You may be more elite than you think

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/you-may-be-more-elite-you-think
MGB: Americans generally don't think of elitism in economic terms. Even though I am retired with a bit over $30,000 in the bank (thank you, Mr. President - it was  $10,000 more), my cultural elitism is based on my writings on economics and morality.  Just last year, I wrote a column about the perception of elites and how it can be traced back to the New York Jewish Elite (self-titled) of mid-century, particularly the early 60s. 

Economic curves are always skewed and wealth is no different, nor the fact that wealth correlates with both income and taxation. In prior days, our tax code went after the top 9.9% with rates that did not really seize wealthy so much as to discourage additional income,which was usually had at the expense of workers or less wealthy investors. While it would be lovely to bring back these rates, is unlikely to happen. The best we can do is to systematically shift workers from retirement based almost solely on public wealth (which caps contributions, so the really wealthy don't pay in as much nor do they get the benefits that would match those payments) to a more mixed portfolio, with public wealth to insure private wealth, not in the market as a whole (the mega-rich do not diversify) but to have a controlling interest in the companies they work in and build value for.

The game really is not about wealth. It is about power. Of course, for most employee-owned firm, controlling the means of production is a boring exercise, involving monthly or quarterly catered dinners, presentations on financial performance and employee-owner culture. If you use such companies to control the means of consumption, like housing (both apartments for young people and 0% mortgages and new homes for mid-career and older workers), food production (think of IBM with supermarkets or homes with food production greenrooms) and clothing (suits for work) - and even vacation properties, then workers might take more interest in being owners - especially if you give them control of either health plans or hiring doctors. Add consumer credit at reasonable rates and you have stopped the bleeding.  The problem with the 9.9% is that they actively keep everyone else poor, even if they don't mean to, because their money managers put profit over human needs.  Make workers into active consumer-owners and the damage stops.