Why we have billionaires and trillionaires and a shrinking middle class,

Overall, notes the economist Thomas Piketty, America’s wealthiest faced an average 81 percent top tax rate between the years 1932 and 1980, one key reason why our richest 0.1 percenters — over the course of the 20th century’s middle decades — sawtheir share of the nation’s wealth sink from 25 to just 7 percent.

The rich — on both sides of the Atlantic — would spend plenty of time stewing about that shocking sink throughout those middle decades. But these deep pockets would eventually regain their political mojo, first in the UK with Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 political ascent and then a year later with Ronald Reagan’s election. By 1988, the UK’s top rate had sunk by over half, and America’s richest faced just a 28 percent top-bracket bite.

Source: Which Nation Has Taxed the Rich the Most? – CounterPunch.org