an observation, maybe

Maybe I'm wrong here in my figuring, but I've been thinking about the numbers a bit, lately. For at least the last decade or so, America has had a trade deficit, that is, we send more money out of the country than we bring into it. So that ought to mean that, overall, we have less money in the U.S. today than we did ten years ago (not counting inflation). Now, for the last decade or so, the only people in America whose level of wealth has increased has been the richest 1% of the population. So the way I figure it, if America (on the whole) is losing money, but the one-percenters are gaining money, then the one-percenters are gaining money at the expense of the other 99%.

Maybe it doesnt actually work that way, and I'm quite sure that it's much more complex than what I've described, but it still irritates me a bit. I mean, despite our veneer of civilization, what separates America from feudal society these days? Big-screen TVs?