Enough IS enough
Enough IS enough
Via mastodon (alt text on the other side): https://deacon.social/@JulieB/111805263164082967
186 comments
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The billionaires don’t pay the salaries of the interviewers to ask hard hitting questions.
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As a fun thought experiment -- to get £1bn someone would have to give you £1 per second EVERY SECOND for 32 years.
No one needs that much money. And anyone who says they do, or anyone who defends someone who does, really needs to adjust their point of view.
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That didn't really hit me until I realized it's £3600 per hour. That's my monthly salary.
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86400 per year.... i mean PER DAY
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To hit that 32 year time line you would be getting that 3600 an hour, but you would be working 24 hours a day every day.
If you did 8 hours a day mon-fri at that rate you would earn 576,000 a month.
To get your 1bn at that pace you would have to work for 144 years.
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Who in this world has a billion in cash?
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That.......... wasn't exactly my point.
My point was more that people think £1bn is not that much more than £1m. That billionaires aren't "all that rich"
I was trying to illustrate that one billion of anything is far more than you think it is.
If you met 100 people an hour, every hour, for every day it would take you one thousand, one hundred and forty one years to meet one billion people.
And yet people say "Eh -- people shouldn't persecute billionaires. They deserve that much"
My point is no.
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Alright, no offense, but that has to be the least useful visualization of a billion I've ever come across. I already have to do the math every time I want to calculate how many minutes there are in a day and you want to use the number of seconds in 32 years as a reference?
"If you put it all in one dollar bills it would weigh ten tons". There. Fixed. You immediately picture it now.
In pound coins it'd be 8750 tons, which is not quite as intuitive, but it's a lot heavier, so it still has an impact, I suppose. That's about as heavy as a small battleship, if that helps.-
I think the seconds analogy hits harder. Especially comparing 1 million to 1 billion (11.6 days vs. 32 years).
Your 10 tons doesn't do much for me. A few F250s? A dump truck or two? Maybe do the comparison to a million idk.
But your comment came off pretty arrogant and condescending ("There. Fixed it. You immediately picture it now." Not really man.)
Regardless the way people picture and grasp large numbers is certainly Subjective. The seconds analogy hits harder for me.
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This guy used rice to visualize the difference between one million and one billion and I thought it was pretty effective.
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I simply picture a typical ten-ton object that has a similar density to dollar bills (just pick one among the many that you likely have nearby) and then imagine that it is itself made of dollar bills, and voila: An intuitive understanding of the nature of wealth.
No individual should have a... um... typical ten ton object made up of dollar bills, I guess. That seems like too many dollar bills.
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"I'm so smrt I can vishulize money, ur 'long time' metafur is so dum I'm unable to even think bout it"
Imagine being so bent out of shape by an easily-grasped metaphor you go out of your way to tell the person they're an idiot and make up a less-easily visualized metaphor to prove how easy it is. It's literally "this is a long time, you have experienced time and know 32 years is a lot" vs "you need to know the general weight of a bill/stack of bills in order to know how many would be required for a certain tonnage"
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In pound coins it'd be 8750 tons
Everyone knows it would be 1 billion pounds or 500,000 tons. /s
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one of the goated baits of all time
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I personally like "Do you have that dream where you keep trying and trying to wash your hands but the blood never comes off"
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They compare themselves to other billionaires, so they'll never be happy
Bullshit like "the Forbes list" makes it worse because it publicly lists them in order.
Something as simple as only talking about how much they donate would make a huge change. They'll gonna compete over something, might as well give them something helpful to do
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This is a great thought. It would be nice if our society wasn’t so caught up in how much money someone makes and talk more about how much they donate. Or discuss the the good work they have done by giving it back to the industry they serve. Whether it be in bonuses to the employees or research and development. The Forbes list is BS!
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Yep, or just listing companies by median salary.
This shit isn't complicated, it's just what happens when capitalists run everything instead of sociologists.
American culture is obsessed with making as much money as possible, and the last forty years of 40 years of go-go reaganites running the show haven't exactly worked out well for the average American.
The coke market has been doing well tho...
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Yeah, it's very common - even among non billionaires. You'll regularly hear people who are making 4-5x the national median talk about how they're barely making ends meet. It's lifestyle creep and comparison with peers.
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Makes me think of that one odd trend the Romans did where nobles tried to impress other nobles by having an entourage of "Hired peasants" that would follow them so they could be given money.
For how backwards the Romans were, some parts of their culture were pretty forward
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"It's not enough to simply succeed. Your success must also contribute to the active failure of everyone else."
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Meritocracy at its peak
You know meritocracy is now a myth right ?
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Always was.
