I think my point isn’t being well taken, or perhaps I phrased it incorrectly. I certainly agree with the sentiment that wealth disparity is maybe the biggest problem we face.
The vast vast vast majority of the wealth of the uber wealthy come from the assets they own. If they can be said to “make” money over the course of the year, it’s as a result of those assets increasing in value and not directly tied to the “work” they put in.
My problem with these comparisons are two-fold. One, they usually conflate an individuals net worth with income. If Elon has 365 billion dollars, he doesn’t “make” 1 billion per day. Two, phrasing it as “making” “per hour” implies their income is tied to the hours they work, and that’s just not true. It puts value on their labor I think isn’t justified.
It puts value on their labor I think isn’t justified.
I think it’s more just to make it seem even remotely understandable for our brains, as most of our class has a notion of hourly work and knows the value of their hourly work. And we don’t even do it 247, unlike the rich bastards who “never clock out” so to speak. So it’s just there to make our brains grasp just how massive the disparity is.
This is always a good reminder; “Wealth, shown to scale”. Give it a scroll. Or a hundred. And you still won’t make it even halfway.
I think my point isn’t being well taken, or perhaps I phrased it incorrectly. I certainly agree with the sentiment that wealth disparity is maybe the biggest problem we face.
The vast vast vast majority of the wealth of the uber wealthy come from the assets they own. If they can be said to “make” money over the course of the year, it’s as a result of those assets increasing in value and not directly tied to the “work” they put in.
My problem with these comparisons are two-fold. One, they usually conflate an individuals net worth with income. If Elon has 365 billion dollars, he doesn’t “make” 1 billion per day. Two, phrasing it as “making” “per hour” implies their income is tied to the hours they work, and that’s just not true. It puts value on their labor I think isn’t justified.
I think it’s more just to make it seem even remotely understandable for our brains, as most of our class has a notion of hourly work and knows the value of their hourly work. And we don’t even do it 247, unlike the rich bastards who “never clock out” so to speak. So it’s just there to make our brains grasp just how massive the disparity is.
This is always a good reminder; “Wealth, shown to scale”. Give it a scroll. Or a hundred. And you still won’t make it even halfway.