$3.3 trillion collected in 2018, so well under 20% of taxes, and they made over 20% of gdp and control over 35% of all wealth/assets according to google.

In that 40 years, over $50 TRILLION has been transferred from the bottom 90% to the top 1%.

That equates to a person who now earns $35k earning $61k EVERY YEAR SINCE 75 (an extra $26k per year) had wealth inequality remained at levels we saw after ww2 until the mid 70’s…college educated professionals who make $70k are handing billionaires an average of $56k every year in lost earnings.

All these except nuclear war are happening now, and effecting first world countries too.
Food shortages, check.
Super bugs, check.
Climate change, check checkity check.
Massive migrations due to effects of climate change, double check.
Water shortages, check....ask a Californian.
Wealth inequality causing civil unrest, check.

Because we aren't living in Bartertown yet is no excuse to ignore reality. These things are currently happening around the globe, in third AND first world nations.
Here's one small example getting very little airtime....
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/10/five-pacific-islands-lost-rising-seas-climate-change

1. Even though I definitively know the world is beyond fucked at this point, I still think the scientists are not doing themselves any favours by making these "probably" scenarios rather than almost definite ones. As said, even though in some ways I'm looking forward to when the shit starts hitting the fan, I've lost faith in knowing when it'll actually start happening. It seems like every other week I'm told that "soon it'll really start to go all to shit". And it never really does, especially for 1st world countries.

2. Great Filter, Humanity. Humanity, Great Filter. Nice to meet you.

3. I'm beginning to want to start a pot of which terrible thing will happen first to 1st world countries (sadly, the beginning will be poor countries getting fucked and 1st world countries complaining that it now costs $30 for a single banana). Super bugs and catastrophic pandemics (maybe measles!)? Climate change? Nuclear war? Massive migrations of refugees who can't live where they are due to climate change or war? Water shortages? Wealth inequality that will implode on itself? There are so many terrible things on the precipice of happening that I don't even know what I'd bet on, honestly.

*sigh....passive aggressiveness from someone who keeps changing the argument is tiresome, ask your friends.

Your original statement ....""American wealth inequality is staggering. "
???? Stated as if that is a bad thing......."

Clearly indicating staggering wealth inequality isn't a bad thing.

Now..."I totally agree that EXCESSIVE wealth inequality is a bad thing",
so unless you misspoke, you must be parsing the difference between staggering (acceptable) and excessive (unacceptable)....but staggering >= excessive.

Wealth/income inequality are tied....and now who's being pedantic?

Well, I'm glad you aren't running the economy then, sadly the one most in control thinks the same, that one person making (not earning) >10000 times what another makes for < 1/10000 the work isn't inequitable, and neither is one person owning more than 10,000,000 average fully employed countrymen thanks to an accident of birth and/or criminal/dishonest business practices.

"The veracity of the statement has no bearing on the fact that you dismissed/questioned it first"

<Sigh> Pedantry is tiresome. Tell your friends.

My original statement had to do with my belief that wealth inequality is not a bad thing. It had little to do with OP's assertion that he foolishly sees current wealth inequality as "staggering".

"Forgive us if we take the words of economists, historians, reality, and our own senses over a random person's opinion. "

You are free to heed whoever pleases you. If you crave my
forgiveness, consider yourself forgiven.

"If that's not excessive, I have to wonder what could be in your opinion. "

I too have to wonder what "excessive" wealth inequality actually looks like. I don't think I have ever seen a large scale example. So, I'll just pull a number out of the air: under most distribution models, I would say that I consider a Gini coefficient of, say, .9 to be "excessive".

"My wife, head of her department for 10 years, working 45-50 hour weeks, makes $30k a year working like a dog....Warren Buffet makes >10000 times that much doing absolutely nothing...not excessive?!"

I thought we were talking about wealth distribution, not income distribution. Anyhow, to answer your question, the answer is "No", I do not consider that to be "excessive".

I think I just explained how that does nothing to address wealth inequality and leaves the poor paying the maximum percentage of income in taxes while letting the rich only pay a tiny portion, only the set sales tax percentage (on what they legally buy in the U.S. and report).
Your plan would probably have to set sales tax at near 50% (it's already over 10% with all the other tax revenues), meaning the poor, who spend all they make, pay >50% in taxes (and over 90% of all taxes with around 10% of all income), and the rich, who would spend <1% of their income taxably (I know that's not a real word) pay about 1/2%. Sounds like a great solution to wealth inequality, doesn't it?

