The richest 1% of Americans now own well over 40% of their nation's wealth. 

 These disparities are, of course, not solely the work of the Bush administration.
 The economic division of the country has been under way for 20 years. After a
 long period of levelling incomes and wealth after the second world war, inequality
 began to rise exponentially from 1980, driven principally by the boom in stock
 prices and the decline in unions. 

 In the view of Kevin Phillips, an economic historian and the author of a history
 of America's rich, Wealth and Democracy, you have to go back more than 100 years
 to find an era when big money and government were in such a tight embrace. 

 "It's the second plutocracy after the gilded age," Mr Phillips said.
 "Laissez-faire is a pretence. Government power and preferment have been used
 by the rich, not shunned. As wealth concentration grows, especially near the
 crest of a drawn-out boom, so has upper-bracket control of politics and its
 ability to shape its own preferment."

 Julian Borger
 Wednesday November 5, 2003
 The Guardian 

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1077949,00.html

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