It's a simplified conclusion, but the era in which a mail man could support an entire family with ease was a historical anomaly. You can pinpoint the timeline

It's a simplified conclusion, but the era in which a mail man could support an entire family with ease was a historical anomaly. You can pinpoint the timeline exactly, where the above wealth stagnates or declines whilst the rest of the world is rapidly catching up, industrializing. You can locally optimize but not even taxing the rich for 90% will fix this. My other simplified conclusion is that everything that you need seems to be getting ever more expensive whilst everything that you do not necessarily need becomes dirt cheap. We should probably spend some more time thinking about that. Everything becomes cheaper due to spectacular advances, but not housing, healthcare, energy, education, tax levels. I mean, it's almost as if some invisible force blocks this progress, benefiting from artificial scarcity. Almost as if we're not supposed to have it good.