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New Yorker staff writer Evan Osnos recently had a collection of essays published called “The Haves and the Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich.” He talked to NPR about one of the big status symbols today, the gigayacht:

“The gigayacht is a pleasure vehicle, a luxury boat, that is the length of a football field. It can cost upwards of $500 million. It is, in fact, the most expensive object that the human species has ever figured out how to own. A generation ago, there were only ten in the world. Today, there are 170.

“There’s pride in the sheer luxury of it. The most telling detail that I ever heard was something that the owner of a very expensive yacht told one of his guests. He said, “it is ultimately the last true marker of great wealth. You have a chef and I have a chef. You fly private and I fly private. The only way that I can tell the world that I am in a different effing category than you is the boat.” I can’t imagine a statement that is perhaps more evocative in capturing the internal engine of endless pursuit and acquisition and insatiable desire for more and more stuff.”

The United States is ROLLING in wealth. Look at the amount of money that gets thrown around in the sports and entertainment industries. Hell, the LA Lakers basketball team was just sold for 10 billion dollars. 650 thousand American households have yearly incomes over $1 million. “Gigayachts” are the ultimate status symbols. Supertall skyscapers of multi-million dollar condos are going up right and left. Corporate CEOs are THROWING money at Donald Trump so he can build a $350 million gilded ballroom monument to himself.

And yet: The GOP says there’s no money to support SNAP and Medicaid benefits and to shore up Social Security. What’s wrong with this picture?