Close window  |  View original article  Why the Rich Get Richer
1  It takes surplus money to make money.  By Petrarch  | 
December 30, 2011  One of the favorite slogans of the Occupy
Wall Street crowd is, "We are the 99%!"  By this they mean that
they aren't in the super-rich 1% which, we are told, are the
only ones that have managed to increase their wealth or incomes
over the last few decades.  They don't really need a sign to
thus identify themselves, as a simple whiff would do just as
well.  Not for them Joe Biden's compliment of Barack Obama as
being "bright, articulate, and clean"!  However, the complaint
that "the poor get poorer, the rich get richer" has taken on a
very solid political reality; it's now all but received wisdom.
As this graph shows, there's a certain degree of truth to the
charge: the top 1% are indeed getting a larger total share of
national income, or at least were in 2007.  Now, that doesn't
mean everyone else has necessarily gotten poorer - national
income has increased far more,