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--- inequality_of_wealth [2024/05/23 09:15] – [What is the minimum of wealth] fuldadmin
+++ inequality_of_wealth [2026/06/19 14:41] (current) – [What is the magnitude of the inequality of wealth] fuldadmin
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-More than 500 billion people live in extreme poverty (below $2.15/day) [[https://ourworldindata.org/from-1-90-to-2-15-a-day-the-updated-international-poverty-line|1]]. At the billionaire side of the spectrum, the difference between income and profits becomes murky. For example, Elon Musk executed some stock options in 2021 that netted him an annual income of 23 billion $. The highest paid CEO's in the world are paid around 0.5 billion per year.
+More than 500 million people live in extreme poverty (below $2.15/day) [[https://ourworldindata.org/from-1-90-to-2-15-a-day-the-updated-international-poverty-line|1]]. At the billionaire side of the spectrum, the difference between income and profits becomes murky. For example, Elon Musk executed some stock options in 2021 that netted him an annual income of 23 billion $. The highest paid CEO's in the world are paid around 0.5 billion per year.
 If the handful of billionaires at that level would spend 90% of their wealth and salaries to relieve poverty, it would not make a significant dent, but rest assured that the pyramid gets wider fast. There is plenty of money in this world, owned by people that don't need it. But that aside, let's look at the scale of the difference for a minute:
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 ===== What should I be doing to help fix this =====
 Even though I'm not anywhere near any of the limits set above, I can still make money move in the right direction. By consulting for people wealthier than myself, and hiring people less wealthy than myself on a fair wage, I would already be doing that. As long as my business doesn't involve exploiting the poor, I'm very likely to contribute to a fairer world.
+When I have excess money (money that I can afford to lose) I can choose to donate it instead of spending it on something I don't need. From personal experience I found that this is a harder choice. For example, I'm saving for my pension and the kids education funding (I don't trust the government with that anymore, unfortunately). When I protect future privileges, while right now there are actual human beings dying of poverty, that seems incredibly selfish. However, when I lived rather far under my means, my happiness dropped and also my earning potential dropped. Nobody will be helped if I ruin myself, so I needed to set some boundaries of self preservation. I decided to live like I have a modal income (that's around 40k€/y before taxes in my area) put 10% of my earnings towards charitable goals (that's between 5-20k/y) and save up the rest for future financial safety. This feels balanced to me, and I decided that it's up to anyone to figure out which balance works for them. Als long as you don't own more than 75M or spend more than 750k/y on your ego. If you do that, your behavior is evil, according to my calculations. But at that point it should be very easy to stop and start behaving like a good person. For those that don't, we need laws.