Soak the Oligarchs!

Did anyone read the NYTimes article today "Graduate vs. Oligarchs?" Excerpt:

"So being in the top 10 percent of the income distribution,
like being a college graduate, wasn't a ticket to big income gains.

But income at the 99th percentile rose 87 percent; income at the 99.9th
percentile rose 181 percent; and income at the 99.99th percentile rose 497
percent. No, that's not a misprint.

Just to give you a sense of who we're talking about: the nonpartisan Tax
Policy Center estimates that this year the 99th percentile will correspond
to an income of $402,306, and the 99.9th percentile to an income of
$1,672,726. The center doesn't give a number for the 99.99th percentile, but
it's probably well over $6 million a year."

You can download the academic paper on which these data are based from:

www.brookings.edu/es/commentary/journals/
bpea_macro/forum/200509bpea_gordon.pdf

I haven't read all 106 pages yet, but it's pretty interesting so far. They are basically saying that our tax system is totally skewed toward super-star athletes and big corporate CEOs, and recommend a modest increase in the upper tax bracket from 33% to 50%. As they put it, this likely won't cause Tom Cruise to stop making movies... (too bad!)