The High-Beta Rich: How the Manic Wealthy Will Take Us to the Next Boom, Bubble, and Bust

The rich are not only getting richer, they are becoming more dangerous. Starting in the early 1980s the top one percent (1%) broke away from the rest of us to become the most unstable force in the economy. An elite that had once been the flat line on the American income charts - models of financial propriety - suddenly set off on a wild ride of economic binges.

Not only do they control more than a third of the country’s wealth, their increasing vulnerability to the booms and busts of the ...