[chjohasbrouck]

Another interesting way to look at this is to look at what level of income equality people are advocating for, on a macro scale.

Most people making arguments against income inequality in the US seem to want income to be more equal down to and including themselves, but never very far below themselves. They want it to be equal within the US, but I have a hard time believing they'd be as excited to extend that same income equality worldwide. Doing so would see even the poorest Americans taking a massive cut in lifestyle and living at a level of poverty most people in this country have never seen or experienced.

[tjic]

Indeed.

It's striking that much of the OWS movement was made up of "the 2%" ... angry that they weren't in "the 1%".

First world, college educated people...who'd either picked the wrong majors, or didn't want to pay back their student loans, etc.

[carapace]

I don't know, I went down at looked at the camp in SF and it was homeless people, veterans, and lower-middle class folks living in tents. I don't recall anyone there who looked "2%".

[axlprose]

I don't think you can gauge that kind of thing very accurately by how people "look". Having occasionally meet a few people that would fall into the "1%" category myself, I can safely say that none of them "looked" like they were in their income bracket. Things people flaunt are more often a reflection of their spending habits rather than their earnings.