Don't apologize Mike -- I was getting off the topic again -- so it was a helpful and polite reminder

OK, back on topic, what that article failed to articulate was savings and debt.
The middle might make more money, but they have a smaller slice of a (quite) bigger pie, and that piece comes with marshlands of debt.

Also, the idea of ostentatios vulgar display of wealth is not new and/or american.

Quick footnote - A problem Germany has with their economy is that folks just save too much! Debt isn't necessarily a bad thing - and I won't say any more least I exceed my qualifications as an armchair economist.

Just on the subject of finance: has Wesley Snipes been arrested yet? ...last I heard, he owes millions of dollars in taxes and is hiding from the IRS.

Yep, that's a problem too.
Neither debt or too much savings are good.

The rich are getting filthy rich again. Investment bank Goldman Sachs paid $2.58 billion US for a stake in Chinese bank ICBC in April. Today ICBC went public. Goldman's shares are worth $7.48 billion. That's nearly a $5 billion gain for six months work!

Not too long ago, Goldman made a $3.7 billion gain from a stake in Japanese bank Sumitomo Mitsui. They paid about $1.3 billion for it.

Goldman has 287 partners globally and they're likely paid an average of 5 million pounds according to one article. However, they can invest in Goldman's principal/proprietary transactions like ICBC. In the world of high finance, a game available only to the rich, the rich keep getting richer.