The example I linked is not a "snapshot in time"; it charts trends in wealth and incomes over a century!

The distinction you appear to be making is between an aggregate view of wealth and incomes, like the example I linked, and an individualistic view of how each person fared over the course of his/her lifetime.  It's economics vs. Horatio Alger stories ...

Your questions about stealing and spending on what they want ignore completely the information in  https://www.chartbookofeconomicinequality.com/inequality-by-country/usa/.  At all times (most) people weren't stealing and they were all spending on what they wanted, so your questions are beside the point.  

In the decades between WWII and the mid 1980's, people did these things in a way that promoted a strong middle class and kept the poor housed.

Now, the rich are super-rich, the middle class is dwindling, and the poor are increasingly sleeping in the streets.