Forum Post: Too Much: Weekly Update

This past week has brought another splash of new data on the continuing good fortune of our wealthiest few. The income share of our richest, both in the United States and globally, turns out to be hitting several different all-time records.

Inconvenient truths like this complicate life mightily for some among us. Take, for instance, those think tank analysts who owe their employment to billionaires who see income gains at the top as far more cause for celebration than concern. The more dramatic these gains, the more inventive these analysts must become.

The analysts at the Cato Institute, an outfit the billionaire Koch brothers bankroll, are not shrinking from this challenge. To deflect attention off the top 1 percent, they've fixed on a bold solution. They're attacking the bottom 1 percent, endeavoring, as this delightful dissection of their new work details, to shift public attention — and anger — onto “freeloaders living large on our tax dollars.”

This approach once worked rather well, of course, for Ronald Reagan. But we live today in a far different world. More on this world in this week's Too Much.

Read More: http://www.toomuchonline.org/tmweekly.html