Gap Between Rich & Rest of Us

Yahoo News: Gap Between Richest, Poorest Workers in UK Grows.

"This increase in inequality damages social cohesion and holds back the whole economy," said Brendan Barber, head of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), the umbrella grouping of labour unions in Britain.

From Slow Is Beautiful, p. 44: "The research is clear: The biggest predictor for the health of a nation (measured in the customary way, longevity) is wealth inequality — the gap between the rich and the poor, the size of the middle class."

Actually, I prefer to use the term "gap between the rich and the rest of us, since the wealthy, via tax breaks for the rich by the Bush administration, are distancing themselves from whatever is left of the middle class and the "poorest 99 percent" of the nation.