[Leica] working & earning & lifetsyle

[billcpearce at cox.net (Bill Pearce)]

Air travel was a domain of the rich only then, but we can fly just
about anywhere in the world for less than the cost of a Leica lens, and I'm
not talking about Noctilux or APO-Summicron 50mm ASPH either.
That depends on what lens and where you fly from. From many non-hub 
destinations, flying is getting more and more expensive, even without the 
add-ons.

The competition is more fierce because more people are competing for them.
With greater scalability, we don't need as many hands to produce products
and services, the number of people employed in certain sectors have not
grown in proportion to the population growth.
We frequently hear how much more productive we have become. That's because 
employers often expect more work done by salaried workers that can be 
performed in 40 hours. Making the same people do more work in off times 
doesn't make our country better.

Back then, the vast majority of "colored" in most of the US had no
opportunities for education or let alone a decent career. Heck, the vast
majority of the entire population on earth had no such opportunities, and
were living on subsistence living.

Now, our economies are far more integrated, and giving opportunities never
imagined before to far more people in more unthinkable places.
That's part is, gladly, true.

It's no one's fault that we have need for fewer photojournalists today.
With everyone with a camera on their cell phone, and everyone able to tweet
from the scene, the inherent structure of journalism is changing.
It's the fault of the editors that don't give a damn about quality.

I am grateful for the fact that I am a 1%. I am well fed, have university
education, an income and assets in the top 1% in the world, and own several
Leicas. However, I am aware that complaining about it doesn't do anything.
Only I can make my own life better. No one else will.
I recently found that I am in the 1%. That's scary. It takes a lot of 
millionaires to offset me.