Richest 400 Americans just got richer?

So you are saying it can still be done.

What's your excuse.

Every time there is any kind of political/financial/credit/banking crisis it is an absolute guarantee that the rich and powerful will come out of that crisis richer or more powerful or probably both; whereas the middle class/worker/poor will be more downtrodden.

Only when the middle class realise how they are continually conned by those who they see as their superiors (i.e the rich and powerful) will things change.

The problem, essentially, is that the middle class aspire to being rich and powerful whereas the rich and powerful are content to stay that way and will do all in there power to ensure that as few middle class as possible become rich and powerful.

I knew there would be a BEN out there answering "are you jealous"....

lol

Ben, at which point does it become a matter or right and wrong for the entire country ..the entire society..at which point is too much too much for the top elite and few rich.....and how little is too little of the pie that for the rest is too little?

your answer about jealousy is tantamount to reasoning at the level of a kindergardner...saying that criticizing those who are super rich or the system that allows them to get so rich while everyone else suffers is jealousy.

It is plain moronic to think at that level. Even you must admit that there has got to be some threshold some line that once crossed is too much...so I would love for you to dig your head out of the sand for a moment and tell me what that line is for you.........

And 95% of all money earned during the recovery also went too the 1%, yet there's still people calling you jealous for pointing out just how messed up this is. It's all about wallstreet and shares though, the ultra wealthy own a majority of shares and all profit is owned by shareholders not the people that work.

Therefore the richest basically steal the gains of the labor and make it their own. Welcome too a non union business interests first inequality driven economy.

Yup -- And because there happen also to be democrats and 'contributing' liberals

in the ranks of American billionaires, the loopholes are only for those who wish

to trip over them.

They are simply for 'show' -- and too much like a successful policy for obama to pass.

this goes on when the experts are telling us that the govt will soon fail and will take private pensions and personal bank accounts just to survive. makes me ill. let's keep giving the private banks the $85B/month, I'm sure they like it. ship of fools.

Yeah, and guess who is paying for it?.....the end consumer.......me, maybe you and probably most of the above answerers, and would explain why my insurance premium went up 17% last year for no valid reason. It's almost criminal what this 1% makes at our expense.

No, it makes me feel unhappy.

and of course the Paul-bots all scream "damn that George W Bush!" (altho at SOME point the idiots who vote for the Leftists HAVE to get it thru their thick skulls that higher taxes on the rich do NOT benefit the poor!)

Not as good as our friends to the south feel about Carlos Slim who is only richer because the only charities he gives to are one to keep his country a drug paradise

Your numbers are TOTALLY MEANINGLESS because you did not include the effect of monetary inflation.

The value of their holdings may have increased by 19% (dam near impossible) but if inflation for that same time period was 25% then the value of their holdings DECREASED by 6%.

Yes it makes me feel good. It shows people are prospering.