>>The washed are too busy making money to complain about the status quo.
Right. And as always, the self-appointed will be all surprised when the tipping point comes. Every empire rises and falls and IT isn't even an empire. ;-)
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1