The last really good year in the stock market and the real estate market — 2005 — has produced the greatest disparity in wealth since the 1920s, reports the New York Times. An analysis of IRS income figures shows that the top 10 percent of earners got 48.5 percent of all income. At the extreme end, the top 0.01 earned over $25 million each.

The academics who conducted the study admit that the wealth gap might be understated because the lower orders usually get taxed on wages with which, says the IRS, it has a 99 percent success rate. For stocks and other investments the figure might be as low as 70 percent.

The debate has fallen into a predictable pattern of Bush administration spokespeople saying that it has nothing to do with the tax cuts and that rates should fall dramatically. Any wealth disparity, they attribute, to technological change that has been going on for decades.

LIberals say this new survey shows exactly what is wrong but cannot explain why these trends have never been reversed. They problem is even more exaggerated as benefits, particularly health insurance, are cut.

Perhaps the only cheering news in this reminder of the Roaring Twenties and the Great Gatsby is that we lack the other factors that created the perfect storm of the Great Depression.