One key insight into these very high income households is they do best in bubble booms, like the 1920s where they controlled up to 45 percent of net worth, and the 1990s and 2000s, where they reached closer to 40 percent (although some studies found their assets reaching as high as 45 to 47 percent in recent peak years). (See Figure 1-18.)

His last sentence was important. It was a new economy. The biggest difference between the economy of the 1945–1973 period and that of the 1982–2000 period was that the same amount of growth found its way into totally different pockets. You’ve probably heard these numbers but they’re worth rehashing. The Atlantic writes: Between 1993 and 2012, the t

This is borne out by the numbers. From 1990 to 2002, household income ranged from 64 percent of GDP to 72 percent of GDP. It peaked in 1992, before a tremendous bout of inflation in 1993 and 1994 brought it down, and then began a slow, erratic descent to 66 percent in 2002, after which time it plunged to under 50 percent of GDP, if the numbers can