"Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households . . . Long-term problems include inadequate investment in economic infrastructure, rapidly rising medical costs of an aging population, sizable trade deficits, and stagnation of family income in the lower economic groups." – 2001 CIA World Factbook Profile for the U.S.A.

Rich Got Richer, Middle Class and Poor Got Poorer in the 1990s
The booming late 1990's appear to have left the middle class in the New York region and California no better off than it was a decade before, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data. The poor got a little poorer, the rich got a lot richer and the large group in the middle emerged slightly worse off than when the decade began.
The gap between rich and poor throughout the country inched wider during the 1990's. In Washington, D.C., for example, the average income of families in the wealthiest fifth of the population grew to 24 times the average in the bottom fifth, up from 18 times. – New York Times, 8/31/01


Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands ... The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions ... This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Albert Einstein - why Socialism

The depression began in late 1929 and lasted for about a decade. Many factors played a role in bringing about the depression; however, the main cause for the Great Depression was the combination of the greatly unequal distribution of wealth throughout the 1920's, and the extensive stock market speculation that took place during the latter part that same decade ... These market crashes, combined with the maldistribution of wealth, caused the American economy to capsize ... the rewards of the "Coolidge Prosperity" of the 1920's were not shared evenly among all Americans. According to a study done by the Brookings Institute, in 1929 the top 0.1% of Americans had a combined income equal to the bottom 42% ... Essentially what happened in the 1920's was that there was an oversupply of goods. It was not that the surplus products of industrialized society were not wanted, but rather that those whose needs were not satiated could not afford more ... More jobs were lost, more stores were closed, more banks went under, and more factories closed. Unemployment grew to five million in 1930, and up to thirteen million in 1932. The country spiraled quickly into catastrophe. The Great Depression had begun. The cause of the Great Depression

During the 'Reagan revolution' and the decade that followed the amount of wealth held by the richest one per cent of the American population soared from 22 per cent to the current level of 42 per cent. The origins of the overclass

U.S. jobless claims jump - CNNFN : "...the number of Americans out of work for more than a week hit the highest level in nearly a decade, the government said Thursday ... new claims for unemployment benefits rose to 488,000 in the week ended Nov. 24 ... Economists declared earlier this week that the United States fell into a recession in March ... the number of continued claims, or jobless people still looking for work, jumped to 4 million in the week ended Nov. 17 ... "Continuing claims numbers are very closely tied to unemployment, and they are skyrocketing..."

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