IANAL, but my family lives comfortably on our income. I’ve had the opportunity to peek behind the curtain and get to know (professionally) people with seven figure incomes and eight figure net worths. The “contempt born of familiarity” resonates for me, intimately.

What surprised me and continues to haunt me is how trapped they are in the same system as the rest of us. They were keenly aware that not “playing the game” for even a moment would mean they’re out of it. No single millionaire can change anything much more than you or I. The system would destroy them for trying. Even if an entire company of top executives were to collectively band together and try to make change the market would dissolve their wealth in a heartbeat.

And that is what keeps me up at night… there are no heroes, no saints, no saviors. Just a system put in place generations ago that is going to have to implode under its own weight, likely violently and at great human cost, for anything to get better.