Rich get very much richer

The NYTimes continues its series on class (thanks, CommonDreams, for putting it up), this time looking at the very richest in our society — the top .01% of earners. From their story:

"From 1950 to 1970, for example, for every additional dollar earned by the bottom 90 percent, those in the top 0.01 percent earned an additional $162, according to the Times analysis. From 1990 to 2002, for every extra dollar earned by those in the bottom 90 percent, each taxpayer at the top brought in an extra $18,000."

The scope of that difference is mind-boggling to me, as is this statistic:

"The Bush administration says that the tax cuts have actually made the income tax system more progressive, shifting the burden slightly more to those with higher incomes. Still, an Internal Revenue Service study found that the only taxpayers whose share of taxes declined in 2001 and 2002 were those in the top 0.1 percent."

So what will it take for us to begin to deal with class issues -- especially this obscene shift in wealth aggregation -- in the US?