Income inequality has snowballed. Adjusted for inflation, middle-class wages have been nearly frozen for the last four decades, and discretionary income has declined if escalating out-of-pocket health care costs and insurance premiums are counted. Yet earnings by the top one percent have nearly tripled.

infinitely. Warren Buffet was worth $124 billion in 2022. Average Joe (or, in this case, “Median” Joe) is worth about $122,000. And Average Joe is slowing down; Buffet is accelerating. That’s the issue we are concerned with. But is it unfair?

My tablemates and I were discussing Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax proposal, and the economist, who had ventured over to say hello, said it would never work. The rich would find a way to squirm out of it. I told him he was being defeatist and boring. Things escalated from there.