ssshhhh ... in reality it's of course the case that the poorer a country is, the more unequal it is. In Pakistan the gulf between rich and poor is easily 100x what it is in the US.

The most luxurious hotels in the world, the most decadent, aren't in Washington. They're in places like Teheran. Like Islamabad. Like Kinshasa. Things like, hotels where 5 prostitutes on standby per room is standard.

The richest people in the world are people like Putin and Xi Jinping. Communists "defending the rights of the people". And whoever it is in the US at the moment don't remotely compare to them in wealth.

And what people are complaining about, in the US, but equally in Germany (well I only know about the Netherlands firsthand, but ... look at the map) is not how good or bad they have it. Simply about "how bad it's getting". In other words, they're complaining this year it's a little bit worse than last year. A tiny little bit. THAT, they can't deal with. Absolute level of wealth? Income inequality? Doesn't really matter.

And the scary question is if they'll go to war over that. They certainly have in the past.

There's a point somewhere where the money becomes a scorecard - once you can afford the best room at the Kinshasa luxury hotel, you can't really "go higher" on that axis, you need something else.