Wealth Crying in a Vault

June 27, 2026 — Pat Bertram

“Yet the political left has long had a remarkable lack of interest in how wealth is created. As far as they are concerned, wealth exists somehow and the only interesting question is how to redistribute it.” [Thomas Sowell]

Even people who should know better think wealth falls from the sky. Or as if it’s packed away in a vault somewhere and is crying out to be evenly distributed. Whatever the mechanism, they think no one should be worth a trillion dollars, or even a billion. They simply can’t understand that wealth is not the same as cash. For example, the so-called boomer generation is supposedly sitting on the biggest fortune ever, but the median value of their wealth is about $360,000. Anyone can see at a glance that their wealth is in their house, since the median house cost in the USA is $400,000. Younger generations scream about the unfairness, and yet, for the older folk living frugally in their own home, the wealth is illusory. There is no cash, not for a lot of retirees, so what do the younger generations want? For the older folks to sell their home, and then what? Live on the street?

The average wealth of that generation is much higher, of course, because it is skewed by the small percentage of very wealthy folks, which is why using the median number is more accurate. With the median, half of people in that age group are worth more, half are worth less. Still, it’s a good example of “wealth” not equating to “cash.”

So why am I talking about this yet again? I was at lunch with a group of women yesterday when the topic of “the new trillionaire” came up. That’s what they called him. Apparently, they had no idea what his name was, how he became so wealthy, what he actually does and what he contributes to the world. Just that he’s worth a trillion dollars, and that he needs to distribute it to . . . to them, I guess.

I kept quiet, not wanting to get into any of the material I’m presenting here, but the truth is, he’s created perhaps 1,000,000 jobs, not just those people working for him directly, but the people who work in companies who supply him with his raw materials, to say nothing of the 4,400 millionaires he created, the taxes he pays, and the money he donates. He has no money, no piles of cash sitting in his vault like Scrooge McDuck. His wealth is his business. His wealth is the dreams he allows people to dream. Mars! Interstellar travel! People with severe neurological disabilities walking again! The blind seeing again!

Dreams.

What are such dreams worth?

Anyone with a normal brain in their head should be able to understand that this “trillionaire” is doing way more with his wealth — the wealth he himself created — than the government usually does with the same amount.

Besides, despite what people believe, the more money the government throws at a problem, the worse it becomes because there is more money to pay for the same amount of services. To really solve the housing crisis, you build houses people can afford and increase the supply. To solve the job problem, you create more jobs. To solve the poverty problem, you make government benefits less than what people can earn to give them an incentive to change their lives. In not one of these solutions is there a call to take money from a trillionaire. In not one of these solutions is there a call for more government intervention.

For an historical example: the great depression was gradually resolving itself, but then the government decided to help, tossed tons of money into the pot, and kept the depression going for ten years. Some people think that was the point, part of a worldwide reset, but I have no idea of the truth other than that throwing extra money at a problem exacerbates it, and among all those smart people were some who probably knew that. As with any ill, the best thing to do is to find the underlying cause and work on that, not the symptoms.

I’m sure the women I was with today are glad I didn’t get on my soapbox, though I’m just as sure you wish I’d delivered my sermon to them and not to you. Still, you have the option to not read. Just as I have the option to write.

None of this, of course, gets us any wealthier, but it does help to put things into perspective. And I get to put my research to use, so there’s that.