? you realize that their losses during the economic downturn hurt everybody.

Robert J. Samuelson makes that point in a new Newsweek feature, which explains that those with higher incomes are taking a disproportionate hit in the current economic slump:

It will strike many, no doubt, that the setbacks and anxieties for the country-club set are just deserts. Some will correctly note that well-paid CEOs and investment bankers helped bring about the economic crisis. They’re just getting their comeuppance?and it’s about time. Others will point out that countless studies have shown that, in recent decades, the gap between the rich and the rest has widened. From 1990 to 2006, for instance, the share of pretax income received by the top 1 percent grew from 12 percent to 19 percent, says the Congressional Budget Office. The present reverses are a healthy correction. So goes the argument.

All this is understandable, but incomplete. The criticism usually presumes that if the rich and near rich get less, someone else will get more. Redistribution achieves a better social balance. Sometimes that happens. But sometimes when the rich get less, no one else gets more. Regardless of how the rich earned their money?trading bonds, performing surgery, starting new companies, providing legal work?it’s no longer so lucrative. The rich get poorer, but no one else gets richer. Society is worse off.

“Trickle-down economics” is a despised phrase and concept to many, but it also embodies a harsh reality. The rich often play a pivotal role in U.S. economic growth, and if they are enfeebled, then the consequences are widespread.