#medium chill

Words to Live By

If we wanted, we could both do the “next thing” on our respective career paths. She could move to a bigger company. I could freelance more, angle to write for a bigger publications, write a book, hire a publicist, whatever. We could try to make more money. Then we could fix the water pressure in our shower, redo the back patio, get a second car, or hell, buy a bigger house closer in to town. Maybe get the kids in private schools. All that stuff people with more money than us do. But … meh.

And in America, no matter how much you've got, someone next to you has more. This is what Chris Hayes once described to me as "fractal inequality." America's top 10 percent are far, far better off than the other 90 percent, but the top 1 percent is far, far better off than the 10 percent, and the 0.01 percent is far, far better off than the 1 percent.... That's how you get people in the U.S. making $200,000 a year -- unquestionably rich relative to the median -- whining that they're just humble middle class. They look with bitter envy on those making a million, just as those making a million aspire to the tens of millions, and so on.... There is no plateau, no place to stand where you're not looking up at your next-door neighbors. And thanks to the magic of television, every family in the country gets to compare themselves to the richest of the rich every single night.