August 3rd, 1492. Christopher Columbus left Spain for what was an accidental journey to America. This was 528 years ago or 192,852 days ago today.
If you made $5,000 a day, every day, weekends included. Or $152,000 a month, Or $1.82 million a year for all this period of time. You would still be 35.7 million dollars short of a billion. That's 14 and a half times the lifetime income of the average household in the United States.
Yet, the population is rarely in favor of a tax on the ultra-rich. There are only 630 billionaires in the US. The odds of joining their ranks is 1 : 520,634. At the very least, we can say that the odds are not in our favor. In the US, the poor sees themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
We tolerate unfair treatment at work because we think it's temporary. We live with the stress of no health insurance because eventually we will make it big. We take two or three jobs because the end will justify the means.
What happens if things don't change? If your condition doesn't improve at work. If you never get health insurance. If you lose your job. Then what happens?
If you are a bank, the government hands you money so you can continue to operate. If you are an individual, you are on your own.
We are not temporarily embarrassed millionaires. We are at the butt-end of a system that will celebrate us, but never reward us.