Stephan:   Part of our social stability, I think, depends on the ignorance most people share about the true measure of economic inequality in the U.S.  A definition of the one per cent: "they have median annual household income of $750,000, median assets of $7.5 million, and there are 1.2 million of them across the country."  That's a lot of money, but at that level you are still living in a universe that can be recognized by the 99 per cent. When you get above that by perhaps three times you to move into another realm. And when you are a hundred times that, as are the uber-rich, you may occupy tangential geography, but you live in another world. Why wouldn't you want to avoid all the unpleasant inconvenience of modern air travel for instance if you could move through the world more effortlessly than the 99 per cent move through neighborhoods. It changes the scale of your thought, but it also blurs perception of what life is really like for most people.