Is rich people's excessive income about to strangle the economy?

An economy is healthier when the working class gets a fair share of national income

Yield curve.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis)

There is an economic warning sign which has gone off before every recession going back to the 1960s (and only delivered one false positive). It's called a yield curve inversion — and it just happened on Wednesday. Gulp.

Now, this doesn't guarantee a recession, of course. Even going back that far, we're only talking about a sample size of seven. But it certainly suggests there's a decent likelihood of another downturn happening soon. And while there would be many factors behind it if it does happen, there is one big one that can't be ignored: Rich people have too much dang money.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.