Concentration of wealth

I saw an interesting article that said that the concentration of wealth is in the fewest hands since the 1930's - right before the great depression. It would appear that economically, this is bad for any country to have wealth so concentrated in so few people. If there were a billion dollars spread around so that 1 person had 900,000,000 dollars and the other million each had $100 dollars, the people one million people with the $100 would spend theirs quickly requiring $100,000,000 of goods and services. The rich guy would be unlikely to contribute significantly because he doesn't have to. Imagine that the billion dollars was spread more evenly so that everyone got $1,000 instead? People would spend more requiring more goods and services and they'd likely spend their $1000. That spending could create more jobs and more demands for goods and services.

Which leads to the idea that excessive wealth in society does not contribute to economic well being. People who are not wealthy probably spend just about all they earn so much of their money cycles through the economy over again. Wealthy people spend very little as a percentage of their income. There is no significant contribution to the economy in providing jobs.

I'm not suggesting everyone make the same amount of money. I do think that people are entitled to make money, but the government gets to tax it. The inheritance tax is another good thing that recycles money back into the economy for the good of the country. Middle class don't pay - just the very wealthy - and they only pay a portion of their estate. Tax Wall Street transactions, excessive CEO pay and carbon - all the things that we want less of.

Is there any accountability?

Who created the financial mess we're in?

The Fed? Creating low rates so people could borrow cheaply and put the money to work in other investments.

Congress? For deregulating banks. For not regulating derivatives. Can you say Enron loophole? That should have been closed when Enron collapsed. Why do banks have three regulatory agencies and why do the banks get to choose who watches over them?

FDIC? For not collecting insurance premiums during the good 'ol days. They need the money now.

Consumers? For borrowing and then spending the money and getting heavily into debt. Buy a bigger house, get a home loan to furnish it and be unable to pay it back.

Banks? For giving loans to everyone. For creating more exotic loan packages like negative amortization loans. For not verifying loan information. For thinking that housing prices only go up.

Insurance companies? (AIG) For backing derivatives and not backing it with capital thinking they'll never have to pay.

Wall Street? For naked short selling and spreading of rumors about competitors (Lehman, Bear Stearns) so they cannot get short term loans and collapse. For creating crappy investments from crappy mortgages and selling them as investment grade.

Bush administration? For starting wars, borrowing heavily to pay for it and keeping the spending off the books. And for doing absolutely no regulatory activity. Nada. Zip. Oh, and for not seeing the problem until after the election. OMG! There's a problem?

Rating companies? For marking so much crappy investments as investment grade.

Car companies? For producing crappy cars.

I'm sure I missed some people. Sad part is that very few of these problems will get fixed.