bill gates, warren buffet, mark zuckerberg, the two koch brothers and the four principal walton heirs - gained an average of over $13 billion from capital gains on pre-existing assets. these gains did not flow from new work on their part, nor an increase in their personal productivity or particular genius. they weren't working more hours, and they didn't come up with some new and innovative technological breakthrough in that time. they simply owned a bunch of stuff, and over a three-year period that stuff became more valuable because of gains in the stock market. considering that the median income for american workers is $51,000 in 2013, it would take a quarter of a million years - which is about 50,000 more years than humans have even existed - for the typical american to earn as much as the average capital gain earned by these nine people just since 2011.' - tim wise
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