Scarcity and Other Lies

Anytime people talk about helping others—feeding kids, funding schools, addressing housing, expanding healthcare—someone inevitably says, there just isn’t enough money.

That sentence survives only because people keep repeating it, not because facts support it.

We live in a country where single individuals hold hundreds of billions of dollars. Not governments. Not entire programs. Individuals. People who own multiple homes, private jets, yachts, and properties in cities where teachers and service workers can’t afford rent. Calling that environment “scarce” requires ignoring what sits right in front of us.

Jeff Bezos owns multiple mansions worth tens of millions of dollars while Amazon workers report skipping breaks and relying on public assistance. Elon Musk gained billions in net worth in a single year while Tesla fought unionization and benefited from public subsidies. The Walton family holds more wealth than millions of Americans combined, even as Walmart consistently ranks among the largest employers of workers who depend on government aid.

That reality doesn’t come from a lack of money. It comes from where the money flows—and where it stays.

When the federal minimum wage began in the late 1930s, CEOs typically earned about 30 to 40 times the average worker’s pay. That gap acknowledged leadership while still valuing labor. Today, CEOs collect 300 to 400 times the earnings of the people who keep companies running. Some executives now earn more in a single day than their employees earn in a year.

Executives didn’t suddenly start working ten times harder. Wages flattened. Unions lost power. Profit-sharing disappeared. Executive compensation exploded. Corporate boards shifted priorities, and workers absorbed the consequences.

The pattern repeats itself across industries. Amazon reports record profits while fighting safety protections. ExxonMobil announces billions in earnings while nearby communities carry the cost of pollution and climate damage. Corporations roll out stock buybacks and layoffs in the same headlines, then insist restraint when conversations turn to social investment.

At the same time, people hear that feeding children at school costs too much. Affordable housing gets labeled unrealistic. Medical debt relief gets framed as irresponsible.

Meanwhile, billionaires add properties. Corporations expand offshore accounts. Executives collect bonuses tied directly to cutting labor costs.

Money exists. It simply moves upward and stays there.

Repeating the phrase “there isn’t enough money” shifts attention away from unchecked accumulation and places responsibility on the people struggling to survive. It reframes hoarding as practical and casts human need as excessive. That narrative doesn’t reflect economics—it protects power.

This argument doesn’t reject success. It rejects the idea that extreme concentration deserves more protection than human dignity. Societies reveal their values through their budgets. Right now, ours funds luxury without limits and treats survival like an unreasonable request.

Scarcity works as a story.

The numbers tell a different one.

Once you notice where the money goes, the lie becomes impossible to repeat.