May 8 (Bloomberg) -- Calling growing inequality a betrayal of U.S. values and “morally wrong,” Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz said concentrated wealth could harm public health, slow economic growth and undermine democracy.

“An economic system that only delivers for the very top is a failed economic system,” Stiglitz said in remarks prepared for speech in Washington today.

“In the past, when our country reached these extremes of inequality, at the end of the 19th century, in the gilded age or in the Roaring ’20s, it pulled back from the brink,” Stiglitz said. “It enacted policies and programs that provided hope that the American dream could return to being a reality.”

He said the nation is “now at one of these pivotal points in history” when something needs to be done.

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