In case it hasn't been written already...

There's this saying that the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer.

Wrong.

In terms of gold, gdp peaked in 1970, or thereabouts.  Since 1970, everybody has been getting poorer.  If the rich were really doing so well, they'd be pulling up total gdp, but that isn't happening. If the rich made all the money, and were getting richer, it would be reflected in that number.  That's the math.

To illustrate, let's say you had a kingdom of 100 people.  The 1% is just 1 guy.  Also, there's a thousand gold pieces to go around.  After 40 years, there's still only 1000 gold pieces around.  Maybe his share has gone up a bit, but there's still only 1000 pieces of gold.  Maybe the rich guy added a few more pieces to his pile, but the total number of pieces are the same.

In other words, its a zero-sum kingdom.  Slow growth or no growth is zero sum.  This is the kind of world the left wants because it justifies redistribution of wealth.  Like Obama says, "spread the wealth around".  If that one guys gets everything, it is perceived as unjust, and so that gives society the right to confiscate his wealth and give it to the 99%.

But there's no acknowledgement that we really are in a zero growth situation as this mythical kingdom.  We are told that the economy is growing, but in truth, it isn't really.  Most of that is the smoke and mirrors of statistics.  The government keeps fudging the statistics in order to fool us into thinking that we have a growing economy.

Instead of a zero sum economy, or fake growth economy, we should seek a real growth oriented economy.  The real growth would justify unequal distribution.  Those at the top would be earning their position there.  When there was real growth in the economy, everybody, including the rich, got richer.  But such is not the case today.  The zero growth or limits-to-growth people are in charge and that's what's holding us back.  As a consequence, you will see more and more of those at the top getting targets placed upon them.  We aren't in a revolutionary mode yet, but we are getting there.  Wealth confiscation is coming.  Unless something changes to bring back growth, there's no stopping it.