I read today that workers around the world have lost a collective $3.7 trillion during the pandemic. During this same period the billionaires of the world have increased their wealth by a staggering $3.9 trillion.
Dan Price, CEO of of the online credit card processing company Gravity Payments, called it “the biggest one-year wealth transfer in history”. In the very simplest terms this is like every worker in the world emptying their pockets into the laps of their bosses. How is any of this even possible?
I think it’s because we’re living in one massive pyramid scheme. Traditional pyramid schemes make money by recruiting members with a promise of payments for enrolling other members into the scheme. What the transfer of $3.9 trillion so eloquently illustrates, and events around the world demonstrate, is that this system is completely unsustainable business model.
Money cannot continue to be extracted in this way. At some point this vast pyramid will collapse. You cannot move such vast sums of money away from the majority, where it’s the difference between life and death, into the hands of the very few, and it not have consequences.
At some point, those paying tribute will have nothing to give. Those desperate souls, with nothing to lose, will realise the cause of their suffering, and seek to balance the scale.
Darrin // Nightingale 