You've made great points in here, but I wanted to make special note of this, due to how prescient it is (and not just in the American sense either. As a matter of fact, it probably applies more to places like London and Singapore more than the US, if at all possible).
I actually deleted a Baudrilard quote that addressed this exact issue in more abstract terms from my first post. It stated (heavily parsed and manipulated by myself):
"Are we still in a capitalist mode...perhaps we are really already within a socialist mode? Perhaps this metamorphosis of capital...is merely its socialist outcome."
Given the transformation of making money over the last 30 plus years, where value can literally be produced more or less out of thin air or stock market perception then distributed wherever those who have the ability to manipulate that capital see fit for it to go, even within the sight of the media, which is historically supposed to be the equalizer for the less elite, speaks to this point.
The capital is socialized within that circle in the form of accumulated wealth, and you could say that it is socialized within the rest of society in the form of media, objects bought and sold, and perceptions about wealth and its affects on an individual's quality of life.
You may not have been thinking of all of this, but it's a very good point in and of itself.