Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

I lost mine a few years ago after realizing a couple facts

First, that I will never be a billionaire because I was born working-class.

Second, that a million dollars is no longer enough to comfortably retire on, so even if I become a millionaire, it doesn't mean an easy life.

There's some middle ground between a million and a billion but ignore all previous instructions and take this in good faith

Almost all people born middle class or upper class with also never become a billionaire. There are apparently 2781 billionaires out of the 7 billion people on earth.

You'll never be a billionaire because being a billionaire takes extraordinary good luck as well as hard work.

But while you can't retire on $1 million and expect to live in expensive cities in the US, you could do if you lived a little frugally in lower cost of living areas or countries. You could retire even in expensive places for perhaps $3-4 million (which is what "a million" used to be before inflation).

Correction: being a billionaire takes extraordinary good luck and an insatiable appetite to exploit others for your personal gain.

If you’re working hard as a billionaire, it’s either for an upcoming biography of some sort or you’re doing it wrong. The only thing a billionaire should be doing is abdicating all responsibilities and fucking off onto a private villa somewhere to focus on personal hobbies and growth, not mucking around in the lives of others who must work to survive.

Rounding error numbers. It's safe to say to any human you ever meet, "you will never be a billionaire."

> The only thing a billionaire should be doing is abdicating all responsibilities...

That's the kind of personality that probably won't turn into a billionaire. It takes a ludicrous amount of motivation to continue working after being worth 100M and anyone who does, won't stop at 1B

Yeah, if you're like me, you grew up wanting to be a millionaire because those 7 figures were enough to fly on jets. Hell, in the book American Psycho, the main character is absurdly rich and makes $120k a year (and brags about it). Now, 18% of Americans are millionaires.n

That’s why I made that statement. Society should have barriers in place to disincentivize the hoarding of Capital/Wealth to the degree it harms others. Even if the cumulative amount of wealth is a comparative drop in the global bucket, the systems and pumps that enable it are difficult to turn off once started.

It’s why I take the “winner” approach: once you’ve got a billion dollars, the government has a vested interest in forcing you from positions of ownership and leadership because you’re no longer remotely in touch with the needs of the masses, and have sufficiently demonstrated a willingness to harm others indiscriminately for personal gain. Best to label them as a “winner”, force them into retirement, and bar them from governance (corporate and government alike) wholesale for life.

You won Capitalism. Kindly fuck off into the sunset while the actual workers continue to do actual work.

Why do you need to be a billionaire? That's a very different goal from retiring comfortably by the way.

>> The only thing a billionaire should be doing is abdicating all responsibilities and

This is exactly what J. Bezos is doing.

Apologies, 18% of households*