It's the media-comprehensible proxy that people have come up with for the way the very rich and powerful have seemingly been able to skew the system so that the

It's the media-comprehensible proxy that people have come up with for the way the very rich and powerful have seemingly been able to skew the system so that their power and wealth are self-perpetuating, while the population at large gets poorer and gets worse benefits every year. Is it that simple? Of course not. But simple and resonant ideas are mediagenic, while complicated and more accurate ones are mediapathic. (For anyone preparing an angry reply, please note the use of the word seemingly in the first paragraph. It's not there by accident.)