It’s a bit more complicated than just adding up all the money and dividing it by the number of people.

I really don’t think it is. I have a feeling this is futile if we can’t even agree what numbers to use, or whether to use numbers, so I’ll just try and explain what I’m saying a bit. If you still disagree that’s fine, it happens sometimes.

Rich people don’t spend their money, they use it to outbid each other for control of existing assets that the rest of us need and have no choice but to pay them for. Instead of spending that money on things that other people get paid to make (the “trickle down” lie), they use it to extort us for access to things we need to survive.

In financial terms, this is called getting dividends. Billionares do about as well as everyone else, just scaled up. In the short term some do a bit better (whoever owns a big share of Nvidia right now), some do worse (Musk, Trump). The difference is that a few percent return for them is more than an average person could ever spend on themselves, and so obviously they live a completely different life from a guy who just has a mutual fund.

A cool explainer on why, in money terms, they exist in the first place. No, it’s not because Musk is actually thousands of times better than us. Or even a fair reason.

There is plenty enough in this world to go around. That so many have so little is nothing to do with the amount of arbitrary exchange tokens that exist.

That’s true. To be clear, I’m not saying poverty is necessary. I’m saying it’s not because of the super rich (at least in the West). Nor am I saying the super-rich are useful.