From the year 2000, it is interesting to see how already the wealth gap of the U.S. lead the planet as noted in this graph...
Taken from this page:
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2008/01/22/inequality-among-affluent-nations/But WHAT ELSE is interesting is note which countries immediately follow the U.S. in having more of a wealth gap than the rest of the companies on the list... What do they all have in common?
Hmm... WHICH countries RECENTLY have had recent huge economic problems and have been going through austerity measures that have made things worse.
2. Portugal - yes
3. Spain - yes
4. United Kingdom - yes
5. Ireland - yes
6. Italy - yes
The rest of the countries (Greece isn't in this list) all have economies that are a lot better off.
I wonder if there's a connection! Might be worth researching. And that it started over 10 years ago makes it that much more interesting.