Waiting for Schaudenfreude

I really like this essay on what has happened in America these last years. As the author describes, somehow we ended up with all the wrong people with all the money and all the power:

“These were the guys who, in college, I used to step over on Sunday mornings when they were lying in a pool of their own vomit,” he said. “And now they’re earning millions and millions – in bonuses alone.”

It was about a sense that the wrong people had inherited the earth.

Here's another point that I have thought of but have not heard any experts expound on: that the explosive incomes of the wealthy played a large role in driving up real estate values all over the country.

They had taken over everything. Their salaries (and bonuses in particular) had pushed real estate costs and living expenses sky-high. Their values had permeated every aspect of life. And their choices seemed to have become the only acceptable — even viable — ones possible.