I don't know if I am glad to be home or not. I know that sounds crazy but I got home to more heat. But just remember, climate change isn't real. Fucking idiots. It was insanely hot here yesterday. Some reprieve today, but right back it the rest of the week. High 90s. Fun times.
My first flight was okay. Even with the delay, I still landed with a good half hour until I needed to board my next flight and for once it was only 8 gates away. Thank goodness. That's always my stress point in Dallas. Which terminal? In this case I came in at A20 and left from A28. That is reasonable and okay. It's when I come in at A and have to haul ass to B or D. There's the time killer. No upgrade but I did have a decent exit seat on the way home. Was able to stretch out a bit and get to my bag without incident. That was nice.
Landed at 11, B picked me up, and we headed home. Took the back way and didn't deal with one ounce of traffic. Love it.
Unpacked, dealt with some stuff, and B took a nap. I waited for maintenance to show up. One side of our sink was leaking. When he came he told me he has had to do this same repair in multiple units. Something about the original builder not using enough sealant putty and over time it leaks. Good job cheap ass builder! This is why I like older homes and buildings. They tend to be more solidly put together.
We had Italian for dinner, came back, relaxed. B has been packing and we are going to go get more boxes today to keep that momentum going. I also need to go grocery shopping this morning. We're out of a lot of things.
I paid bills from the airport yesterday while waiting for my flight, but I still have timesheet and expense report to do today. Fun times. Here's the story I was mentioning at the beginning. Enjoy.
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The Day I Destroyed a Soul
So Thursday after class I got to talking with one of my students. The conversation turned to businesses like Amazon and Walmart. The student brought up Jeff Bezos and how they think they can be worth as much as him one day. Here’s where the evil in me came out. Me, the lowly data science and analytics teacher decided to crush their spirit a little bit. Why? Because reality, that’s why. I began the conversation with the things all of us hear are used to saying and hearing:
“You know you have more in common with a homeless person than Bezos or any billionaire for that matter, right?”
“Oh no, I can do it. I can work hard and earn that kind of money, well maybe not that much, but close!”
(Insert evil glint in my eye as I prepare to lay down some math for this poor person)
“Okay, well how about we do some math and see what it looks like on paper? Let’s start with some assumptions:
Assumption #1 - You make on average in your lifetime $100 an hour at a job
Assumption #2 - You take two weeks of vacation every year and work 2000 hours (40 hour week * 50 weeks)
Assumption #3 - You pay no taxes and have no other expenses and can keep every dollar you make
Okay?”
“Sure….”
“Your job is paying you $200,000 a year. Would you agree that by most standards that would be considered a good job?”
“Heck yeah!”
“Alright then. After 5 years, you’ve made $1,000,000. Good job!”
(Some hope returns to their poor face)
“Cool! Now I am set!”
“Not yet. You want to be in Bezos’ leaugue, and we need to keep going. To reach $10,000,000 you will need to work how many years?”
“um.”
“The answer is 50 years. If you’re 25 now, that means at age 75 you will have accumulated $10,000,000 in wealth. A decent retirement for sure. But you want to be a billionaire so you have to keep going (Insert dramatic pause) for another 450 years just to hit $100,000,000. That’s 500 years TOTAL. For your sake I hope they make advances in science! But wait! I forgot, you wanted ONE BILLION dollars. That’s 10x more. You will have needed to work a total of FIVE THOUSAND YEARS to hit that first billion. And that’s with what you said before was by today’s standards an outstanding career and job. Let that sink in for a minute. 5000 years. For one billion. He has THREE HUNDRED billion. At your current salary, that’s an additional amount of time. Want to know how much?”
“(sadly) No.”
“Too bad. One point five MILLION years. That’s how long you’d have to work at a GOOD job without spending a single dime, never paying taxes, and never taking more than two weeks a year off to have as much money as he does right now. Still seem realistic?”
“(sigh) I guess not”
“Good. Because I am going to ruin it more for you. Let’s look at the average worker. If they do well and can get a decent job, then they may average an hourly wage of $50 an hour. Using our 2000 hour assumption from earlier, they now make $100,000 a year. But unlike you in our example, they pay taxes and have bills. On that much salary we will use simply math and say they pay 25% annually in taxes. Their net is $75,000 a year. They have managed to get a home with a 30 year loan and 5% interest. Their average mortgage payment is $1500 a month for the next 30 years including their insurance. Annually, they are now deducting $18,000 for a net of $57,000 a year. From there they have a monthly health insurance premium, car insurance premium, and life insurance premium totaling another $600 a month for another deduction of $7200 a year. Brings them to $49,800 a year. Let’s say they never marry and never have kids. Their monthly expenses for utilities, cell phone, food, clothing, car payment, vacation, entertainment, etc is roughly $2000 a month. There goes another $24,000. Total amount available for savings at the end of the year? $25,800. Do you know how many people out there would kill to have $25,000 each year in their savings? We have not accounted for unexpected expenses like illness or auto accident. Even if they do manage to save that 25k per year ,in order to reach $1,000,000 in savings they have to work 38 and 3/4 years. Again, you’re 25. You will be almost 64 to hit that first million. Of course you’re home is paid off by this point, you’ve made interest, and maybe you sell your home to something smaller you pay off in cash. Being generous, maybe you have $3,000,000 in the bank. Only $997,000,000 to go. You can do that, right?”
“I guess not.”
And with that they left the classroom. A little sadder, but hopefully a little wiser to the world of our capitalistic overlords. The look of despair on their face was breaking my heart, but they had to hear it. MORE people need to hear it. Because now, that one student may rise up and try to fight against the system. Now they may explain it to their friends. Now they may learn to distrust and hate the Bezos of the world instead of trying to emulate them. Now they may try to take them down and vote for people who also live in reality. Maybe. Just maybe.
My work was done for yet another day.
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