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Honestly, the question I'd like answered is at what age did they realize that they wanted to be a dragon.
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"a dragon"?
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"When the revolution comes, where will you hide?" will always be the classic.
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Sadly, the answer is "in my well-stocked nuclear bunker where I can survive for years and defend myself against the hoards with armed drones" now.
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A millionaire and a billionaire? That's a huge difference. At this point, if someone is 55 and wants to retire at 68 and not be 70 and working at Walmart, they're going to need to be a "multi-"millionaire.
Idk, I'm much younger, and my retirement plan is the same as everyone else my age: walk into the woods when I'm ready or die in the water wars later when I'm not.
But I still feel bad for the elderly forced to work because a retirement home with medical support, i.e. assisted living, is too expensive and your kids can't help you because they're barely surviving too, and that's while working, and you can barely work, but assisted living is 4-12k/month, so you work and hope you die before you become a burden on your children and grandchildren.
Anyway. The difference between a millionaire and a billionaire is vast. One million seconds ago was last week.
One billion seconds ago was fucking 1991.
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What's the difference between a million and a billion? About a billion.
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The people you hang out with.
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It says "multi-millionaire". I guess they don't mean the successful craftsman or engineer with his own crew who has a total wealth of 1 or 2 millions, but people in the 100+ million dollar range. That's at least how I understood it.
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It's like comparing an 8.0 earthquake to a 9.0 earthquake. Millionaire, billionaire, that's the difference between
1945 8.1 British India, Makran Coast 15.0 X Between 300 and 4,000 people were killed. 1945 Balochistan earthquake November 28
and
2004 9.1 Indonesia, Sumatra offshore 30.0 IX This is the third largest earthquake in the world since 1900 and is the largest since the 1964 Alaska earthquake. In total, at least 227,898 people were killed, many more injured and 1,126,900 were displaced by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami in 14 countries in South Asia and East Africa. 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake December 26
and that's log 20, a lower order of magnitude than from a million to a billion
this makes sense right? Someone tell me this makes sense
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Imho, a good visualisation for the difference between a million and a billion is in this Tom Scott video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YUWDrLazCg
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Tbf when people say “multi-millionaire” they are often referring to people with over 100 million, not 2 or 3 or 5
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Upper middle class? I think most if not 90% of billionaires are born in firmly upper class?
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"Upper middle class" is just an abstraction from actual class dynamics anyways. It only exists as a believable goal for the working class to achieve and believe they've succeeded, even if they remain workers or at most petite bourgeoisie.
Fundamentally, there is no tying factor bringing this "upper middle class" together, no aligning of mutual interests, outside of tax brackets. As such, it isn't a real class, as the relation to the mode of production is wildly diverse from within this category.
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I really do wonder why people like Warren Buffet are still working to make more money, for himself and others. What's the benefit for himself? Some numbers get bigger, ok. But in terms of things and services he can buy for himself and his loved ones, nothing changes, he already can buy anything he could ever want. If he stopped working this seconds and would start spending money like there is no tomorrow, he couldn't spend it all.
So why spend the last few years of your finite life increasing some numbers that don't affect you? I really don't get it.
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Warren Buffett is not a good example. Dude just likes investing. Lives in the same house for 70 years. Eats McDonald's and drinks Coke every day. There's no way he can spend it all. That's why he's donating everything to charity.
Only really spends money on private travel and security. Maybe $20 to $40 million per year. That's nothing for a billionaire.
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These type of people make money as their hobby. The same way other people enjoy a good vine or a T-bone steak. They enjoy waking up and making money. I know someone that's super Ritch in my country and that was his answer.
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Bro was out of scale
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Hey man, give me all your money, I'm donating 99% of it to charity.
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How much of this 'charity' is something like 'The Warren Buffet Foundation' which exists to enrich his descendants and fulfill political goals?
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20yrs ago, I made about a fifth of what I make today. I couldn’t buy all the things I wanted, but we were safe and paid our bills without a lot of stress. Today, I have a little more flexibility, but it doesn’t feel all that different.
I will assume that “lifestyle inflation” scales up, maybe it scales up a lot. But beyond some point, wealth becomes meaningless and the marginal dollar means nothing. Why keep hustling past that point? What drives people like that? Inertia? Lust for power? Competition with peers? Hard to say I guess but, something is driving them.
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I also realize I suffer from lifestyle inflation, but …… the reason I don’t feel well off compared to my previous self is I’m still just a few paychecks from losing it all. If I lost my job, I lose it. I’ll have to cut way back, struggle to keep house and car, and will be anxious until I get another job.
