Yea, I read this as a biomed and was like “We’re definitely not getting this.”

I’m going to assume this isn’t “lottery” ultra-wealthy where you can spend it all and suddenly be back to destitute. So you say you wouldn’t live that differently, and immediately begin with “quitting work.” That’s the first step, because being wildly wealthy does change you incrementally because in this situation you’ve just bought yourself a commodity that once spent can’t be bought back, time.

You now have 40 hours a week that you were giving to someone else. Add on 5-10 hours for commute time (.5 to hour commute) that can get up to 50 hours for whatever the hell you want to do.

Buying a new car just a quick glance at Carmax and you’re looking at around $13,000 for a standard sedan. Not many have that pocket change going around, much less to buy the house that at low end houses cost $100,000 so you’re done, no worries, no muss, no fuss and you didn’t give some company your money in interest because you bought for cash. And on buying houses, as competitive as the market is, buying with cash right now at least in my region is about the only way to do it.

So lets assume you’re working from home right now, you gained back 40 hours. Hey, I want to have a party/trip/etc! Well, your buddies are all working, possibly can’t afford to go on trip, night out to eat. Offer to pay, but it’s still the getting the time off. They’ve got bills to worry about, the ones you’re not even thinking about. Sometimes they’ll show up, other times, not so much. So either you’re out fishing and working on your hobbies during that 40, or working to a new project job wise which really by this point is how the wealthy keep getting more and more money because build up a new thing, hire someone else to run it, passive income. But you don’t have your friends to hang out with, travel and the like, you’ll run into the others that don’t have those concerns because you can buy your way around inconveniences (airport seats are uncomfortable, but those lounges are nice. Why have to take connecting flights? etc) those are also going to be the ultra wealthy. And they have a standard of living that will look more and more “normal” to you. Little bit of peer pressure, little bit of “take a ride in my Lambo” and finding it fun, it’s a frog in the pot situation, you’ll go back to your roots and go “How did I live like this?”

And my axe!

Pre9-11 my dad liked messing with his coworkers saying W was making a hell of a democrat when they complained about what he was doing.

After he suddenly got in line like his daddy. Always figured it’s when he started listening to Cheney

I remember a time when Captain Planet villains seemed ridiculous.

You’re right, voting isn’t the most powerful thing you can do.

It’s getting involved in politics altogether, getting more people to vote.

And not “We got the president and maybe a senator” vote. The crowd that’s fighting climate change every step of the way has infested all the way down to the local levels making it harder to vote on the national platforms. I’d say this is a US thing, but if there’s voting, they seem to be infesting all of it.

Your complaints are valid, but I’m going to counterpoint US healthcare for those that reads this and is “Ah hah!”

The US is getting hit by the same med shortage, I’m not as strongly linked but I know a couple friends being bounced from one anti-depressant to another because one after another went short.

But our for profit system is literally shuttering hospitals across the country. What you’ll get is private investment firms that buy up hospitals, bleed them for capital until the hospital is unable to run and it closes. Kansas right now is one of the worst states for hospitals in rural places where they’re closing up left and right. One of my hospitals I traveled to that I was shocked didn’t close was because a doctor committed suicide and had evidence on his phone that he molested patients while they were under sedation. This brought JACO and every other hospital regulatory commission on this hospital where it was found the hospital was bought up by one private capital firm after another, their debt dumped on the hospital and sold off. Literally the commissions coming in is all that saved the hospital because the current firm is now being forced to modernize the hospital and get it back to standards.

And in the case of the abortions being criminalized, states that have it criminalized are now having OBGYN doctors leaving the state than have to be put into a struggle against their ethics and the draconian law, leaving birthing centers closed up in hospitals and leaving it to the ERs that are already over capacity from being the only safety net left to those that can’t afford insurance and all the hospital closures pushing more to those individual places.