Seriously. If hard work, self-determination, entrepreneurship, forebarence, and all that jazz counted as much as the ruling class say it does, I've known more than a few people who'd be at least as rich and famous as Musk, Bazos, or whoever else. Needless to say, you've never heard of my father-in-law, for example.

I'm not delusional. There's no reality in which I would be worth as much as him by those criteria. His lifetime's worth hard labor and ingenuity is almost impossible to believe. But that was totally wiped out in 2008. The 1% turned a profit profited while a 50+ year old man had to sell his modest, literally self-made dream home and completely reinvent himself to have a decent but modest retirement.

I can't understate this man's qualities, at least in terms of "hard work". Like his father before him, he literally worked himself to the brink of death but has precious little to show for it. I never want to hear again about how hard CEOs work or how the labor of any one person could be worth billions of dollars.