 It is this insecurity that keeps them scrambling, scrambling ever upward. Economists call this fractal inequality. The person who is in debt looks to the person with zero dollars, who looks to the person who has $50,000, who looks to the person who has six figures, who looks to the person who has half a million dollars, who looks to the person who has a million dollars in the bank, who looks to the person with twice as many assets, and on it goes.