Richest Enjoy Almost All Income Gains in 2010

A growing issues for middle class voters has been their weakening economic position over the past decade. Income inequality isn't the result of smarts or ambition or "winners" winning, as Rethug plutocrats would have it. It's a result of people and corporations with economic power who can rig the economic system to their exclusive benefit. It's everything from tax loopholes and rates, to subsidies, to regulations (or lack thereof). As billionaire Warren Buffett said in 2006,

"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."

Now, we have data that shows that in 2010 the richest 1% accounted for 93% of the nation's income gains. When, as a corporation or an individual, you have the financial means to hire lobbyists and tax accountants by the boatload -- and most important, to fund the campaigns of right-wing politicians -- the result is a reverse-Robin Hood economic system. It has to stop in order for the middle class to survive and prosper.