Erased Wealth For Some, Gains For Guess Who?

Federal Reserve data released earlier this month showed a huge drop in the net worth of American families; a drop of 39% from 2007 to 2010. This only tells us "the Great Recession" was "greater" than many at first realized. The interesting part of this is, middle class families took much of the blow from those three years of  "the Great Recession.." While middle class people and the poor took a beating, the wealth of one segment of American society actually rose somewhat. I'll bet you'd never guess it was the wealthiest families in America. So you've been losing ground while they've been gaining ground amid the worst times since the 1930s and the Great Depression. Still want to give them more tax cuts? Better think about all of this folks, as it would amount to another transfer of wealth from YOU to people who DO NOT need it! This is NOT a tough one! 

WORD HISTORY:
Wether- This is NOT a misspelling.  I came across this word quite by accident, which then prompted me to check into it. To my recollection, I had never heard of it (keep reading). It certainly is not common in the U.S., but perhaps it is still used in England? Or by people involved with animals, especially with sheep? Anyway let's broaden our language knowledge at bit. The word now means "a male sheep (ram) or goat, usually one that has been castrated." Originally it meant "an animal (usually a lamb) of one year or less." It goes back to the Indo European root "wet," which meant "year." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "wethruz" or "wethraz." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) wether "male sheep, ram." Above, I mentioned that I didn't recall ever hearing of the term, but during my research on the word, I found that it is the second part of "bellwether," a term still much in use, usually as to "leader in trends" or regarding election results. The original meaning of "bellwether" was "a male sheep or goat with a bell around its neck, which led the rest of the herd." German has "Widder," with similar meaning to its English cousin. Apparently the word has died out, or is of very limited use, in other Germanic languages, as for instance, both English and Dutch now use "ram" in common speech.