It is funny that a lot of the wealth we're talking about is not actual real wealth.

The beauty of monetary inflation, without any tether to something like gold. We still believe it is valuable, even though it isn't.

I think, from memory, the US stock market has twice the 'value' as the real economy - which is bananas.

The derivitive market is estimated (a lot of it is OTC and invisible) to be worth about 4 times the entire value of every other thing in the world - including all the land, corporations, gold, diamonds...

The problem is that even though their wealth is mainly on paper, the political equity they buy is real...

Exactly. And this impacts on us in reality too. Most of what they do is also useless for our health as a society, and often a detriment.

but a proper plague would wipe out poor and rich alike in a significant way

Yeah, I get this. But it is also a bit different now than in biblical times too. Most of the wealth isn't held by the individual, it is held by companies that have more rights than individuals, like paying less tax. And they don't die.