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Hard work means, to most folks, something at an hourly rate. An individual who earns income at the level of $10,000,000 per year would have an hourly rate of about $5,000 an hour.

Virtually no one has any experience with $5,000 an hour jobs ~ maybe they might win a lottery ticket sometimes, or sell a house and end up with $50,000 or something, but for the most part they don't.

So what is it that the folks who make $5,000 per hour and above are doing?

Well, some are clipping coupons (regular interest payments on bonds purchased by then, or their ancestors) ~ hardly difficult work, but it's possible to look at this semi-skilled practice as work ~ but for $5,000 an hour? Probably not ~ but then we have lawyers who win big cases for rich clients. There are arguments the lawyer's arguments actually enhanced the client's wealth ~ but seriously, I've known a lot of lawyers and never seen any of them really work at it ~ so what is it if hard work isn't really doing a song and dance for a judge?

I think the writer's reference to 'inventiveness' ~ which has a good number of synonymns, is probably more like it. They didn't get the big bucks for working hard, they got them for being clever. An hourly wage guy who does unskilled labor probably has a hard time understanding that and might well misinterpret it as THEFT! Someone with more education probably understands that the big bucks go to the smart guys, although there are those who imagine the rich guys got their money simply by being in the right place at the right time ~ rather like a lottery winning.

I know rich people who actually think that ~ that they got there by being lucky. At the other end of the thought spectrum some of them imagine they got the big bucks because they deserve it over and above anybody else. I'm sure the mob guys think that way ~ fur shur the Presidential appointees do.

Hard work means, to most folks, something at an hourly rate

I have a major peeve. Anyone who does not have a college education is called "a working man".

So with my MBA, working 20 hour days when I was on the road 100+ nights a year, what was I ?

Oh, that's right. I got to stay in posh hotels. About 4 hours a night and no OT pay for me.(Maybe I should have unionized?)