Glad someone made this point...

Regarding the difficulting of living on $500,000 in New York City:

The problem is, this acts as if the price of all these goods is exogenous. Housing and schools cost so much in New York because all the people at the top make millions of dollars a year. If they made hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, the goods they consume would be priced accordingly. Given how badly the economy of New York is distorted by extreme wealth, inexorably forcing the middle class farther and farther towards the periphery, this might not be a bad thing.

Thanks, Ms. McArdle. :-)