Often the question seems to be should you be rich or should they be alive?

And when I mean rich, we all know what I mean don’t we? I’m talking the few thousand Billionaires, who without the fabric of society, this tapestry of civilisation, would just be some weird white dude with opinions and not much else.

It comes down to how much do we value the health of our family, our friends, our neighbours, those we work with, compared the comfort and luxury that a few thousand people have managed to amass on this planet.

And what do we know about what happens when we lose someone who could have been saved?

What are the repercussions, the butterfly effects of someone losing that person who loved them, cared for them, nurtured and supported them being what they could be?

How many threads in the tapestry of this world can we lose before the fabric begins to fall apart.

What if we lose the next Louis Pasteur who helped us know what germs are and deal with their effects?

What if we lose the next Maria Curie before they make a discovery that could change our understanding of the universe?

The chain of interactions, of parents and children, of friends and fellow workers, of ideas meeting other ideas, in collaboration to further the advances of us as a species work in ways no one will ever know, but should we really ignore not only the human cost of losing a life that could be saved, but the potential of that life and how they are part of the fabric of our interconnected existence?

There is that saying that what if a man gains the entire world and loses his immortal soul, but put it in more relativistic terms, what if a man gains the whole world, but sacrifices most of it to do so? What  would be the point?

Should you be rich, or should the human race, all of us, as a species, be richer in value, in culture, in health, in happiness, in beauty and grandeur?

I think you might now how I would answer that question.

How about you?

Tarik Rachid -Speech at Economic Inequality Protest