America's decades-long growth of economic inequality has plenty of causes. Here's one that doesn't get enough attention.

At the Oscars last night, several celebrities admirably used their time on stage to speak about issues like equality, discrimination, and poverty. This would have been a good time to rob their houses.

In the past few years, economic inequality has become a mainstream political issue. We often hear politicians speak about “income inequality.” We should be speaking about wealth inequality, instead.

Presidential campaigns have no shortage of factually empty platitudes and gross hypocrisy deployed for political gain. It's early still, but I'll wager that the 2016 campaign will see no more scoff-worthy talking point that the Republicans' sudden concern about economic inequality.

A new day dawns, and with it, a new detailed report laying out exactly how garishly unequal our national economic situation has become. Behold the bitter fruit of America. This is what we do here.

Economic inequality in America has been steadily increasing for three decades. Since the recession, only the very rich have made out well. Now, we have data on the individual U.S. states where the class war is being lost most severely.

If current trends continue—and there is no reason to suspect they won't—we may be just a year away from a time when the wealthiest 1% of people in the world control the majority of the wealth.

America has money. Which is better than not having money. But all of the money in America is going to the rich. This is our basic problem.

Conservatives and free marketeers across the globe are crowing at the end of France's brief flirtation with a 75% tax on very high earners. Rich people simply fled the country. Let's treat these people like the refugees that they are.

Shit is fucked up.

In democracies such as ours, our elected officials are considered public servants. How much should these full time public servants be paid?

If you are a middle class person who earns the national median income of $52,000, you pay a federal tax rate of 25%. If you earned ten thousand times that much money, your tax rate would go down.

A history of billionaire magnet 432 Park Avenue, Manhattan's tallest residential tower: "In previous generations, when towers of this scale were erected, they were monuments to working. 432 Park, unlike the Chrysler Building, the World Financial Center, and the Empire State Building, is a monument to owning."

American is an economically unequal country. It is also plagued by a great deal of poverty, particularly by the standards of rich, developed nations. Today, poverty and inequality are meeting in more American places than ever before.

The business world is giddy and agog at the rip-roaring return of mergers and acquisitions. M&A is back! Just yesterday, two mega-deals worth $100 billion were announced. Some people are getting very, very rich. The deserving people, that is.

Ever since Thomas Piketty's coming out party, debate has raged in America over the implications of inequality of wealth and income. A new research paper shows just how much the extremely rich—the top tenth of the top 1%—have taken control since the 1980s.

New York City is a place where a distinct lack of affordable housing meets a huge supply of luxury housing—much of which is not even used as a primary residence. The city's very richest are aghast at a proposal that their pied-a-terres be taxed.

Since 2006, "the wealthiest Americans are giving a smaller share of their income to charity, while poor and middle-income people are donating a larger share." The rich are doing a poor job making a case against taking all their shit.

Big Data: The phrase conjures up images of nerdy techno-alchemists finessing valuable information about the universe with complicated and expensive computers. It is that, yes—but it's also a necessary progression in technological evolution, a term for any complex analysis of large databases that would have been impossible using older technology. The potential benefits of its use are enormous, and the uses vary widely as the information collected about us grows exponentially and the ability to process it grows in tandem.

In the years since The Great Recession of 2008, our nation has, on average, made great strides towards economic recovery. On average. In reality, all of the money has gone to the rich.