Wealth Wipe-Offs
As of 2024, billionaires pocketed over $1 trillion in new wealth. In January 2025 alone, billionaire wealth surged by $314 billion ―around $10 billion a day, this is more than the combined wealth of the 2.8 billion people who make up the poorest third of humanity.
A Chinese saying has it that “Wealth does not last beyond three generations”. More tragic than the lost wealth is the reasons for it being lost.
Real wealth, is the accumulation of assets over time. The term “Paper wealth” is often considered a derogatory term, meaning wealth that exists only on paper, but isn't physically present.
Actual wealth, refers to something that exists in the physical world. Actual wealth is based on tangible assets, stocks, bonds, resources and commodities.
Virtual wealth, denotes something that exists or occurs in computer-generated or simulated environments. As such it is generated from theoretical performance, and hypothetical gains.
Both the actual and virtual are real in essence. The former has concrete existence, while the latter does not, but it is no less real for that fact.
Virtual reality has become the cure for human being's deficiencies and psychological needs.
Scientists argue, that human life takes place inside a series of concentric, Matrix-style worlds. Maybe we should try to wake up. The truth is that there is no such thing as the “Digital world.” It is not a realm that exists apart from the so-called Real world.
Thomas Aquinas OP (ca. 1225–1274) an Italian Dominican friar and priest, considered one of the Catholic Church's greatest theologians and philosophers, has it that there are two kinds of wealth, Natural and Artificial.
Natural wealth includes material things (such as food, drink, clothing, housing, etc.) to support our human nature and is not an end in itself, while, Artificial wealth (financial) is sought to acquire Natural wealth.
AI Wealth nowadays has risen into a roadmap to financial prosperity through the power of artificial intelligence, while increasing potential digital gains, it similarly amplifies our vulnerability to systematic wealth write-offs, if not wipe-offs…
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Food for thought!