This:

We used to be a country with a rich heart. Now we’re the land of the heartless rich.

That was the opening quote from the website Wall Street on Parade about how the Koch Brothers– You remember them, they’re the ones who are trying to take control of what we see, hear, and read in the Los Angeles Times and about seven other media outlets– got really rich as a million families got even poorer.

In one of the worst economic downturns since the Great Depression, the billionaire Koch brothers who habitually rail against government’s unfair burden on the wealthy, have almost doubled their net worth to a combined $64 billion [...]

During that same time period, some of the bleakest economic news has been reported for the rest of America. Just yesterday, the Pew Research Center released a study showing that between 2009 to 2011 the richest 7 percent of Americans increased their wealth by 28 percent while the remaining 93 percent of households lost 4 percent of their net worth. The study analyzed Census Bureau data for the period.

The L.A. Times article on this reads “Rich get richer in recovery, but net worth of lower 93% declines“:

The report found that the average wealth of the upper 7% of households jumped to $3.17 million in 2011 from $2.48 million two years earlier. The mean wealth for the remaining 93% dipped to $133,817 from $139,896 as their fortunes were tied up in their homes. From 2009 to  2011, property values sank 5%, based on the Case-Shiller index.

Edward Wolff, an economist at New York University who has written extensively on wealth distribution, said, “The Fed has kept things pretty good for the wealthy.”

I wonder how this terrible income inequality could be remedied, at least enough to end homelessness in this country. Who could reach out? Who could try to help those in need? Who has the ability to do that?

According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), it would cost $20 billion to end homelessness in the United States. The Kochs have enough money to do that with $44 billion left over to funnel to their plethora of right wing front groups who serially bellyache about how unfair things are for the affluent in America.

The article goes on to note that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg  has a net worth of $27 billion and owns at least 11 homes.

This is not to say that two people and two people alone should be responsible for ending such a miserably huge problem, but you get the idea. The state of America is not exactly, well, “fair and balanced.”

In fact, Wall Street is at record highs and fairness in this country is at record lows.

Please follow the link for more gory details.