The Rise Of The Oligarchs In The U.S.

Homeless gets ready to spend the night on a sidewalk two blocks from the White House in Washington, DC, in this December 15, 2009 file photograph. REUTERS/Hyungwon Kang

Josh Hoxie, Reuters: If the answer is $2.3 trillion, can you guess the question?

Just how large is the gap between the wealthiest Americans and the typical U.S. family? Here’s one way to think about it: the richest 400 people in the United States together possess more wealth than over 60 percent of the country, a striking 194 million people and more than the populations of Mexico and Canada combined.

A new report that I co-authored, Billionaire Bonanza: The Forbes 400 and the Rest of Us, provides a window into the world of the uber-wealthy and explores the widening gap. I propose a bold set of policies to reduce this gap, both by taxing the top and investing in broader opportunity for the rest of the country.

WNU Editor: What bugs me about the current situation/system is having the uber-wealthy preach to us on why we need to pay more taxes, and live a lifestyle with less .... while they themselves go out of their ways to avoid taxes and to maintain a lifestyle that we can only dream about. I have no problems with people becoming billionaires .... my cousins in Russia are working like hell and dreaming to become just that in Russia .... but I do have a problem when these oligarchs use their wealth to influence government policy to take more of my wealth, while sheltering their own. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffet, Michael Bloomberg .... to name a few. These oligarchs .... and that is who they are .... may enjoy an "untouchable" status today, but if trends continue, there has been precedents where they can easily lose this status overnight. Case in point .... when Russian President Putin went after the oligarchs in the 1990s everyone predicted his demise ... but he persevered much to the surprise of many of these (former) greedy and corrupt mega-billionaires.