Billionaire Schwartzmann doesn't consider himself wealthy

Ah, the Wall Street Journal. Seems that they feel there's some resentment out there that all of America's increase in wealth (and then some) over the last quite a few years has gone to the richest few while the majority have been steadily losing financial ground. They perceive this feeling as jealousy when in fact it's anger over the inequity and unfairness of forced wealth redistribution.



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The above graph is quite interesting when you consider that for the bottom three groups over those 35 years hours worked per person increased significantly, the number of 2-earner households increased dramatically, and the relative cost of basic necessities increased (especially health care), yet the income lines are nearly flat. This means that in from 1967 to 2003 the middle and lower classes have effectively become poorer while the top bar graph illustrates how much filthier the filthy rich have become.

And if that's not depressing enough, consider that the trend has accelerated since 2003.

Ponder all of this the next time you hear the far-right argument that lowering taxes on the rich is good for you.

The U.S. has 432 billionaires at last count, a bit less than half of the world's 946, who have a combined net worth of $3.5 trillion. In 1982 there were 13 billionaires in the U.S. of A.

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A billionaire fun fact: the greatest concentration is in New York, no surprise, followed by Los Angeles, not too surprising, with Moscow (!!!) in third place. I would have guessed London or Tokyo or even Dubai.
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Anyway, back to the WSJ article....

Don't read this if you have a blood pressure problem:

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2008/02/05/billionaire-schwarzman-im-not-wealthy/