Sure, but there's a strong sense that the bottom rungs of the ladder are progressively more out of reach for the younger generation.

Housing is a great example. Instead of getting into the initial mortgage, we're paying rent for longer, and have a harder time coming up with the money for the down payment... In part because the rent is, to borrow a phrase, too damn high.

"Millennials are delaying all kinds of major life decisions, like getting married and having kids, so it makes sense that they would also delay buying a home," said Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Svenja Gudell. "We know Millennials value homeownership and want to buy. The next challenge will be figuring out how they can save for a downpayment and qualify for a mortgage, especially while the rental market is so unaffordable all over the country. The last hurdle will be finding a home they like amidst very tight inventory, especially among starter homes."

And then there's education. The low-cost public universities have turned into massive debt generators.

The entry points to the wealth curve are more and more beset by the vampires of finance and their rent-seeking necromancers, summoning up undying debt to prey on unsuspecting youth. Inequality is growing wider as a result.

This time phenomenon is not a function of capitalism. Interest rates coordinate time with risk. In the 80s my dad bought his first house (on a middle class gs-7 federal job) at an interest rate of 12%; in the nineties he got a second house at the same value for 6%, (thus effectively free, by refi the first), and in the early aughts he got a third at 3%.

Why? Not because of the free market, but because the fed keeps goosing the interest rate downward to stimulate growth. Will I be able to do such a thing? No.