America is supposed to be a melting pot, but the ingredients aren’t mixing very well these days. We have the 1 percent crowd, the 99 percenters and the 53 percenters, along with two major political parties that can’t agree on whether half a dollar is 50 cents.

The people of Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Des Moines, Occupy San Francisco and so on are right to call attention to the ever-widening gap between rich and poor in this country – at least we think that’s their main point.

The 53 percenters – the Americans who actually pay income taxes – are right to suggest that working hard is better than demanding government assistance.

The key question of the moment is: Do those two circles intersect?

There’s little doubt that the rich keep getting richer in America. The Congressional Budget Office recently reported that “from 1979 to 2007, average household income for the nation’s top 1 percent more than tripled, while middle-class incomes grew by less than 40 percent.”

Yes, capitalism works in general, but it sure works a lot better for those at the top. Ideally, the winners of this game would be amply rewarded – but we would keep the rest of the players interested in the game, too.

But the answer to big-bank bailout fatigue can’t be bailouts that are more evenly distributed. The cure for a stacked deck isn’t a royal flush for everyone.

Most Americans believe in letting the free market sort things out, or say they believe it. But the free market in recent years has been rewarding some CEOs with tens of millions of dollars while their employees take furlough days – or lose their jobs.

It’s not the 99 percenters or the 53 percenters who have the power to change this situation quickly. It’s the 1 percenters. Will they make a move to remedy the inequity? If not – and human nature suggests they won’t – government intervention will remain the default setting.