I once did a bit of napkin math for a progressive friend of mine and have used it more widely since. Most people end up shocked and unwilling to accept this, wh

I once did a bit of napkin math for a progressive friend of mine and have used it more widely since. Most people end up shocked and unwilling to accept this, which amuses me. I ask: "Suppose the government took 100% of corporate profits every year and distributed them evenly to the people, how much will everybody make?" I do this for Canada and if you take the average of corporate profits over the last 10 years and divide by the population it's $7,500/a. People don't like this, they're convinced there's way more money "out there" than there actually is. There isn't, we're all poor, and the existence of inequality doesn't change that.