I didn't say A means B 100% of the time, just that it's an indicator. The same way having a car with a lot of dings and scratches and holes doesn't mean you're a bad driver, you could have just purchased it that way or they could have happened through no fault of your own. But it's still an indicator - one piece of evidence to be looked at holistically.

But I notice you haven't actually responded to the point that "the 1%" actually does mean "your neighbor with a nice house and a pool" because $800k income puts you in the 1%. That's two doctors in not-particularly-highly-paid specialties. That's two good attorneys at big firms. That's two FAANG software engineers. Definitionally there's not going to be a ton of people in that group, it's hard to get into that group, but they're everywhere not just billionaires twirling their mustache and trying to reroute rivers to sell the water like some caricature.