I’ve read that feeling well off is having enough savings so you don’t need to worry about keeping your lifestyle in case anything happens. I don’t
Warren Buffet is a great example for this question because he does live modestly for one of the richest people in the world. If he lost his job/company, he could still support his lifestyle and obligations well beyond his life expectancy. So yeah, what is his motivation?
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Watch Wolf of Wall Street - extremely NSFW btw - or if you cannot handle watching it, read the book.
For some, the money isn't even the point, it's the thrill of the con game.
For billionaires though, it's something on a whole other level. Like, look at pictures of them - Zuckerberg, Musk, Bezos, etc. - there's something not right there at all. They are playing an entirely different kind of game when, e.g., they don't even allow their workers to take breaks to pee, even if they are pregnant. Ofc YOU would not do that, nor likely would anyone that you know, nor would even meet in your entire lifetime. Who would do such a thing!? (unless their boss mandates it ofc, so like they would get fired if they don't, I mean like if nobody was forcing you to do so and yet... you did it anyway, and then you also forced thousands of other
humanspeople to do it too)That's why they are a billionaire and you and I are not - b/c they are on a whole other level. It's true, money cannot buy happiness, but they are damn sure going to
watchcause the world to burn while they try.-
There was a twilight zone episode called "a nice place to visit" where this petty crook died and ended up in a place where he could have anything he wanted any time. Every time he'd gamble, he'd win. Every woman he talked to wanted him. Etc. But he couldn't lose.
A billionaire can have anything, but without challenge nothing really means anything. It's all fake, and they're surrounded by people who just agree with them in order to get to their money. They have no friends. They can't even go outside. They're trapped in the mansions and sports cars and yachts, unable to live in or even experience the world they have so much influence over. They are trapped by their wealth, so they come up with impossible plans to escape... To Mars, to space... But there is no escape. They are trapped on a world they are killing, surrounded by people who they need who also hate them.
The crook in the twilight zone episode asked to lose or get turned down, wanted some kind of challenge. He didn't want to be in heaven anymore... And he was informed that he was not in heaven. That was hell.
Of course they're broken. They're in a living hell that everyone imagines is heaven.
Both Bezos and Musk were also abused or neglected by their parents. They feel like they have to prove something, but there's nothing to prove and the people they want to prove themselves to are dead.
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I love sci-fi, and fantasy too, in large part bc that is a way of seeing clearly into the real world, when you can isolate things and put them into a different context that makes it easier to digest.
I think you hit the nail on the head and also, I think that it's arguably not even their fault. Hear me out! If you were a person with IQ of 300 let's say and you are talking to a literal toddler who says "let's go eat at Arby's", and you do and get food poisoning... then how do you avoid that again in the future? Kill the toddler? Or perhaps learn not to let toddlers control all of our actions? After all, the toddler was not fully aware of the consequences of their own actions, nor were you at the time, but of the two, one is capable of learning more readily than the other. It is partly the result of the toddler's actions that you got sick, but not solely, and perhaps not even mostly.
Billionaires got rich via the system, and aside from those particular individuals there are many more that would follow them. Being merely "rich" isn't (only) the problem, it's the entire system that produces that. However, it is too late for that now, bc the toddler has been elected King and it is no longer an option to change the system. At some point technology will allow billionaires to become effectively immortal, and they may gain super powers besides that as well - already they have access to "medical care" and "a place to live that they actually own" and other things that are fast disappearing for the rest of us. e.g. when it becomes common again for the average person to die of easily preventable diseases, even a lifespan of 1-200 may be a close approximation of that in comparison. Soon we mortals may also lose "access to information", since it will become diluted so much by the flood of misinformation that basically "what we know" will devolve into what we are allowed to know, by those who with the touch of a button could cause the media outlets, which they own, to put out an authoritative story telling us whatever truth they wish us to hear.
In any case, that is why I support being subversive - e.g. they are unkind to their workers, so we can oppose the trend by being kind to our fellow human;-). Whether it works or not, it's also a lot more fun.
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I literally cannot believe this post. These rich folks ACTUALLY need that money. How else will their great grandson hire a fleet of lawyers after he rapes someone at a frat party at the college where he's a legacy admission? He doesn't have the grades to get into that school, or the personality to pull that girl. He needs that money to fuel his rapey life of decadence.
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Why is it that everyone thinks they're not using their money as power? That's kind of obviously what's been happening to me, it's just that mostly, they end up using their power to try and centralize more power. disney buying out marvel, buying out the muppets, microsoft now having openAI, EA buying every game studio just to end up fucking them all up severely, yadda yadda. Use the money to invest in companies and run those companies which are also seeking their own self-interest and power centralization, run all those companies with whatever goals you just kind of vaguely feel like at the time, even if it kills cool stuff in the crib, even if it ends up fucking over the end user. We are subject to the highly coordinated and elaborate whims of an idiotic set of dictators who are, as dictated by their position at the top of the hierarchy, they are incapable of making good decisions.
