Yeah, but I kind of think that's what happens anyway, you just have to be in a higher stratosphere. The rules seem to do more to stop the little guy who reaches the mountaintop than the guys who live there. Buchanan vs Gatsby. Romney vs Trump. The elite superrich are not really hurt by devastating income taxes, but the person who GOT rich is. It was a line from Claire Huxtable I come back to, "We aren't rich. Rich is when your money works for you. (My husband and I) work hard for our money." And yeah, there is a lot of sneering at the sort of families where the parents are a doctor and a lawyer as if they are the same sort folks who came over on the Mayflower and whose wealth's foundation was being hindered by the Stamp Act. Or like those Hollywood moms the whole world hated for a moment for deploying their wealth to get their kids into good colleges. Like, how DARE these women from middle class backgrounds who earned their money by being good at a lucrative profession give money to get an advantage for their children! Who do they think they are, an established old money family who donated a building to the school using fewer of their resources than Lori Loughlin did bribing an admissions official? Also, the ire falls on the gambit where the working class origins person gives money to a working class employee, rather than the elitist giving a plaything to an elite institution. Harvard's endowment is enough to pay the tuition for every one of their students without affecting the principal, yet somehow giving money to increase that fortune is an act of philanthropy.

Almost from its outset, the IRS was seen as a weapon against the elite billionaires, but it's the working people who bitterly hate and resent the agency and its employees and bureaucracy. Donald Trump's peers don't lose a moment's sleep worrying about the IRS. The SEC fined Steve Cohen $1,900,000,000 and made him quit the job that got him his money and he STILL had enough left to buy the New York Mets, one of the most valuable and expensive teams in baseball. After he was one of the final three contenders to acquire the LA Dodgers ten years ago when they sold for $2.15 billion. Oh, yeah. The SEC really nailed his ass to the wall. But it's a nightmare to guys trying to make the climb INTO Steve Cohen/Bobby Axelrod territory.

So whatever the intentions, I just see most of this financial regulation and regulatory agencies as bullshit. As GK Chesterton pointed out, the poor man must stay where he is and be misgoverned. The rich man has a yacht. They can and will always have their outs and their special access. The rules just hurt people trying to compete with them by unorthodox means (which is exactly the point and why Warren Buffet bemoans his secretary paying more taxes than he does, as if the US Treasury doesn't accept donations; billionaires and elitists don't want to worry about checking their six and watching their flanks, so they have the government do it for them).