[...] The facts are in--- much wealth has been taken from the middle and moved to the top 1% in the last couple of decades. I think it is a threat to the American way everyone boasts of. [...]
I dislike this erroneous characterization.
What you *can* say is that the *share* of wealth owned by the middle has moved to the top 1%, but that's not at all the same thing as saying that wealth has been "taken" from the middle class.
Basically what's happened is that for whatever reason, as the economy has grown, the growth has disproportionately benefited the wealthy. But that doesn't mean that anybody is worse off - some just haven't benefited as much.
I do agree that it's something that needs to be watched, but it's not the black and white "evil" that people make it out to be (in my opinion).
One thing that's good about it is that it reflects to a degree what makes this country great - there is huge opportunity here, and a significant number of the 1%-ers are first-generation. Take the highly visible ones, for example: Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, etc.
All of these people are contributing greatly to income and wealth inequality, yet are prime examples of social mobility and the opportunity for people to go from modest backgrounds to extreme wealth in one generation - something that I believe most of us would consider a good thing.
I believe that as the economy grows, inequality probably should grow to some degree, too. The reason is the "multiplier effect" - basically inordinately successful individuals have a larger base to pull their income from, which will tend to make things more top-heavy.
What would be bad is if this trend continues to too large a degree. If we see people actually losing out (not just losing "share"), this would definitely be a bad thing, and to some degree it may even be the case that some "rebalancing" would be good now, but it's not as cut and dried as many make it out to be.