The gross economic inequality in America gets quite a bit of attention, at least from the non-rich. But when you look at the distribution of wealth in the entire world, the picture gets even more shocking.

Tomorrow is the 100th anniversary of the federal income tax. Thank you, federal income tax, for all the things you have bought this country, except the wars! On this auspicious anniversary, here are five tax ideas to make the next 100 years even better.

Many groups lack privilege, here in the discriminatory Babylon that is the USA. But who lacks privilege the most? We aim to find out, as a service to the public. Only four groups remain in our Privilege Tournament. Hard choices await your vote, below.

Congratulations, friends: you have democratically determined that a homeless, overweight transgender Native American Muslim zoophile with a mental illness and a latex allergy is the single least privileged person in America. Now the real work begins.

With your help, we are on a quest to find the least privileged subgroup of all. Yesterday, we launched The Privilege Tournament. Today, it is time for you to vote once again.

Privilege: so sweet to have. But even sweeter to not have. Privilege has its benefits, but the lack of privilege confers that sweet, sweet moral superiority. With that in mind, we have decided to determine who, exactly, has the least privilege of all.

A good way to routinely bum yourself out is to set "Google News" as your Internet home page. But last night, something magical happened on that usual grid of gloom: The top stories were good news: Pope Francis and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, the elderly men recently chosen to lead their respective communities, had again made headlines for words of kindness and reconciliation.

Margaret Mary Vojtko was a longtime adjunct professor at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. Earlier this month, she died penniless. She may have an even greater effect in death than in life.

For the most part, corporate America is still a boy's club. The vast majority of top corporate executives are men. Oh, they let in some women, of course. They just don't pay them as much as everyone else.

Up until the Reagan years, workers in the finance sector of the economy were paid, on average, pretty close to what workers in most other industries were paid. That's all changed over the past 30 years. Do employees of the financial sector deserve to be paid so much more than most other workers? No.

Almost five years after the near-total collapse of the global economy, the stock market has once again reached new highs. The rich are, without a doubt, getting richer. So have we actually recovered from the Great Recession? No, not at all.

I despise when people say "Shocker" in front of a statement of fact, as a snide reminder of their own urbane ennui. If something is that unsurprising, why bother saying it all, you know? With that in mind, SHOCKER: the U.S. tax code is designed to help the wealthy.

If you're looking for a primer on America's political and economic iniquities, this new Demos report is a good one.

A 2009 survey showed that the median white family in American had twenty times more wealth than the median black family. How can this be, so many years after the civil rights movement? The answer, according to a new study: black people have been systematically screwed by home ownership.

A temporary payroll tax cut was allowed to expire recently, meaning that payroll taxes are now removing an extra 2% from everyone's paychecks. Every corporation in the business of selling things to non-rich Americans is freaking out, because they expect their customers to cut back on spending now. The working class has just seen its take-home pay reduced by 2%; working class people will now have 2% less to spend on food, and clothes, and toilet paper, and everything else. It may be true that letting the payroll tax rise was foolish in the short term. It is definitely true that payroll taxes in general are, as constructed, a bad idea.

Conservatives argue that black people should oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants, since immigrants can be expected to take low-wage jobs from black people. The WSJ's editorial page says that minorities should oppose a minimum wage hike, because it will end up costing them jobs. (They treat this as a simple economic fact, which it is not.) There's nothing like the hint of a new liberal policy to cause widespread concern for the welfare of poor minorities among Republicans.

Sales of luxury goods are booming in America; after a brief surge by China, the U.S. has regained its title as the world's leading consumer of Moet champagne, Louis Vuitton handbags, and Hermes scarves. It's good to know that the top 1% are giving back to the world economy.

Nanny. Domestic caregiver. Housekeeper. These are some of the most difficult (and often demeaning) jobs in the American work force. How much do you pay your nanny? The national median is only $11 an hour. For housecleaners or "caregivers," the average is only $10, according to the "first-ever national statistical study of domestic workers," which was released today. It ain't hard to tell: domestic workers are in desperate need of a union.

Says here that 93% of the income gains over the first year of our ongoing economic "recovery" went to the top 1% of earners. Everyone okay with that? *Swivels head briefly* Great. Let's all keep moving in this direction—together.

Just another periodic update on the woeful state of our nation, here, America: "Nationally, the median income dropped by 1.3% to $50,502 in 2011." It's worse for the poor, naturally. "Los Angeles County households whose earnings put them in the lowest fifth for income in 2011 earned 12% less, on average, than the incomes of that same group in 2007, when the recession began." In New York, Mike Bloomberg's fortune swelled by 28% in the past year, to $25 billion. Meanwhile: "The rich got richer and the poor got poorer in New York City last year as the poverty rate reached its highest point in more than a decade, and the income gap in Manhattan, already wider than almost anywhere else in the country, rivaled disparities in sub-Saharan Africa." Poor smokers in New York spend a quarter of their income on cigarettes. And across the country, "extreme" racial segregation of schools "is becoming more common."