Welcome, friends, to another edition of Economic Update, a weekly program devoted to the economic

dimensions of our lives.

I'm your host, Richard Wolfe. In today's program, we'll be talking

about a new report from the U.S. Congress on the distribution of wealth here in the United States.

We'll also take a look at Germany's former leader, Angela Merkel, and what she has to say

about relying on Russian oil and gas.

We'll take a look at the immigrants being shipped to New York from Texas and Florida,

and the absurdity of what that's all about.

And finally, we'll participate in the enjoyment of Harvard University, once again,

exploiting its tax-exempt status and mocking the rest of us.

In the second half of the show, we will interview Nomi Prince, a well-known specialist on the

financial sector of the economy, journalist, and author. So let's jump right in. The report by the Congressional Budget Office,

dated September of this year, is called Trends in the Distribution of Family Wealth,

1989 to 2019. I mentioned the title only for those of you that might want to follow and take a look at this remarkable document about what happened to the wealth in this country, the United States, over the last 30 years up until 2019.

I'm going to begin at the end of this story, and you'll see why, as we go through it.

In 2019, here's how the wealth of this country stacked up in terms of who owned what.

At the top, the top 1%, the richest amongst us, together owned 33% of all the wealth in our society.

I'm going to do that again.

1% owned 33% of all the wealth, that stocks, bonds, cash, land, you name it,

put it all together, the top 1% control 33%. The top 10% of our people,

citizens of the U.S., own 72%. Let me do that again. The top 10% have three quarters of the wealth. And now let me jump down to the bottom half of the United States. The least wealthy, 50% of us. You know what we own together? The 50% of us at the bottom?

Get ready.

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