Below (center pic) is a diagram representing the different annual income levels of all Americans in stacks of cash. At the very top are the super-rich (see the tiny box?). At the bottom are the poor and the 'middle-class' (see the little box in the lower corner?). Everything in-between is inhabited by various ranks of millionaire. Notice the little pink block at bottom left in the left-hand image? That's where 96% of Americans like you and me live. If you're like me, you never had any idea there was this much legal tender in the entire world-- much less just in America alone. Click to zoom in. Click to zoom in. That enormous mountain of cash sitting under them is what allows an unwelcome handful of the rich to buy up our politicians and our news media. Most of the rich are too busy enjoying their wealth to bother with such things, but the few who do can basically shape our world to their own ends-- perverse or otherwise. And so long as our government officials need their money to get elected, there's not very much we can do about it. The result is we're often woefully misinformed as to what's going on, and even if we manage to figure things out anyway, our votes are far less potent than they were decades before-- because no U.S. politician can get into high office these days without being beholden to some small cabal of wealthy people or several mega-corporations somewhere (in some European countries they've mostly solved this with public financing of elections). Note that these income numbers are only for rich families/households: they do NOT include much of what giant corporations have in their own separate coffers too, with which to deceive and manipulate us. Something else might be taken from these figures as well: that if the rich were taxed more, they'd be less able to command our government and news media as they do today-- and we might get far better quality representatives in government, and far more truth and accuracy from our media than is the case at present. For supporting references, please see: The super-rich, the 'plain' rich, the 'poorest' rich ...and everyone else What the rich do with their astonishing freedom from taxes How people get rich in America BACK to Newz&Viewz...