It’s the Top 0.1%, Stupid!

Occupy Wall Streeters may think of the top 1% as filthy rich. Most are merely overachieving professionals and executives. For truly fat cats, Look to the top 0.1%. And even higher.

Top 1% = $368,238 (20.9% of income)
Top 0.5% = $558,726 (16.8% of income)
Top 0.1% = $1,695,136 (10.3% of income)
Top 0.01% = $9,141,190 (5% of income)

The graphic accompanying this NY Times article shows today's one percenters to be salary and bonus rich, in contrast to the dividend collectors of the 1920s. Note the greatest income disparities existed back in the Gilded Age: "In the late 1890s, when the average American worker’s weekly wage was less than $10, John D. Rockefeller was earning about $192,000 a week."

Will a growing desire to "soak the millionaires" doom any chance of sensible tax reform and simplification?