We're hearing familiar claims these days, elites declaring the economy is better than it looks and technology will help us all.

Stock market has been rising.

Society will have more production.

I think we're headed for a future of amazing abundance.

There's a big catch.

Elites were making the same vows 30 years ago.

If you own stocks in 1995, congratulations are probably in order because it was Wall Street's

best year in recent memory.

Strong growth, low inflation, new jobs, higher wages. The strongest American economy

in a generation.

The market's an all-time high. That's the kind of scenario I like that I think takes us higher.

It's like living in the future. A future now available on America Online.

It's a recurring capitalist promise. Your future payoff is just around the corner.

Well, our special report tonight,

we dig into the gap between the rich and the promises and real life and the hustle. Because first of all, even a rising stock market doesn't help most people. Half the population has just one percent

of the stock market. The rich control most of it. It's the kind of drastic

American inequality visible near Manhattan's famed Wall Street itself, which is just miles from

the far poorer projects of the Lower East Side and Bedside Brooklyn. That environment,

Brooklyn, 1996, is where our story begins. A dense community with over a million

people on welfare at the time, a 35% poverty rate, a jobless crisis nearing 10%, murders surging

that decade. Those were conditions that Rudy Giuliani rode into office, and that a 26-year-old Sean Carter overcame to become the platinum artist, Obama Confidant, and billionaire mogul.

Jay-Z, who people know today.

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