[Yarn]

All the CEO salaries put together are adrop in the bucket compared to the rise in govt proprtion of GDP

That may or may not be true, but irregardless of collectively how much CEOs rake in:

The wealthiest 1% of Americans earned 21.2% of all income in 2005, according to new data from the Internal Revenue Service. That is up sharply from 19% in 2004, and surpasses the previous high of 20.8% set in 2000, at the peak of the previous bull market in stocks. The bottom 50% earned 12.8% of all income, down from 13.4% in 2004 and a bit less than their 13% share in 2000.

- Income-Inequality Gap Widens - WSJ.com

- Image:Share top 1%.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So indeed it would seem that the data supports the commonly held belief that a reason why the middle class is working harder and getting the same amount of stuff despite great increases in its productivity and the economies income, is that the wealthiest individuals are absorbing a greater and greater percentage of the GDP. Globalization as well as Republican, taken to the extent to which it eventually was, corruption is much of what explains this reality.

Just in case you weren't already aware of this, we have an 8 year old regressive tax code.
- Our Regressive Income Tax | Middle Class Impact

The fact of the matter is also that market forces govern upper class incomes, which are greatly investment based, much less forcefully than they do lower class ones. Where the buck stops, there is not much that forces it to be efficiently distributed. So there is much greater incidence therein of people being overpaid, that is paid more than they need to be in order to keep doing their jobs. I think that ever healthy economy has ridiculously rich individuals. Nevertheless, I would say that we've taken things to an unhealthy extreme. In any market, there are only so many good investments to be made any particular time. Too much money was available to invest during the past 8 years, and the recessionistic consequences of bad investments are the cause behind this present global economic crisis. All of this piling in on housing. Unlike the internet bubble, this housing bubble, which is costing us much more, hasn't given us much of anything useful. I heard Bill Clinton argue that the government should have stifled the housing boom, and used the resulting revenue on alternative energy.

Mind you, I think that overall globalization is a good thing. And even in the median, it is probably good for the United States.

In the words of the man who wrote common sense, and who also is my avatar:

My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.

- Thomas Paine Quotes