We have just witnessed, in the spectacular growth of U.S. fortunes over the past two decades, a once-in-a-century phenomenon. Puffed up by the boom in high-technology and finance, a select group of Americans has accumulated an even larger boodle in an even shorter period of time than the titans of the Gilded Age amassed 100 years ago. The numbers almost defy belief.

... If the recent accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few resembles the Gilded Age, what about the politics?

... While history often repeats, it usually does so only in outline; ... politics today has a somewhat different cast.