MILLER, TEXAS — 65-year-old Terrence Williams is a Texan oil magnate, and he’s also one of the richest men in the world. Williams usually lands on Forbes‘ annual list of billionaires, though this year he had to buy sixteen-thousand rolls of toilet paper at the end of the year to stock up his fourteen various homes with, and that pushed his net worth just below a billion dollars, so he was not included this time around.
Whenever Forbes releases a new list of the wealthiest humans on the planet, it sparks conversation and controversy. After all, this year’s list shows that the top 62 richest people in the world control more wealth than the bottom 3.5 billion. This kind of wealth distribution disparity worries some who have studied their history and know that when the people on the bottom feel that they are being ignored or worse by the people at the top is when some of the worst upheaval is witnessed.
Williams, however, wants to use this opportunity to educate “the Poors,” as he calls them, on financial matters. He said he is constantly asked how he is so rich at a time when so many are so poor. Williams told our interviewer that question is “so easy to answer” but “no one wants to hear it.” He said that it’s a very simple formula he came up with many years ago, and he sticks to it.
“Clearly I just work billions of times harder than the people who have less than me,” Williams said while fanning himself with a stack of hundred-dollar bills. “We all know that hard work is the only way you make money and accumulate wealth in this country,” Mr. Williams said between sips of champagne that he would then spit into the mouths of his various assistants as a sign of gratitude for carrying out the menial tasks he’s “too rich” in his words to take care of. Williams said that since hard work and nothing else makes you a billionaire he “clearly work[s] at least two billion times harder” than poor people.
Mr. Williams, while opening a can of caviar, told our reporter that he was “sick to death” of poor people acting as if he didn’t work hard for his money. “Why are they so resistant to the truth,” he asked rhetorically, “that I simply put in at least a couple billion times more effort into my work then they do? Sure, they might lift heavy boxes all day, or they might teach your kids math, or they might serve meals to hungry people all day for little pay and meager tips, but I sit in an office and make legal wagers on the stock market, and also check my interest-bearing accounts once a month. That is insanely hard work.”
“It’s like when my dad gave me that three million dollar loan when I was starting out, after having just flunked out of Texas A&M,” Williams said as the interview was ending, “he said to me that accepting that loan from him meant that I would work hard at making other people work harder so that I don’t have to work as hard. It’s tremendously difficult work convincing people you work harder than they do when you clearly live a very opulent, mostly stress-free life. And more people should feel sorry for me, and not The Poors.”
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