In the past few decades it has become much rarer for the poor to move themselves out of poverty. Low economic mobility and high income inequality are hallmarks of feudal societies run by landed gentry, not nations founded on fairness and equal opportunity.

In recent years, as the mendacity and greed of the wealthiest, most powerful elements of our society have become ever more thinly veiled — and ever more unchecked — it’s become more common for people to express offhand, “We’re heading for another Gilded Age“… another era, like the late 19th century, when vast riches were concentrated in the hands of a lucky few who flaunted it brazenly.

So far, that hasn’t become literally true (yet) in the United States, but elsewhere, a tipping point might have been reached.

We’re Americans. We can dismiss the possibility we live in a banana republic as nonsense, right?

As the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs was holding a hearing on veterans’ healthcare, we sat down with Iraq vet Kris Goldsmith of Long Island who chose to take his own life rather than be “stop-lossed.” Kris puts a face on the latest, horrific, government statistic, namely, that deaths from suicide may exceed combat deaths among soldiers who’ve served in Afghanistan and Iraq. Watch this interview sitting down, then get up and DO SOMETHING.

Americans are working more, real wages are going down. American wealth inequality is greater today than in the pre-World War One age we called the Gilded Age. How did it get so lop-sided? We ask our roundtable participants, Ed Ott, Saru Jayaraman, and Tamara Draut.