Are 400 Equal to 180 million?

According to Forbes Magazine, in 2009, the 400 richest individuals in America had a combined net worth of $1.27 trillion dollars. That is more money than the bottom 60% of all American households! To put that in raw numbers, 400 Americans have more wealth than 180 million Americans combined! Is it just me, or is there something horribly wrong with this statistic??
 

To further elaborate on the growing wealth disparity that is occurring in this country, here is an excerpt from Edward Wolff, a Professor of Economics at New York University.  He is the top academic expert on economic inequality in the U.S.

"A somewhat rough update, based on the change in housing and stock prices, shows a marked deterioration in middle-class wealth. According to my estimates, while mean wealth (in 2007 dollars) fell by 17.3 percent between 2007 and 2009 to $443,600, median wealth plunged by an astounding 36.1 percent to $65,400 (about the same level as in 1992!) ... Trends in inequality [from 2007 to mid-2009] ... show a fairly steep rise in wealth inequality ... The share of the top 1 percent advanced from 34.6 to 37.1 percent, that of the top 5 percent from 61.8 to 65 percent, and that of the top quintile from 85 to 87.7 percent, while that of the second quintile fell from 10.9 to 10 percent, that of the middle quintile from 4 to 3.1 percent, and that of the bottom two quintiles from 0.2 to -0.8 percent."

Note: a "quintile" is 20% of U.S. households, so the the middle and bottom two quintiles include 60% of U.S. households.

The Economic Cookie Anecdote‏

You may have heard this little anecdote floating around in light of the attack on worker rights around the Country over the past few weeks:

A union worker, a tea partier and a CEO have 12 cookies. The CEO takes 11, then says to tea partier, "Look out for the union guy, he wants a piece of your cookie."

Well, here is my expanded rendition:

The taxpayers bake 20 cookies, the CEO claims to have baked at least half the cookies, (but in reality only he only baked 2 or 3).  A military general and security contractor step up and take 13 cookies (64% of the U.S. discretionary budget), and the CEO says that the economy will tank unless he gets at least five of the remaining cookies. A teacher, nurse, police officer, fire fighter, park ranger, food inspector, infrastructure contractor, social services worker and a myriad of other people who work to keep America running are left to split the last two cookies.  The news media then gets the Tea Partier all fired up by claiming the last two taxpayer cookies were wasted, the workers have ruined it for everybody, and that at least one and a half cookies should go back to the taxpayer so they only need to bake 18.5 cookies next year.

Roe v. Wade

In recognition of the recent anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, let’s all take a moment to think about the concept of individual freedom. While abortion is a very divisive topic, we can all agree that America was founded on the tenants of liberty and self-determination. In honor of our Country’s founding principals, let’s continue to fight for improving the way we care for our mothers and our children and making abortions less necessary, but let’s also fight for preserving the right of every woman to having a choice over her own well-being and livelihood.