You can’t even spend a billion dollars with the most ridiculous luxury items you can think of. Spending that much in a lifetime for things you would even remotely appreciate would feel like work.
The only difference having billions of dollars makes instead of only a few millions in a rich person’s life is that it enables them to singlehandedly influence politics to their personal liking by buying politicians and media institutions. Which is something nobody should be allowed to do to begin with.
Meanwhile had that billion dollars been distributed to the worker class through fair wages or even to the consumers through fair prices it would have contributed to the economy and the well-being of everyone. Having to tax it to avoid seeing that money sit in some asshole’s offshore bank account is a failure of the system to properly distribute wealth when it is generated to begin with and even that isn’t being done right now.
Personally I’m hoping we see a couple multi trillionares. Rapidly followed by their assets depreciating into worthlessness and the USD becoming worth less than monopoly money.
How many “billionaires” actually have a billion dollars to spend though? They usually are “worth” a billion dollars through stocks they can’t sell, with a couple of million in the bank
Except that they do just that by borrowing money against their stocks, which also incidentally allows them to avoid paying taxes. That’s how Musk bought Twitter.
This is like saying “they don’t actually have that much oxygen. They’ve got it compressed in massive liquefied tanks. You can’t breathe liquid oxygen, so it doesn’t really count as breathable air. So nevermind that a billionth of the population controls 50% of the oxygen on the planet because the actual gaseous air they breath on the day to day is just an extremely comfortable level of oxygen.”
You can’t even spend a billion dollars with the most ridiculous luxury items you can think of. Spending that much in a lifetime for things you would even remotely appreciate would feel like work.
The only difference having billions of dollars makes instead of only a few millions in a rich person’s life is that it enables them to singlehandedly influence politics to their personal liking by buying politicians and media institutions. Which is something nobody should be allowed to do to begin with.
Meanwhile had that billion dollars been distributed to the worker class through fair wages or even to the consumers through fair prices it would have contributed to the economy and the well-being of everyone. Having to tax it to avoid seeing that money sit in some asshole’s offshore bank account is a failure of the system to properly distribute wealth when it is generated to begin with and even that isn’t being done right now.
The difference between 1 million and 1 billion is about 1 billion.
And the prediction is that we’ll have a few trillionaires soon. The difference between 1 billion and 1 trillion is about 1 trillion.
Personally I’m hoping we see a couple multi trillionares. Rapidly followed by their assets depreciating into worthlessness and the USD becoming worth less than monopoly money.
A billion dollars buys you power. That kind of money gets you a seat at the table.
How many “billionaires” actually have a billion dollars to spend though? They usually are “worth” a billion dollars through stocks they can’t sell, with a couple of million in the bank
Except that they do just that by borrowing money against their stocks, which also incidentally allows them to avoid paying taxes. That’s how Musk bought Twitter.
Yup, their latent wealth grows faster than what they borrow to use as actual spending, they literally don’t spend money, they accumulate it
This is like saying “they don’t actually have that much oxygen. They’ve got it compressed in massive liquefied tanks. You can’t breathe liquid oxygen, so it doesn’t really count as breathable air. So nevermind that a billionth of the population controls 50% of the oxygen on the planet because the actual gaseous air they breath on the day to day is just an extremely comfortable level of oxygen.”