I’m a fan of capitalism. It rewards people who create new things, encourages hard work, and allows people to realize their potential.

I just read a memoir about a woman who married a Frenchman and moved to France. She encouraged her husband to grow his business, and she bestowed upon him her American optimism. His parents were unhappy when he rose to the top of his field. Being equal is a cultural and political imperative in France. It was embarrassing to his parents that he had succeeded in such a way.

France is very busy perfecting the art of the three-hour lunch break, debating existential philosophy over espresso, and going on strike every other Thursday. Why manufacture when you can just sit by the Seine and wait for the government to handle everything? Don’t get me wrong–France is amazing in a million other ways.

I know capitalism has its pitfalls–especially when corruption becomes rampant or when the people who live under the system forget what’s truly important in life. Last week, I got a personal peek at the ugly side of capitalism and the current state of our world. It wasn’t pretty.

I often do trip planning for people who want someone else to plan their vacation for them, and I happen to have a very wealthy client. I’ve booked him $1500 a night hotel rooms in Cabo San Lucas and golf outings starting at $250 a person. No judgement from me, of course. Good for him! Good for me!

So, he asked me to plan a trip to Disney World for his family and he was willing to pay for the royal treatment. I figured it would be an interesting peek into how Disney World caters to the country’s top 1% earners.

My first call was to the Disney VIP office. They’re in charge of setting up special days at Disney for the very rich. What they do is this: they assign one guide to your family or group and that guide will spend up to ten hours a day with you, helping you to cut the line on every ride, fetch your Starbucks coffee, and escort you to the best Disney restaurants or your private, reserved seating for parades and nightly firework displays. Your every wish is their command.

Of course, the perks make Disney palatable for the rich in a way that escapes the rest of us. For them, Disney isn’t the “happiest place on Earth”–it’s the most exclusive place on Earth. While the average family is out there melting in the sun, rationing their $25 popcorn, and waiting hours for a 30-second ride, the VIPs are swept past the masses by their personal tour guide. Lines? Never heard of them. Crowds? What crowds? They glide effortlessly from ride to ride, skipping every queue like they own the place.

I was expecting the VIP service to be expensive but I wasn’t prepared for the real price tag: $900. That’s not $900 for three days or $900 for the day, but $900 an hour. (Have you picked yourself up off the floor yet?)

My client was looking at nearly $10,000 a day, or $30,000 for three days, and that doesn’t include the $6,000 tip to the guide at the end of the trip. And, by the way, that price tag doesn’t include your hotel, park tickets, your meals, or what you spend on snacks and souvenirs.

When the guide told me the price, I wanted to calmly say this: “If you are charging $900 per hour, please put the Seven Dwarves on speaker immediately and have them handle my reservation. Also, if Snow White is around, I wouldn’t mind a little chat with her.”

$900 an hour? I laughed into the phone, which is probably not a good idea for a trip planner calling Disney. And get this: there’s a wait list. Yes, ladies and getlemen, there is a wait list to spend $10,000 a day to avoid the line at Disney.

That kind of money is life changing for some people–people in North Carolina whose lives were disrupted after the hurricane, or for a single mom who is behind on her mortgage, or a million other desperate situations. And it’s not as if I expect my client to write a check to anyone who needs it and forgo his family trip.

My point is that this divide is sometimes hard to bridge–the fact that there are wait lines for $10,000-a-day services. The kind of money floating around this country in the hands of a small group of private citizens (and some public ones, too) is mind boggling, and curious, especially when billions of dollars are unaccounted for in our federal coffers. It’s like there was a big party somewhere and 90% of us never got the invite.

Or the stock tip.