But JonL:
You're INSINUATING that all those dissappearing SALARIES (not wealth a big distinction) got STOLEN by the rich. When in reality, those jobs were lost to an international playing field getting leveled and a reluctance for Americans to prepare the economy for the "things that we can do better".. LOTS of blame in that game, little advantage for doing it.. The INSINUATION without a theory for the theft IS the class warfare game.
Fact is, the bottom 20% got to be UNDEREMPLOYED from where they were in the 70s. Let's think back.
That was BEFORE the desktop PC. How many secretaries, fileclerks, tech publications, accounting people, ect got DECIMATED by the COMPUTER? As a matter of fact take a close look at your graph. My 1st desktop was circa 1983. Do you see the decline from there? Look at the rightside graph from CarlV. There was a brief period between 79 and 82 before the decline of the bottom 40%tiles.
Did you even ponder the question of how to make cheap international labor irrelevent? Or do you just want to string up the top 1% tonight? That's why the stupid REPUBs are gonna whip your DEM asses in debate. Because they see OTHER contributing factors that DOMINATE the explanation for those curves -- and you guys don't. I'm trying to help keep the competition even here. Even give you an edge.
And CarlV: Your graph STOPS at 2007, the absolute historical peak of the US economy for a reason.. Someones' schilling that data for a political advantage. Take a peek POST 2008 and ask yourself. "am i crazy enough to lose 1/2 of everything I own every 10 years" or am i content to be on those less volatile curves that MOST of us all are on?