Is "the rich getting richer" a problem?

[richardhutnik]

Baalzamon said:

Lafiel said:

yea the problem is money has gravity, it atracts more money

market regulations and taxation has to keep that in check, because too much money accumulating on some few individuals is bad for the rest

Why is that bad for the rest (Outside of the fact that money buys corruption)?

People say stuff like this all the time, but can never provide any definitive proof.  Prove to me with a definitive argument that people are legitimately worse off when money continues accumulating more and more on a select few (which is actually quite a bit...1% is 3 million Americans).  Prove to me that without this money as it is now, people would somehow be better off.

I took about 5-10 minutes to google here to try to come up with some answers, which is connected to the subject here.  I can go and post something on the Huffington Post here, and will.  Apparently a report out of the IMF speaks of how increased income inequality can slow down economic growth:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/20/income-inequality-economic-growth_n_969933.html

There are numerous other ones also.  If you point here is to try to persuade people that it isn't a problem, please go and find some evidence it isn't.  But, apparently there is information out there on this. 

And this is the IMF article:

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2011/09/Berg.htm

 

The Gini Coefficient is one measure that this looks into.  Are you seriously looking for answers or just want this issue to go away?