"A rich person has less money, percentage wise, sitting in his wallet, pillow case, or wall safe than us poorer people.
Most of their 'wealth' is properties of some sort or investments.
Property in terms of land rarely is considered in a normal economy but the rich pay to have this land maintained. Show me a poor person with a gardener, pool boy, and a maid."
This is the start of a historical mechanism called "la trahison du bourgois". A wealthy man starts to invest in real estate and or land. This actually drains the economy, rather than supports it, as money is just put aside and is not being spent. A wealthy person, in the free market system, needs to spend the money he makes or it's a drain on the economic growth.. In that system a man like Bill Gates or Ted Turner who retreat out of their businesses and focus themselves on other things like charity are rarely a good thing for the economy.. Piled up riches are riches that lie to waste. Fortunatly, banks lend their money to compagnies so it still contributes, but it does less than when it's spent normally..
In history this has ended up in economic breakdowns for cities (in that period economies were mostly organised on a regional (i.e. a large city and it's surrounding land) base) multiple times..