Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., tells us that wealth inequality is at grotesque and immoral levels. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has a plan to tax everyone lots and lots to solve this. The slight problem is that the Federal Reserve tells us that wealth inequality isn’t at those high levels. In fact, it’s nothing very much out of the ordinary. Actually, we’re only a little above the inequality levels of the 1950s, you know, when America was still great and didn’t need to be made so again?

Promising to solve a problem that doesn’t exist isn’t a great election strategy. Except that’s not how politics works, of course. Reality is rarely the point at issue, it’s the electorate’s perception which determines matters. We’ve all been told often and long enough that this wealth inequality is back up at levels not seen since the Robber Barons. Thus policies are being crafted and campaigns are being run on something we believe that is not so.