It's always fun to hear what the corporate elite talk about when they talk to each other -- and there's a great example in the latest study produced by Ad Age, the journal of the advertising industry. The study confirms that the rich have everything, that the middle class is vanishing, that "mass affluence is over," and that
Simply put, a small plutocracy of wealthy elites drives a larger and larger share of total consumer spending and has outsize purchasing influence.
From Too Much:
America as a whole, the new Ad Age study pauses to note, hasn’t quite caught up with the reality of this steep inequality. Americans still “like to believe in an egalitarian ideal of affluence” where “everyone has an equal shot” at “amassing a great fortune through dint of hard work and ingenuity.”
In actual life, the new Ad Age study points out, “the odds of someone’s worth amounting to $1 million dollars” have shrunk to “1 in 22.”
There you have it: The marketers have spoken.