“Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.”

― Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom

The last few weeks have been very busy. They have kept me busy with the many daily activities that need to be done to run a household but aren’t always acknowledged as ‘important’ or even at times ‘real’ work.

Bills must be paid despite Inflation, chores and tasks must get done. But these are the very same chores and tasks which get ignored and downplayed by those of financial means. These are the activities that people of the middle class and below in this country, have to do ourselves.

Seriously, if you have ever had to clean your own bathrooms, you know that soap scum is a serious opponent to your time management. Doing large amounts of laundry despite assorted washers and dryers doesn’t eradicate a need. The need for pre-washing and post-washing which are manual tasks. Cleaning and mopping floors aren’t easy. My husband and I, from when we first lived together, have taken turns to do many of these household cleaning and other chores, if the other spouse was fully-occupied with work.

The super rich, and people who live in Countries where the labor classes are paid a true pittance, pay the poorer classes to do these things, along with a battalion of chauffeurs, butlers, nannies for the children, chefs and maids.

Now, I grew up in relative wealth and reveal this, to acknowledge that I had to evolve as a person. I came to realize that so much the wealthy take for granted, aren’t normal conditions for much of the world. This very same elite-class rich can ignore the facts and claim that the poor are lazy and unproductive.

So, am I complaining about all these chores and tasks? Not really. The more I do them, the more I am able to feel independent and able.

What does bother me then?

It is the blatant, brandishing of wealth and excess. Of people who have so much time to immerse themselves in gross amounts of grandeur. Of the denial by billionaire elites that they are freed by low-paid labor to do whatever they, the ultra-wealthy, desire.

Yet, we, the middle classes are told that what should really bother us, are people who are in war zones and who seek safety and food. Those who live in atmospheres of civil unrest and are merely seeking work to feed their families. The homeless and the desperate, driven to addiction. These are who should be demonized, we are told. These are the group who cause problems like inflation, according to the sources delegated to do the whispering in our ears.

We should fear those who are actual targets of human trafficking, extreme pollution and climate horrors, mass starvation and unrest. We should fear people wanting to leave their old countries to seek a better, more affordable life for themselves and their families. We are told that these are who we should be ‘terrified’ of. These groups, we are told, are the enemy. This according to billionaires and those who are perhaps paid, to be mouthpieces.

Yet we have evidence to the contrary, as in this quote from Oxfam:

“While ordinary people are making daily sacrifices on essentials like food, the super-rich have outdone even their wildest dreams. Just two years in, this decade is shaping up to be the best yet for billionaires —a roaring ‘20s boom for the world’s richest,” said Gabriela Bucher, Executive Director of Oxfam International.

See https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/richest-1-bag-nearly-twice-much-wealth-rest-world-put-together-over-past-two-years#

The same Oxfam article goes on to say:

“At the same time, at least 1.7 billion workers now live in countries where inflation is outpacing wages, and over 820 million people —roughly one in ten people on Earth— are going hungry. Women and girls often eat least and last, and make up nearly 60 percent of the world’s hungry population. The World Bank says we are likely seeing the biggest increase in global inequality and poverty since WW2. Entire countries are facing bankruptcy, with the poorest countries now spending four times more repaying debts to rich creditors than on healthcare. Three-quarters of the world’s governments are planning austerity-driven public sector spending cuts —including on healthcare and education— by $7.8 trillion over the next five years.”

What on earth triggered me most recently, though?

I refer to a billionaire who recently celebrated a not-yet-wedding, in such awful excess that it was featured in the news media. It was in a location that was not that far away from the slums and the starving. Also, the excess was shared with more of the international super-rich who were privately flown in from around the world and an entire airport was shut down. They dressed in their extreme finest. The whole lot were feted and fed in a way that was both ostentatious and excessive. Not one of them have been labeled ‘lazy’. I am pretty sure not one of them spent the day before, scrubbing a toilet bowl or two.

So what should we think? We should think about the spectacle put before us, see who isn’t honest about who helps make them wealthy with their low-paid labor sources. We should draw intelligent, informed, wise conclusions, based on logic and not hysteria, Life’s food for thought. There are facts out there about the 1%. About how they aren’t being taxed enough. The same Oxfam article revealed:

“Worldwide, only four cents in every tax dollar now comes from taxes on wealth. Half of the world’s billionaires live in countries with no inheritance tax for direct descendants. They will pass on a $5 trillion tax-free treasure chest to their heirs, more than the GDP of Africa, which will drive a future generation of aristocratic elites. Rich people’s income is mostly unearned, derived from returns on their assets, yet it is taxed on average at 18 percent, just over half as much as the average top tax rate on wages and salaries.”

Therefore, I am not complaining about house-cleaning nor even spring cleaning. I am directing our focus to the real source of our troubles. A source that cannot be scrubbed away with a bucket of bleach and a brush.

I am an Ordinary person who bakes as well as I write. You can try my bakes at https://bakedbysueslife.etsy.com

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