Mark Twain called it the Gilded Age. That was well over one hundred years ago. Our own epoch, marked by CEOs who earn 364 times that of full and part-time workers, is one of extreme inequality.

This week’s Nation magazine is devoted to the issue and they’re having a contest: Name Our Epoch. Twilight of the war profiteers? The age of rage? What best describes a world in which hedge fund managers pay only 15 percent on their income, US oil execs get no bid contracts in Iraq, and Vermonters have to burn their furniture just to stay warm?

The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel discusses why democracy doesn’t work when you have such concentrations of wealth. To name our epoch go to www.extremeinequality.org.

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