Hello,
I own a marketing company (no office – just digital employees and assistants) and buy/sell watches. I'm mid 20s and do quite well for myself. I was always “If you're poor it's your fault. You can always do something” and so on. But I've had an epiphany over the past few days and my mind is totally changed.
The other day I was at the coffee shop, not going to say which one since they're a mega corporation and would slaughter me. There was easily 5 people in line, 20 people in the cafe waiting for drinks, a line of cars out the parking lot into the street and ONE girl working. She was literally crying.
I looked online and based on what I found she makes $14/hr. That's $2,240/mo working full time. In Cincinnati, OH decent apartments without bugs are $1,100/mo. After taxes you're looking at $1800 take home pay, so maybe $700/mo left to eat, drink, transportation, health insurance, etc…
All that stress and emotion for probably sub $2,000/mo… Why work? There's no point. Awhile the CEO makes $30m/yr salary plus much more in stock. Being a CEO is hard and has long hours.. It is stressful. But in terms of physical labor, crying for 8 hours a day because you feel so overwhelmed to barely get by. That is not right.
I know many many wealthy people – my Grandfathers best friends is a family worth $8B. Once you get past a $10m – $20m net worth, nothing really changes.. Once you have no car payments and no housing cost, nothing really matters.
There is no reason for a CEO to make $30m plus probably $50m in stock options a year when you have what I saw happen in your own company.
As for the barista making $2,000/mo.. If she somehow figured out how to buy a reliable car cash and invest the difference, she would start to see monthly a rise between her cash on hand and expenses. BUT, that's impossible making $2,000/mo and living on your own. She could go get a second job, but why do that? You're so mentally drained from the first one and then your sacrifice your free time for a second job that it's pointless. She could try to start a business but there's so much cash burning when starting that it'll likely fail. So why try that?
I still believe in capitalism BUT IT ONLY WORKS IF YOU HAVE MONEY.. There needs to be a fix to incomes in America and/or inflation. And the rights amongst workers.
CEO's need to take less salaries and it needs to be distributed out to the employees, employees of all levels need to have stock options, more housing needs to be built to drop housing cost, and this whole inflation thing needs to be solved asap which there's so many moving parts idek where to begin.. Oh, and health insurance should be free. Not to complain but I literally pay $375/mo with a $15k deductible per year. Fucking insane and is robbery.
This whole situation really makes me want to help make change in the world.