Has America become an oligarchy?

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by tater

Two, and this is critical, IMHO, "wealth" is very hard to measure in a way that is meaningful for comparing people's lives, particularly compared across time.

It's absolutely irrelevant. The poor of today live better than the poor of the 1890s, and the poor of the 1890s lived better than the poor of the 1690s, and they lived better than the poor of 2000 BC. But what's that tell us? Absolutely nothing of the gap between the richest and the poorest today, which is the entire point. If a rising tide lifts all boats, then why are some boats rising faster than others? How the poor lived 100 years ago is irrelevant to the discussion.