You mean 1.075M? The house was the bulk of it. But that’s the point. A private individual will use his economic power on vanity spending and it won’t materialize into anything efficient or useful.
I don’t need to design any world changes to go with that. So your line of inquiry makes it seem like you’re fighting some phantoms or replicating debate strategies that you’ve observed. That’s unnecessary. The statement still holds up.
The only objection you can make is the silly one: actually it’s not up to me to decide what’s misguided, it’s up to those people who have the means. Or you can say doing useless crap is actually good which is not even a valid objection in my book.
Maybe they should be shamed for vanity projects and not admired?
Maybe admitting that the phenomenon exists is the first step before any ideas can even be discussed? Clearly it’s extremely difficult for people to recognize.