The rich stay rich by getting new money first at the lowest price. Everyone else down the ladder pays a steeper premium and plenty of suckers, mostly boomers, believe that this money monopoly that creates credit out of thin air pegged to nothing except a corrupt government's promise to make good on its debt is a free market meritocracy. Boomers tend to be the most dishonest about the effort they put in to build their nest egg because they discount the fact that USD had more value when they got started.