income != wealth 2
here are some numbers from the irs (indirectly) to back up my claim that treating income and wealth as interchangeable is a grievous error. over the past 20 years all percentile groups saw their incomes grow by 1% to 2% per year. that trend pretty much holds back 40 years. net worth on the other hand grew by 1% to 3%. the bottom 25% saw their income grow by 2%. great right? well, no. simultaneously, their net worth only grew by 1%. the middle class (75% to 90%, odd but true) is in a similar situation. their income also grew by 2%. but their net worth grew by 1.5%. the income of the top 10% also increased by 2%. yet their net worth increased by 3%. to interpret this, the rich are getting richer. and it's not showing up in their income. the cheat factor is something like 50%. imagine. we could increase the government's tax revenue by a *trillion* dollars simply by closing this loophole. timmer for tax man.