Sorry to point this out, but…
Oligarchs care about oligarchs.
Eventually, oligarchs eat oligarchs.
They don’t care about you, so you have to care about you.

I realized that a while ago.

And then this thought interrupted a nap.

How much larger than an ant was a T. Rex?
Would a Tyrannosaurus Rex notice an ant?
Open the curiosity machine, aka as a laptop.
Weight of a T. Rex ~ 10,000 pounds
Weight of an ant ~ 0.00001 pounds
Weight of a T. Rex divided by weight of an ant ~ 1,000,000,000
1,000,000,000 is also known as a billion. There are over 2,000 billionaires. Some of them are worth over $100 billion. I don’t think they notice us much. 

I saw ‘us’ because I doubt that any billionaires read my blog. 
Notice that I also conflated billionaire with oligarch, which isn’t exactly correct, but as much as I see us all as humans, at least monetarily, there is an us and a them.

So, go ahead and ignore them, said the T. Rex about the ants. And it could.
So, go ahead and ignore them, said the ants about the T. Rex. And some ants got squashed. 
But, give it all enough time, and notice that there are lots of ants around, but the closest thing to a T. Rex is a chicken.

Flashback to before 2020 when I posted about a few of us trying to demonstrate how big a billion really is. (Concentration Dissipation) We gave up doing it digitally because a billion is more than the number of pixels on a laptop screen. Try to spot one pixel on your screen. If you succeed with a typical display, you’ll have picked out one pixel from about 2 million. A billion pixels would take more than 50 more screens, and then a hundred billion would take 5,000 more screens to show that one pixel. I’ll leave it to you as an exercise to see how visible someone like yourself can be to someone worth $100 billion, $100,000,000,000.

To make that graphic on paper involved more paper and such a large printer that we couldn’t afford it. Ironic.

All hope is lost? Bah! Think of the opportunities. What can you do when they can’t even see you doing it? I suggest skipping the illegal opportunities, but that’s okay because there is so much more that can be done.

(Note: And as I write this, I keep in mind that, sorry for continuing the analogy, but we’re noticing the dangers because the T. Rexs are dancing, and too many of us can’t get out of the way.)

My most recent posts have turned into an accidental series: Defiance, Boycott, Resilience, Nonsense; but that’s appropriate because the theme and topic for this blog is personal finance, and finance has definitely gotten personal.

Personal finance has a core set of conventional wisdom: spend less than you make, invest the rest. Personal finance also has a longer list of implicit assumptions: currencies persist, people will obey the rule of law, regulators will regulate the industry and industries, and there are sufficient controls that keep the economy from being broken by extremes. 

I suspect conventional wisdom and implicit assumptions are being deeply challenged. What do you do if the dollar is devalued? What do you do during runaway inflation or deflation? What do you do if somehow someone unties the United States? 

Red versus blue is an important but severely limited political debate. While some stand on the sidewalk arguing about why the house is on fire, some folks are trying to put it out, and some are trying to take care of the suddenly homeless.

Frugality can have a core concept, too: respect your resources. Money is important, but money isn’t everything. I have just experienced over a decade of financial stress that also led to physical and mental health issues. Having more money has helped me begin my recovery; but money isn’t everything.

I see examples around me. Living near rural communities makes it easier to find pragmatic and resourceful people. I’ve heard of conversations starting up among neighbors who are comparing their resources. Who can grow food? Who can raise livestock, even if it is only chickens? Who has a boat? Who has tools? Who knows how to use them? Who knows folk remedies that use the native plants? I think the tribes have a great opportunity to teach and share their learned and practiced wisdom. They may also see it as an opportunity for payback.

Another thought splashed into my brain: oligarchs and billionaires as dinosaurs; their fossilization is inevitable.

The reality of oligarchs is that they and their philosophy are not sustainable. They will inevitably collapse. And yes, when T. Rexs fall over, more ants will be smashed. Maybe that’s one more reason to stay away from them. 

The concept of oligarchy is not new. Ancient Greece is seen as an age of wisdom, but oligarchies existed, and eventually failed. While failure is inevitable, dysfunctional societies can persist for generations before their collapse. See North Korea as an example.

We may not be able to wait. Climate change, economic crises, social injustices, accelerating technologies are all things that aren’t waiting. Working at them on the global and national level is more efficient, but governments are busy dealing with political chaos. We get to deal with, or adapt to, the emergent realities.

Sounds like an excuse to get to know each other, build community, and maybe dance, ourselves.