So then, the obvious and only answer is higher taxes on the wealthy, right?

That is my problem with the article. It only throws a few ideas around about how the rich are getting richer, and how they are ripping off the average person. The only way to fix this, from what I can gather in the article provides, is taxation.

So I must ask you: Is taxation the only way to solve our problems? Personally, I don't believe that re-distributing incomes and wealth is going to make America any better. Our real problem has to do with economic mobility - going from poverty or middle class to upper class. We see that jobs typically correlate with the degree of education one has - not just degrees, but the general quotient of the populace. Furthermore, if you look at the increasing living standards of the recently-developed countries, you don't find that their ascention was due to taxing the rich, but through providing a system to where people could achieve financial results for themselves through fair regulations, a good education system, and a tax system that wasn't burdensome. For example, look at Chile and South Korea - both have come out of 2nd-world economic wastes into great economies in a matter of just a few decades.

Education, I fear, is where America, quite franky, sucks. And a larger tax burden does litterally nothing to fix that. Our problems lie more with the problems of our education system, and how we raise Americans, than it does with how much we tax people. The rest of the world is getting smarter, while we have stagnated for decades now. That results in an uneducated, lazy, populace that can do no better than menial jobs, with lower productivity.

I'm from the UK so I don't know all the ins and outs of American politics and law, but I agree that taxing the super-rich never seems to work. They always find loopholes or just move to tax havens.

However, thinking long-term I don't think it's only education that needs to be looked at. In the UK for instance, lots of people are well educated, but there just aren't enough jobs for them and there is nearly always someone with more experience competing for those same jobs.

If more effort went into supporting smaller businesses and start-ups then social mobility should theoretically increase for everyone. Giving tax breaks to start-ups, having extra funds for small bussinesses (especially those that will require a decent labor force) should help to create more jobs and entrepreneurs which means larger amounts of money through tax. The US might already have systems in place but but greater emphasis whould lead to more social mobility in the future.

When I say education, I don't simply mean degrees or the like, but the actual intelligence of the citizens.

America....For lack of nicer words....Is filled with unintelligent, short-sighted people. Its not the number of people we send to college, but its the intelligence of our people. Simply looking at our science and math scores would show you how bad we are.

I think that such abilities translates not so much to degrees, but the average ambition of a person - the will to do better, and fight for a better quality of life. I think the reason that CEOs and the super-rich 'take advantage' is simply because they are unchecked not by the government, but by their workers and shareholders.

If we can instill more discipline and base education in Americans, I think we'd see a lot of the problems go away. But for most people, scapegoating something easy is the way to go, rather than make the hard choices that are likely right.

I blame Bush

Whats funny is that they show the effective tax rate for the super-rich, but never state how much they actually pay in taxes by comparison to any other group.

Of course, God forbid they show anything to be balanced. They pick and chose what charts to show so they could argue that we need to soak the rich more, rather than provide a balanced analysis about both incomes and taxes. 

Where's the chart that shows the top 1% paying a majority of income taxes?

Where's the chart that shows that the Regan and Bush tax cuts forced the rich to pay a higher percentage taxes to the government that before the cuts?

The only thing that chart told me was that payroll taxes are crazy in America, and need destroyed. They are why your average family is getting killed. Funny, they don't mention anything about payroll taxes, despite they have increased 4-fold since the 50s.

Don't like it then leave. 

I'm sick of people complaining about how uneven wealth is distributed. Maybe its because the top 10% that makes 6 figures (or more) worked harder and are better educated.

Also the wealthy pay way more in taxes already. The answer to every problem in the world isn't "tax the rich more"

Its true, America needs to tax more and pay for better education. But hey, republicans would never let that happen =/. They just want to cut costs and keep the taxes low. =l

...You do know that we spend the 2nd most of any country in the world per capita per student, right?

...You do know that our quality of education has nothing to do with spending, as our best states usually spend the least, right?

...You do know that education spending is done at a local level, and has nothing to do with Republicans and Democrats, but with local levies which are approved by the taxpayer, right?

 i mean't the republican thing and the education part as two different points.