system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Does the wealth of the ultra wealthy actually harm normal people?

When people have a bunch of wealth (on paper), but they aren't actually chewing up resources, does it even matter to poorer normal people? Are poorer people actually getting deprived of goods and services? What is the effect of people  accumulating enormous amounts of wealth on paper?
gpt
Wealth can be invested in making new goods and services - e.g. building a factory, or a piece of software or it can be invested in buying existing assets.

Building factories, software etc, typically results in hiring workers, paying them wages, paying other firms for parts and so forth, and thus the money circulates.

Buying an existing asset for, say, $1m, means that someone must have sold said asset for $1m. Therefore the seller has $1m in money to do something with (this probably includes the seller paying costs like commission, legal fees, taxes, etc). While they might turn around and buy a new asset of their own, at some point the $1m is going to be spent on investment in new assets or on consumption. 

That said, the processes that produce paper wealth can be harmful - for example the restricted housing supply that drives up house prices deeply effects poorer people. The issue there is the housing shortage in and of itself. In other words, deeper details matter.