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To the editor:
I have written about the dangers wealth inequality poses and I believe we have reached the tipping point.
Today, the richest 10 percent of Americans own 93 percent of the stock market, account for half of consumer spending and hold two-thirds of the nation’s wealth (the richest one percent alone own one-third). America has 19,000 private equity funds for investing and only 14,000 McDonald’s restaurants for dining.
Italian carmaker Ferrari, which caps production at 14,000 vehicles/year, has a higher market value than Honda which sold 1,430,577 vehicles in 2025. Billionaires own more than half the world’s largest media outlets and all the main social media companies. And, the Citizen’s United SCOTUS decision amplified trillionaire Elon Musk’s voice 5,000,000 times louder than that of an American of median net worth (~$192,000).
If your net worth is below $1.8 million and/or your annual household income is less than $210,000 (the top decile thresholds), you are irrelevant. The economy (GDP) has four components: consumption, investment, government spending and net exports.
Nine-in-ten Americans now share a half interest in consumption and have zero influence over the remaining three components.
Discontent among Americans with government and politics is fueled, in large part, by economic displacement due to wealth inequality. However, we are fundamentally divided over why our country is floundering and how to right the ship.
Conservatives are convinced the problems emanate from the bottom – welfare, food stamps, immigration from and foreign aid to poor nations. Progressives, like me, are equally certain that sustained supply-side policies – deregulation, flattened taxes and pro-business government actions placing profits over people – initiated by Ronald Reagan precipitated a major redistribution of wealth upward.
One thing is certain, if the working class doesn’t begin to act in unison, the United Oligarchs of America (UOA) will continue to marginalize us.
Joseph Cannisi
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