The real facts are in: U.S. wealth increased by $38.1 trillion dollars during the 8 years of the Obama administration—easily the highest amount of wealth growth in our history. As of the end of 2016 we had a total of $92.8 in wealth stored away. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the top 10 percent sucked up $34.3 trillion of that new wealth and tucked it away into their personal balance sheets. The middle class got the other $3.8 trillion. The bottom 50 percent got their usual: Nada. (Source: U.S. Flow of Funds Report, Q4, 2016).

Why did such a huge sum get vacuumed away by the wealthy? Because they own 90 percent of all the stocks, bonds, and real estate in America. And why is that? Because the inheritance laws taketh, giveth, and keepeth it that way.

Here is the arithmetic that nearly guarantees that same outcome—forever. 98 percent of all wealth is inherited by individuals, and 98 percent of all new wealth flows to the holders of all the old wealth. That means that 96 percent of all wealth (.98 times .98 = .96) is inherited, directly or indirectly.

Yes, but the wealthy pay a huge tax on their wealth, right? No. The inheritance tax collects about $50 billion per year. As a percent of our budget, that sum comes to about 1.6 percent.

And the wealthy say that is way too much. How much do they think they should pay? They say it should be zero.

And why do they want the inheritance tax to be zero? Here is the logic according to my fact checker: Inheriting wealth is hard work because the only people who inherit a lot of it have very wealthy parents. And? And choosing your parents wisely is hard work!

Is this a great country, or what?