Lucy's post here about Hillary Clinton and John Edwards got me thinking about the economy, our values, and the things that we say. So, I've been doing a little reading this morning, and here's more of what I found...

The top 1 percent of all taxpayers earned 21.2 percent of all the money that individuals in the country earned in 2005. So one-hundredth of the taxpayers earned one-fifth of all income. To get into that top 1 percent, you must have at least $364,657 in "adjusted gross income" -- income after various deductions and corrections. You're real cash on hand would be much higher than that.

From 1987 to 1996, by contrast, the top 1 percent never snagged more than 16 percent of total income. In some years they only took 12 percent. Now, it's up to 21%. That's what I call a trend, folks. Wealth being concentrated in the hands of just a few.

The current and recent concentration of wealth and income in the U.S. is almost certainly the most intense since the Depression era. The trend of super-sizing the super-rich is deeper than that and actually began in 1993, according to the Census Departments Historical Income Tables.

From 1947 to 1992, the top 5 percent of all families never consumed more than 17 percent of the national "aggregate income." But since 1993, that top 5 percent has never earned less than 20 percent of the national bundle.

Most of the Democratic presidential candidates talk about the issue without talking about the issue. The Republicans don't talk about it at all. What everybody seems to be missing is that our values and our philosophies will have to change if we are going to fix the ever-growing wage disparity in America.

Once upon a time, the economy seemed like something we were all equally invested in. If the economy did good, then, it meant we could all expect to do well. What was good for the economy was good for all of us. Or, so we believed.

Wage disparities have grown tremendously since Reagan introduced his "trickle down Reaganomics" of economic growth. In the 1980s, he sold Americans on that idea that whatever was good for American corporations was also good for American citizens.

But, "trickle down economics" didn't work. Apparently, it made things worse. Now, if we are going to straighten it out, we need begin right there and redefine our national values. Perhaps, before the global economy and before Ronald Reagan tipped the scales, maybe it was true to some extent that when American companies grew, American workers prospered.

It's just no longer true. So what is true?

When American companies (AKA Wall Street stocks) grow in revenue, profit or stock value, this does not get translated (or trickled down) to American workers.

Corporate growth just is what it is, and nothing more - it's more profit, more income or more power for the already empowered.

Did you know that before Reagan messed with our economy, that American corporations paid 27% of the government's bill? That is, corporate income taxes made up 27% of the government's revenue and individual taxpayers (you and me) made up 73%. Thanks to Reagan, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr., those numbers have changed significantly.

Now, corporations pay only 7% of the total bill for government and individuals (you and me) pay the almost complete cost of government - individual American citizens cover 93% of its total revenues. This is big huge change. It makes the corporate lobbyists in Washington DC seem even more unseemly and seedy. Think about it - all those corporate lobbyist hanging around Congress, having not even paid for the government, but now trying to get their hands on the money that middle class individuals have paid in. It's looks bad and - it is bad.

Nowadays, when American companies make more money, if those profits are reinvested into their operations - it usually means that the operations overseas will hire more workers in Saigon, Shanghai, Dubai, Mumbai or Delhi.

It's unlikely that the growth of income at the top of American companies will result in job or wage growth in Cincinnati, Detroit or Portland among regular middle class workers. And, with many large American corporations moving their corporate offices overseas (like Halliburton's move to Dubai), then, we aren't even getting their corporate taxes into our government's coffers.

When American manufacturing jobs headed overseas in the 1990s, supporters of tariff-free trade argued that newly unemployed workers could simply find jobs in the growing high-tech sector. Yet multinational corporations soon outsourced white-collar and service-industry jobs as well, with overseas labor fielding support questions from computer users, programming software, and even examining X-rays and MRI scans for American consumers.

In light of the disparities, when we talk about the "economy" - is it right to continue to measure it by the factors of stock prices, quarterly company earning, and gross national product?

When news anchors say, "good news for the economy... Dow Jones is up 30 points," are we supposed to care?

We seem to have two distinct economies that are increasingly unrelated to each other.

When presidential or congressional candidates talk about the economy, I think we should ask them to define what economy they are referring to.

Don't tell us what you will do for the top 10% or the corporations, stock holders or job outsourcers. Talk to us about safety nets.

Explain to us what you will do for the bottom 50%.

How will you strengthen the middle class when we operate in a separate economy from Wall Street? If you don't know how to bring the two economies back together again, then, say so. You can't help us unless you can be honest about the conditions we face.