Can you say, “wealth inequality?" And what about taxing billionaires?

The total wealth of the top 1% now tops 32%, a record, according to the Fed data. U.S. billionaire wealth surged by 70%, or $2.1 Trillion, during the pandemic. AS of October 18, 2021, they are now worth a combined $5 Trillion. 

America’s billionaires have grown $2.1 trillion richer during the pandemic, their collective fortune growing  by 70 percent — from just short of $3 trillion in March 2020, to over $5 trillion as of October 15 of this year, according to Forbes data analyzed by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies Program on Inequality (IPS).

Not only did the wealth of U.S. billionaires grow, but so did their numbers: in March of 2020, there were 614 Americans with 10-figure bank accounts. Today there are 745.

And none of this addresses the real issue. As quoted in Inequality.org, “The great good fortune of these billionaires over the past 19 months is even starker when contrasted with the devastating impact of coronavirus on working people. Almost 89 million Americans have lost jobs, over 44.9 million have been sickened by the virus, and over 724,000 have died from it.”

Back to the taxing billionaires thing. Consider the fact that Nike head Phil Knight has nearly doubled his fortune from $29.5 billion to almost $58 billion. Nike didn’t pay a dime of federal income taxes in 2020 on its $2.9 billion in profits, and between 2018 and 2020 the corporation paid just a 3.3 percent tax rate on $9 billion in profits. (inequality.org)

Yeah, maybe it’s a good idea. At least let's close a few loopholes.