Why Concentration Of Wealth Is Important

I don't agree with all of his solutions, but I agree with Robert Creamer on Huffington that this is a huge problem. Without a wealthy middle class that feels middle class, there's no hope of smaller government:

"Commentators are prone to blame the sub-prime lending crisis for the current meltdown in the American financial system. No doubt it is the proximate cause. But there is a much deeper cancer that underlies the current crisis and the eight year long stagnation of American incomes: a massive increase in the concentration of wealth.

In the short term it is critical to staunch the bleeding and protect the pension funds, home values, and jobs of everyday Americans. But to cure the disease we need to return to a bottom up economic policy and encourages higher wages for average Americans and broadly shared economic growth. That will mean enacting tax policies that put money into the hands of the middle class and requires that the wealthy pay their fair share. It will require that we pass the Employee Free Choice Act that will make it easier to workers to organize and bargain with employers. It will require that we relearn the lesson that the "invisible hand" is not infallible -- that markets need rules, regulation and transparency or they inevitably veer into speculative excess. And most of all it will require that we make a national priority of reducing the inequality of wealth and power and recommit our country to fulfilling America's promise of becoming a truly democratic society."