It’s interesting to me that we frame a lot of issues as costing money.
Unhoused folk cost money to house.
Disabled folk cost money, too.
Immigrants cost money.
Trans folk cost money.
Nobody ever says, “Hey, how much does Jeff Bezos cost?” “How much does it cost us to have Elon Musk around, hoarding his money?” “What’s it costing us to have all these fabulously wealthy people?”
It’s costing us a lot more than we ever talk about. Not just because their hoarding of wealth takes that money out of circulation and contributes directly to poverty and the spiralling cost to human beings everywhere.
Also because things are being framed in this way, because we are being forced to think of ourselves and others in terms of cartoon dollar symbols.
That is not a natural state of affairs for humans, it is not something that is morally defensible, and it is something that eats away at each of us in different ways depending on our position vis à vis wealth.
me, looking at the current state of the world, crying:I wish none of this had happened…
Gandalf, materialising in my conscience, smiling kindly: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, besides the will of evil.
