In case you didn't notice, the USA manufactures more goods, valued by dollars, than any other nation on the planet Earth.
Yes, including the EU, China and Japan.
...
So, wealth distribution! 2004 data from:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/b...ancesurvey.pdf
Wonder what percentile of net worth you are in? Well...
So, the result...
The top 10% of family units in the USA have 70% of the net worth.
Who pays taxes currently:
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/income...hopaysmost.htm
Top 1% of income pays ~1/3
Top 5% of income pays ~1/2
Top 50% of income pays ~ 96%
So, note that a wealth-based tax, even if it was completely non-progressive in percentages,
would be significantly more progressive than the current income tax.
Edit: added in some derived "top 5%" data, and some median data, and fixed a dangling sentence.