Obama Redistributing Wealth to the Super-Wealthy

For wealthy bankers and other well-connected cronies in the top 1% of the top 1%, the Obama years have been quite good indeed, and the billionares and nine-figure millionaires are eagerly snapping up the trophies of conspicuous consumption.

The wealth of the top 1 percent grew an average of 3.9 percent a year from 1986 to 2012, though the top one-hundredth of that 1 percent saw its wealth grow about twice as fast. The 16,000 families in that tiptop category — those with fortunes of at least $111 million — have seen their share of national wealth nearly double since 2002, to 11.2 percent.
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Demand for billionaires’ most coveted jet, the $65 million G650 from Gulfstream, is so strong that some G650 owners are now flipping their planes for millions of dollars in profit just months after buying them. Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One auto-racing promoter and billionaire, flipped his for about $72 million last fall — just weeks after he received it.

Sales of personal, V.I.P. jetliners are also strong. Boeing has received several orders from individuals for its 777-300ER (which normally carries 400 passengers) and its even bigger 747-800.

For decades, a rising tide lifted all yachts. Now, it is mainly lifting megayachts. Sales and orders of boats longer than 300 feet are at or near a record high.

With $85 Billion in borrowed and printed money a month blowing into the stock market, those who are in a position to catch some of that money are doing quite well. Meanwhile, at the other end of the income scale, news is not so good for people who make or build things for a living. the Middle Class is really taking a pounding in the chops under the leadership of ‘The Lightworker.’ and the “party of the working man.”

Since the Senate Democratic Class of 2008 took control, the average real income of the poorest one-fifth of American families has declined every year, falling to $15,534 in 2012 from $16,962 in 2008 (the 2013 data will be released Sept. 16). The average real income of the lowest quintile of Americans is now below the level it was in 1968, the year when the War on Poverty began its spending surge.

The next-highest income quintile, often referred to as the working class, has also experienced a continuous decline in real income since January 2009. The average income of these Americans has fallen 6.5% and is now $1,182 lower than it was when President Reagan left office.

The third quintile—America’s middle class—has seen its average income decline to $62,464 from $65,672. More than half of this decline has occurred since the recovery officially began in the second quarter of 2009

A cynic might wonder if Democrat policies are specifically designed to worsen income inequalities, while Democrat rhetoric is designed to reap political benefit from the growing inequality.