The US, as I noted, is the wealthiest country in the world according to numerous metrics. Yet the median savings is only $8,000, the Brookings Institute found that "the overall share of middle-class households that do not make enough to afford basic necessities where they live ranges from 23% to 57%" and so on.

It is all but impossible to calculate how much wealth has been "destroyed" and, more importantly, how much wealth has been transferred from the middle class to the upper class by way of institutionalized corruption that many people, you included, won't even acknowledge as a form of corruption.

Meanwhile, members of Congress are laughing all the way to the bank.