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by trashtester 1018 days ago
How do you define "poor"? Net worth of less than $10M? Income less than $1M?

Unless you set very strict limits for "poor" like that, the people that the ultra rich hire tend to be rather well off, or at least comfortable, themselves ( by that I mean net worth of >$1M OR income of >$100k.

Actual poor people don't built state of the art tech. At best, they work as cleaning staff or in the cafeteria of those companies. Or maybe in the assembly plant in a foreign country. (And even those may feel wealthy when compared to their friends and family.)

Those who resent the ultra rich the most tend to be those who are themselves quite comfortable, often affluent even, but really hate it when other people are even more successful than themselves.

They often pretend to care for "the poor", but really all they want is to pull down anyone more successful than themselves.
2 comments
kubb 1018 days ago
It's common to project resentment towards individuals onto someone who expresses dissatisfaction with systemic issues. We want to think on our small human scale, but our societies got so big that we can't make sense of them in those terms anymore.
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trashtester 1018 days ago
> It's common to project resentment towards individuals onto someone who expresses dissatisfaction with systemic issues.

Perhaps, but it's also quite common for people who are really doing quite well to pretend to argue on behalf of actually marginalized groups when struggling for power with their opponents.

The way to tell the difference between those who genuinely want to help marginalized groups and those who just use them as pawns in a power struggle, is that they spend a similar amount of effort to help those groups with problems that do NOT in any way involve taking away power from their political opponents.

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kubb 1017 days ago
There's no struggle for power between an overworked corporate bee, and a billionaire. The latter is hundreds of thousands of times more powerful than the former.

You're right though, a lot of the time folks with office jobs don't really care about the marginalized (and who could blame them with their entire energy drained by their jobs). Your heuristic to tell the difference is... dubious.

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trashtester 1017 days ago
> There's no struggle for power between an overworked corporate bee, and a billionaire.

Oh, but there is! Why do you think the "bees" try to create unions, and the billionaires try to prevent it? If the bees get their union, that means they can wrestle some amount of power away from the owner.

> and who could blame them with their entire energy drained by their jobs

Some people and some companies and in some countries, it's normal for the company to be able to drain most of the energy from the workers. In other places, there is much more work/life balance.

By heuristic, like the comment that I responded to directly above was not limited to only employer/employee relationships, but rather so called "systemic issues".

It also happens in both directions. For instance, when conservatives argue against a minimum wage, they tend to argue that a minimum wage can lead to increased unemployment. Do you think most conservatives REALLY carethat much about that part, or do they just want to avoid the minimum wage regulations?

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CapstanRoller 1018 days ago
>income of >$100k

This is barely "middle class" now, unless you live in the middle of nowhere or like a college student.

$100k/yr stopped being impressive long ago. Even the FAANG rich boys are closer to the janitor than to the CEO.

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trashtester 1017 days ago
$100k/yr probably still puts you in the top 1% by personal salary per year, globaly. And about 3x above the median in the US.

I'm not arguing that it makes you rich, but you're definitely NOT "poor" if you have such an income.

Anyway, comparing to the CEO on a linear scale is kind of absurd. Anyone making less than half of what the CEO does is closer to the janitor than the CEO. Still, if you make exactly half as much as the CEO of these companies, you're still objectively rich.

And why do you think you should be closer to the CEO than the janitor in the first place? Do you think your job is that much more important than making sure the power is on and the toilets are not stuck?

If someone is gunuine about protecting the "poor", they should first ensure that the janitors and cafeteria workers are not poor, before they demand raises that would take them even further away from those that really ARE poor.

It appears to be quite typical for those claiming to be poor (while having an above-median income and wealth) to have just the attitude towards those below them that they blame the "rich" for.

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CapstanRoller 1017 days ago
>I'm not arguing that it makes you rich, but you're definitely NOT "poor" if you have such an income.

It depends on where you live. In the Bay Area, you can earn $100k/yr and qualify for food assistance. Housing is the biggest expense, and it's only getting worse.

https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/100k-a-year-is-low-incom...

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