The gap between what you can do and what Larry Ellison can do isn't as relevant as the gap between what you and Larry Ellison can do and what your average single mom living in welfare in Durham can do.
HN people live in a bubble and seemingly have never met anyone who is in real poverty -- they think because in college they had to eat Ramen they were poor. They are clueless.
Real poverty is being illiterate, being malnourished in the womb, being raised in a crime-zone, growing up without dental care.
The increase in the "Real Poverty" is due to economic factors like giving all the jobs to China, dumbing down education, and civil rights/feminist revolutions which led to social destabilization and people falling through cracks.
Sweden and Norway and France and Holland are not having issues with "Real Poverty." And they all have big welfare states.
The welfare state concept is sound. It lifts segments of the population in Real Poverty out of poverty. The problem in the USA is that for every social program helping a family out of poverty, there are 10 programs putting them back in their place.
Yes, but the income inequality measures under discussion say the opposite, which is my point. (Do the arithmetic. $10k to $200k, which is way more than I make, is 20x. Larry is way more than 200x past me in wealth.)