Is the Middle Class Disappearing?

From the zerohedge blog. Read the whole thing.

I don't consider myself a class warrior - successful people deserve their rewards; they have earned it (at least that's the way it used to be). It's the risk-reward dynamic that fuels a healthy economy and lifts our standard of living.

But I think it's legitimate to ask whether or not we are rewarding the right activities appropriately and whether or not the link between risk and reward have been broken.

The same article at zerohedge points out that the CEOs of the top-20 recipients of bailout money made more money, on average, than the CEOs of the S&P 500. I cannot see the logic in rewarding the CEOs of companies that are failing (and taking us with them) more richly than the CEOs of companies that (for the most part) are getting by.

In 2007, the year for which figures are available from the Federal Reserve Board, the richest 1% of U.S. households owned 33.8% of the nation’s private wealth. That’s more than the combined wealth of the bottom 90 percent. (from zerohedge)

The increasingly lopsided distribution of wealth is dangerous. I don't think the US, as we know it, can exist with a rapidly increasing (and more desperate) lower class and a disappearing middle class.

One cause of the Great Recession may be that reality is catching up with the middle class: we ain't worth what we used to be.