Growing gap between the rich and the poor

I do NOT know if the saying is true that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, but I do know that if it is true then it is founded in two pivotal economic principles: Bad debt/investment, and bad budget.

Bad debt includes credit cards (their APR is usually much higher than most investments, even for those with flawless credit). Bad investments include items which either inherently depreciates quickly or which presents too great a risk of doing so for the investor; the automobile being an excellent example of an item which inherently depreciates very quickly. Debt and investment are opposite sides of the same coin (no pun intended). Every debt incurred is an investment, credit card debt typically tending towards unsound investments.

A bad budget simply involves spending more than one earns, or accepting too great of a risk that the earnings may be too little and/or that the financial obligations may be too great. For example, a job in sales offers a variable income which may not meet the expenditures for the current lifestyle, which would need to change as often as the income, in order to match it. A leveraged investment (as is common the commodities market) can easily acquire losses which exceed the income over the time period covered by the existing resources/collateral. A problematic vehicle may require far more maintenance costs than may be supported by the given income. Maxing out credit cards or obtaining large mortgage obligations may bring interest charges which force expenditures beyond the strength of the income to bear them.