However, the extent of the decline is nonetheless striking: Today the 30 percent of households between the 40th and 70th percentiles of the income distribution hold 13 percent of all wealth, down from 19 percent over the past three decades (figure 4). The top 10 percent of households by income now own 57 percent of all wealth—up from 47 percent 30 years ago.
It’s ironic, isn’t it, that, instead of using sophisticated financial risk models to identify risks, “smart” people in the financial sector used these models to circumvent financial regulation. Remember the trend towards moving exposures off balance sheet? What about the way benchmark rates were manipulated, and separate legal entities were used in the shadow banking sector?