He just admitted that he wants them to suffer
I didn't, but it might be the only thing causing them to reconsider their "values".
The nation had a great epiphany in the wake of the 1929 crash that brought on so much misery. We rejected the flimflam financial excesses of the 20's & the ideology that spawned them, embraced the New Deal.
Today, efforts to mitigate the same kind of crash have merely allowed room for denial. The extreme disparity of wealth and income of that era have returned, with a twist. The bread lines & soup kitchens are invisible, electronic, delivered in the form of EITC & other programs so disparaged by the Mittens lovers among us. All they see is the calm surface, not recognizing the turmoil below.
They have trouble seeing national income as a limited commodity, and the hoarding of liquidity as damaging to the fabric of society, actually reducing the amount of it available to the rest of America. They don't understand what a liquidity trap means, at all, don't understand that there's a tipping point of sorts wrt concentration of wealth. They don't understand that, in the current economic climate, much of money acquired by the uber wealthy just disappears from the general economy, whisked offshore for better returns, or stashed in banks that aren't lending. They don't understand that the incredible private sector debt acquired during the Bush years demands deleveraging, and that hard money policy & high unemployment just makes that a lot harder.
They don't understand a lot of things, because it's emotionally uncomfortable to even contemplate the idea that they're being conned, manipulated & robbed in the process.