True, however those dozen are for a dozen different things. Adobe Flash, as an example, is only patching Flash, weekly, for years, and still haven't managed to fix it.

Your interpretation is certainly a possibility, but we always have to check premises, our own and others' premises. Perhaps that person is not mentally stable. "Seemingly sane" may not be.

I will say this. The number of people with diagnosed mental disorders is higher than I can remember it. The amount of cognitive dissonance is definitely at an all-time high in the US. The rational conclusion may be that there are a lot of emotionally unstable people out there. Certainly not all people are unstable, but when Little Johnny Producer gets brought down at an early age so that a good-for-nothing kid can be praised, is it any surprise that there is a lot of cognitive dissonance out there?

Gates was of sound mind only because he figured out how to run a monopoly and get away with it. His M$ software has been a disaster serving only to waste the time of millions while continuing to get paid for building security holes.

imo, Gates compromised when he should have invested in a new country (gone Galt) instead of thinking he could bribe the looters.

Purchasing power doesn't measure the ability to purchase something that didn't previously exist. How much money would your current cell phone have cost in 1995? There is no answer to that question: no one in the world could have the cell phones we carry now at any price.
How much would it cost to buy a drug that hadn't been invented, or some other improvement that no one had created.
I'm not supporting the government soaking up as many assets as possible and putting road blocks in the way of the producers. I am, however, saying that people are still producing, making things that make our lives better.
People below the poverty line (an artificial limit drawn to assure that there remains plenty of clients) have access to more than kings of old.

The problem is over regulation that the government imposes which places burdens on small competitors that large corporations support because they can afford it, while placing roadblocks in front of smaller competitors. The mega corps. donate and lobby politicians that create the regulations. Then use the force of government to enforce them, thus giving advantage to the large corporations. There are also trade affiliations/guilds like Barbers unions that stifle competition by enforcing licensing regulations for things as nonsensical as hair braiding and other anti-competition measures. The problem is lack of integrity on the part of the politicians and bureaucratic regulators. They should be telling these would be cronies to pound sand. Only the government has the legitimate use of force. That is not to say that the crony corporatist that wishes to buy favors is not also corrupt, but to point out where the true abuse of power is. Some monopolies exist without the use of coercion, only because they have with integrity offered a better value to the consumer than anyone else has yet matched, or there is a particular condition that creates a natural monopoly. For instance if there is only one place geographically where it is feasible to build a bridge one bridge builder may have a monopoly on bridge fares if you wish to take the shortest route. When you say the private sector I assume you mean monopolies enforced by unions. Any other monopoly in the private sector can be overcome by competition unless they are committing some illegal act such as intimidation or collusion etc. which can be overcome by lawsuit.