Rise of the Super-Rich Hits a Sobering Wall

It seems that the super-rich aren't so super-rich anymore, which doesn't really bother me. What bothers me is what the rest of the article says about tax rates and income levels.

Since 1980, tax rates on the affluent have fallen more than rates on any other group

I guess that's great - for them.

In 2007, the top one ten-thousandth of households took home 6 percent of the nation's income.... [t]he top 1 percent of earners took home 23.5 percent of income

So if the US GDP in 2007 was $14,264,600,000 (that's 14.264 trillion dollars) and the top 1% of earners took home 23.5% of income, the top 1% took home $3.352 trillion dollars? Is that what this is saying?

Let's look at what this means worldwide. If the world's total GDP in 2007 was $60,689,812,000 (again, in trillions of dollars) and the top earners in the US took home $3.352 trillion of it, they took home over 5% (5.52346578%) of the world's income...

Am I getting this right?

Take a look at what the NY Times article has to say about income tax, the gulf between the rich 1% and the 99% of us not-so-rich, and how income tax rates have affected the size and affluence of the middle class, especially since the '80's.

Links:

www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/business/economy/21inequality.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)