{"id":36596,"date":"2018-08-09T07:11:09","date_gmt":"2018-08-09T12:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36596"},"modified":"2018-08-09T07:11:09","modified_gmt":"2018-08-09T12:11:09","slug":"energy-slaves-hard-work-and-the-real-sources-of-wealth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36596","title":{"rendered":"Energy slaves, \u201chard work,\u201d and the real sources of wealth"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"entry-header\">\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.darrinqualman.com\/energy-slaves\/\">Energy slaves, \u201chard work,\u201d and the real sources of wealth<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>Many Canadians and Americans struggle financially.\u00a0 Millions are unemployed.\u00a0 Many others live paycheque-to-paycheque.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.federalreserve.gov\/publications\/files\/2017-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201805.pdf\">A 2017 report by the US Federal Reserve Board<\/a> found that 40 percent of US citizens couldn\u2019t cover an unexpected expense of $400 without selling something or borrowing money.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot of denial and misunderstanding regarding the financial challenges faced by a large portion of our fellow citizens.<\/p>\n<p>Equally, though, there is misunderstanding, denial, and myth-making regarding those among us who are more financially secure, those who are well off\u2014\u201cthe rich.\u201d\u00a0 Most glaring is the way we mischaracterize the sources of our wealth, luxury, and ease.\u00a0 We lie to ourselves and each other regarding why we have it so good.\u00a0 The rich often claim that their wealth is a result of \u201chard work.\u201d\u00a0 We hear people objecting to even the smallest tax increase, saying: \u201cI worked hard for my money and no one is going to take it from me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The reality, however, is quite the opposite.\u00a0 The rich don\u2019t work very hard.\u00a0 Every poor women or girl in Asia or Africa who gets up at dawn to walk many kilometres to carry home water or firewood for her family works harder than the world\u2019s multi-millionaires and billionaires.\u00a0 Every farmer with a hoe or toiling behind an oxen works harder than any CEO.\u00a0 My farmer grandparents worked far harder than I do, yet I live much better.\u00a0 I would be self-delusional in the extreme to attribute my middle-class luxury to \u201chard work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>No, those of us in North America, the European Union, and elsewhere in the world who enjoy privileged lives live well, not because we work hard, but because of the vast energy windfall of which we are the beneficiaries.\u00a0 We live lives of comfort and ease because our work is done for us by \u201cenergy slaves.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Energy slaves, \u201chard work,\u201d and the real sources of wealth Many Canadians and Americans struggle financially.\u00a0 Millions are unemployed.\u00a0 Many others live paycheque-to-paycheque.\u00a0 A 2017 report by the US Federal Reserve Board found that 40 percent of US citizens couldn\u2019t cover an unexpected expense of $400 without selling something or borrowing money.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[19933,17194,868,2785],"class_list":["post-36596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-darrin-qualman","tag-energy-slaves","tag-wealth","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36596"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36597,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36596\/revisions\/36597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}