Washington's 10% Solution Source: Progressive Populist, 5/11/99 Author: Wayne O'Leary

Nine tenths of all stocks remain in the hands of the richest 10 percent of Americans. The wealthiest 5 percent of Americans own three-quarters of the market and a full half of the market is owned by the top 1 percent of those whose annual family income exceeds $250,000 or an average income worth of $650,000.

Most of the millions of Americans who are technically participating in the stock market are not active investors. Most current stockholders have a little 401(k) money in mutual funds (typically less than $5,000).

Instead they have a traditional pension where the employer invests into a particular mutual fund and sometimes without consulting the employee.

Significant advantage in the formation of government policy goes to the leading stock holders in the US. The non-investing public at large, the bottom 60 percent (or more accurately, 90 percent), currently has little effective representation in national politics or government.

Government policies directly or indirectly reward Americans who own stock; the opposite side of the coin, of course is that they often simultaneously harm those who are stockless.