i hate to tell you but welcome to america.... there was a better age before powell in 74-76 told corporations to go to war against the american people. again like i said before red pills in deus ex, i know there is one guy here who does not wanna believe but its a start just gotta do a ton of digging before you and i understand that banksters kinda own ( almost ) everything.
The banks do own most everything. Though, I think you can break free; but, most of the ways to turn "Equity" into money is via loans. If I want to properly get my money from the bank without taking tax off my "earnings" I have to take a loan against my "Stocks". That's how most of us do it, we take loans against our stocks to not get the 25% capital gains tax.
Beyond that, yeah if you are a normal american you're taking loans for a house that are 25+ years, or for cars at 5 years, and such. Nobody is really willing to limit their spending. People will buy a brand new car instead of a used one for 2-5k or a reasonable amount.
But, instead of most people buying assets and taking loans against their stock to go against capital gains tax (banks will willingly take stock in return for liquid cash that's not taxable as a "collat"). What you do is some people will buy more stock with it and pull loans from other banks, or they will buy equity in companies they can get seats on and build up.
Though the average person just buys stocks, sells them, and takes the 25% tax, buys a liability instead of an asset.
A brand new car is not an asset, a used car is kind of an asset if you are using it for work (to travel to work). a watch is a liability, a smartphone is an asset, a product that you plan to sell or use to generate money is an asset, a luxury that makes you feel good is a liability.
buy more assets instead of liabilites and pull loans against your assets (or stocks or whatever is your equity) and sprawl it into more income passage ways. so you use loans to generate assets and more money, and you use the assets as collateral. Doing that and owning a business (and using some of that "loan" liquid money as a way to upstart more businesses/branches/ownership and sponsoring with individuals to buy board seats on other companies (via joint ventures with share ownership) is what allowed me to be so successful.
Being rich is just pulling loans that you collat with stocks or equity in other areas and they just offset each other.