The veracity of the statement has no bearing on the fact that you dismissed/questioned it first, and now agree. Your position changed....and so has your argument now from 'staggering wealth inequality isn't a bad thing" to ' wealth inequality isn't staggering'.
Forgive us if we take the words of economists, historians, reality, and our own senses over a random person's opinion.

Wiki- in 2014 the top wealthiest 1% possess 40% of the nation's wealth; the bottom 80% own 7%; similarly, but later, the media reported, the "richest 1 percent in the United States now own more additional income than the bottom 90 percent".[8] The gap between the top 10% and the middle class is over 1,000%; that increases another 1,000% for the top 1%. The average employee "needs to work more than a month to earn what the CEO earns in one hour"
If that's not excessive, I have to wonder what could be in your opinion. My wife, head of her department for 10 years, working 45-50 hour weeks, makes $30k a year working like a dog (at a job that is life and death for her customers, platelet donation, her department keeps our only local blood bank open as the only money making department, she doesn't make fries.)...Warren Buffet makes >10000 times that much doing absolutely nothing...not excessive?! Also, because he only pays taxes on what he spends, he pays less in taxes than we do.
Thpp!....Ack!

My position hasn't changed. Contrary to the assertion in the video and the summary, wealth inequality here in the US isn't "staggering", nor is it even remotely excessive.

Well, then your position changed 180 degrees from your original statement....so why the snark?
Or is "staggering" not "excessive" in your mind?

Dogboy49 said-
"American wealth inequality is staggering. "

???? Stated as if that is a bad thing.......

Yes, I totally agree that EXCESSIVE wealth inequality is a bad thing.

On a related note, drinking EXCESSIVE amounts of water is a bad thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication

The point was that excessive wealth inequality is a bad thing, so bad it has led to revolt in extreme cases, not so bad it causes a revolution every time.
You seem to be agreeing with that.
I'm glad we agree.

There are problems in the US that may eventually make the US more likely to fall into a revolution, but I doubt that the type of wealth inequality we have today is high on the list.

We have had a few riots in some of the larger cities. Poverty and lack of opportunity are definite contributors to these riots. However, these localized riots never seem to spread, even though we have the income disparities you mentioned. At least for now, I don't think we can expect a "French Revolution" type event to occur, even though there are quite a few millionaires and billionaires living within a few dozen miles of the poorest people.

Yes, widespread poverty, largely because of insane wealth inequality. (I'll elaborate if you wish) The rich had plenty to eat, and as the dismissive "let them eat cake" implied, had no concern for those who didn't. It was that disparity paired with the dismissal of the peasants plight by the ruling class that tipped a bad situation into civil war/revolt, imo.

Yes, poor are going hungry in the United States, maybe not starving to death often, but suffering to death from ailments caused by the only diets they can afford, which barely qualify as food. No, it's not to the extent of 1700 France, but we wouldn't tolerate anywhere near those conditions today, so that argument is ludicrous.

The real poor in America don't have roofs or electricity, where are these TV'S they're parked in front of exactly? The homeless problem is growing exponentially...those are the real poor surfs in this analogy, not just people like me who can live fine on $15k a year.

Nope. I am implying that in the late 1700's, the wealth inequality in France was combined with widespread poverty and starvation, and such conditions do not exist today in the US. The suggestion (Newtboy's) that we should fear a revolution today is unsupported. Back then, half of all children then died before the age of 10, many due to the famine they were experiencing. We just don't have the kind of poverty today in the US that the French peasants endured in 1780.

Yes, I have heard of the French Revolution. You seem to imply that the main cause was wealth inequality, but you have not offered any reason as to why you think that.

Many believe that the biggest contributor to the French Revolution was widespread poverty. Peasants were starving.

This condition does not exist today. Especially in the US, the poor are not suffering in the same way they were in France in the mid 1700's.

In France, it was necessary to riot in order to eat. Today's poor in the US have a hard time getting up from their TV sets.