Why do we fight so hard to protect the possibility of being filthy rich when most of us just want to live comfortably? Honestly, it’s one of the greatest ironies to me. Last year, my boyfriend (now fiance) and I made about $40,000, collectively. We were ok. We always had food, ordered delivery way too frequently, went on a vacation in Florida, bought some totally unnecessary items (well, new games and gaming equipment are necessary when you play games, right? 😉), and I wasted upwards of $200 on clothes/items I will probably never use… but we still managed to save a little money. We live in Knoxville, TN, so our rent is pretty low, but our sales tax is crazy high, so I don’t think we live in an incredibly rare economic situation.

The fact is, most of us are doing ok compared to what we need. We’re not doing ok compared to what people had 50 years ago, but since our needs are still being met, we’re not that angry about it. Not angry enough to start really questioning the distribution of wealth, anyway. Apparently some people are angry enough to hate immigrants, but that’s not really new. Immigrants are the classic scapegoat, and historically, they are almost always the first ones to be targeted when people start to feel economically stressed.

My point, though, is that even though we have it worse than our parents did, we still do ok with $40,000 a year. So why is it that some people have over one thousand times that amount of wealth, and why do people keep insisting that allowing people to have that kind of wealth is a good idea? I really don’t understand. The only thing that makes sense to me is that everyone thinks of themselves as “potentially” having lots of money, and they don’t like the idea that someone (the government, oh no!) would take that potential money away from them. People like the idea that they could possibly be filthy rich… but do they really want that? I just don’t think so.

I would like to ask everyone to think for a second – would life really be bad if everyone was guaranteed $80,000 a year, no more and no less?

Continue reading “Who wants to be a millionaire, really?”