We’ve got 99 problems, but income inequality ain’t one

Everyone is painfully aware that the proportionate income of the richest Americans is growing. Like a cancerous tumor, the wealth of America’s elite threatens to envelop us all. As their collective fortunes reach critical mass, the moral fabric of our society will tear apart, fire and brimstone will fall from the sky, machines will rise up against the human race, and Nicki Minaj will be the last cultural legacy of humanity.

Or maybe not.

Unfortunately, the dystopian visions enthusiastically broadcast from Zuccotti Park by the Occupy Wall Street movement present a distorted picture of this economic trend. True, the income of the top one percent has increased steadily from roughly 10 percent of the total national income in 1985 to 17 percent in 2009.