[Insert Charlton Heston Quote Here]

[elfs]

You know those dystopias where millions of poor people live in swelting or freezing apartments, eating cheap food and generally leading miserable lives, while on television they watch, in either raging frustration or masturabatory fantasy, as people far more beautiful than they are drive cars they'll never drive, wear clothes they'll never wear, and eat food they'll only ever encounter at a wedding or a funeral?

That's your future:

Mass affluence is over ... The top 10 percent of American households, the trade journal adds, now account for nearly half of all consumer spending, and a disproportionate share of that spending comes from the top 10's upper reaches. ... In actual life the odds of someone's worth amounting to $1 million dollars has shrunk to 1 in 22. ... Before the Great Recession, Madison Avenue conventional wisdom put great stock in the $100,000 to $200,000 income demographic, a consuming universe populated largely by men and women 35 years and older. Targeting this $100,000 to $200,000 cohort no longer makes particularly good marketing sense. ... If current trends continue, no one else but the rich will essentially matter to Madison Avenue.

Madison Avenue declares age of Mass Affluence is over.