I will say it again: there should be no billionaires. Let me prove the point with some simple math. If a person was given five thousand dollars a day for 500 years and never spent a dollar, they would have $912,500. This means if someone got and saved five thousand dollars a day for 500 years, obviously something no person could do, they would not be a billionaire.
Now, let’s look at how that compares to the wages of Americans today.
If someone earned the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 and worked 40 hours a week for 500 years, they would earn roughly $7,540,000. In other words, if someone made America’s current minimum wage for 500 years, they would earn less than eight million dollars.
In 2018, the median income (the point at which half of Americans earn more and half earn less) in America was $63,179. If someone earned the 2018 median income for 500 years, they would earn $31,589,500.
In 2018, the CEO of Wells Fargo was paid $18,400,000. It would take an American making America’s median income in 2018 more than 250 years to earn what the CEO of Wells Fargo earned in a year the bank was repeatedly found to have violated consumer’s rights.
When a few people earn more than most Americans couldn’t earn in centuries at their current wages, the system is broken beyond repair.
We are regularly told redistributing wealth is class warfare. What we are rarely told is that class warfare has been alive and well since the founding of this nation and that it has been a governing ideal since 1980. The reason we are rarely told the truth about class warfare is that the ultra wealthy have been waging war on us.
It’s long time we wage war on them. Their wages, stock options, and tax avoidance are an outrage. When they are taking place while others are literally drinking toxic water–it is an immorality that must end.