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Why is it that nobody sees that it's just gambling addiction? Also, remember at those levels, you are most certainly not calling the shots by yourself. You're surrounded with a full entourage, like a royal court if you will, of people doing your bidding, and people doing their bidding, and bidding bidding other bidding. Being that rich is like being a statesman of old. Not the only similarity to feudality, truth be told.
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I agree with your take, though I'd never considered it that way. I'm actually more scared thinking about their destruction being whimsical, rather than part of a coherent plan
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I am afraid you have reason to be afraid then. The system encourages the behavior, and once you're trapped in it, there's only one road ahead. You're rewarded for playing the game, you are punished for not doing it. Do you know of "Conway's Game of Life"? It is an old program or mathematical concept with evolutionary algorithms, it has a starting condition and an ending condition, it's highly worth checking out if not for the historical value.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life
You plop down a cell, with some starting conditions, let's say procreate, make money, expand. If your environment allows for it, the cell expands. If it doesn't, then that cell dies. When all cells are dead, the game ends.
Capitalism is a starting condition whose inevitable conclusion is that it dies. If fulfilled, it breaks. By the nature of its internal rules, it can never keep going, there is no stable instance. The aspiration of capitalism is in itself self destructive. Under no circumstance can capitalism ever work in perpetuity. It is inherently unstable, and will collapse. <- we are more or less here
It's like giving an android the command "eat your own face". If it does, it dies. If it don't it fails. We are slaves under this structure, with no way of getting off the wild ride.
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I'm partially convinced that the conspiratorially minded just kind of do so because it's easier to imagine that everything is part of a highly coordinated level of fuckery, rather than a combination of multiple captains that are all fighting over the rudder, squirreling us in random directions, and then the kind of motion of the ocean pushing us around, until it all kind of evens out to a baseline rate of snap, or jounce, or whatever it is.
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EA buying every game studio just to end up fucking them all up severely
That’s Microsoft not EA
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To spend a billion dollars in the lifetime of the average human being (80 years) you'd have to spend $34,246 a day.
If you spent $1000 a day it would take you 2,740 years.
If you gained 1% interest on a billion dollars every YEAR (not monthly), that would net you a passive income of $10,000,000 per year.
A guy named Dennis Kozlowski (embezzled $62 million from tyco) spent $15000 on an umbrella stand in 2002. That thing would be worth over $25,000 in today's money.
I'm trying to illustrate a couple of points here. When you do accrue all that money (I'm not talking about ethics here because we have established that some ethical boundaries have to be crossed and most everyone agrees with that), that money, even just sitting still accrues more money. And spending it isn't as easy as people seem to think.
Neither is giving it away. McKenzie Bezos is a good example. She managed it and the complaint then became that she did so irresponsibly. And even when people who come into this type of wealth manage it, there's no pleasing some people. Because even Chuck Feeny still gets a whole lot of flak from the eat the rich people just for becoming a billionaire in the first place. (I'm not on the side of the rich people. So don't even start).
Giving it away irresponsibly compounds the problem and can cause catastrophic economic events for the poor and working class.
Can we actually educate ourselves on the difference between assets, cash, investments, and net worth? Because net worth doesn't mean ready cash.
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But so much of this money is being spent. Its being spent doing insane vanity projects, like Bezos's personal space program or Elon Musk's Twitter buyout. It goes towards massive ideological projects, such as the Koch Bros / Peter Thiel campaign to turn everyone into libertarians. Or towards ostentatious religious icons, like the Crystal Cathedral or the Joel Osteen Church.
It goes towards lobbying. Sooooo much lobbying. Hundreds of millions spent to influence government bureaucrats on everything from who can get an abortion to which country we're at war with today. Gates threwa big chunk of his fortune towards a project of education privatization and school voucherization during the Obama term, and the consequences are still echoing through my school district in the form of these obnoxious and pointless high stakes standardized tests.
We see these astronomical bank accounts turn towards reckless misuse of natural resources - Bitcoin mining consumed 110 Terrawatt Hours in 2022. Whole swaths of the airline industry exist to cater to this fraction of a fraction of mega-wealthy people who indulge in short-hop air travel. They sink fortunes on competitions to own the largest yacht or the most creepy sex island. Human trafficking as an enterprise is by and for the mega-rich, both for personal use and increased corporate profits.
You want to see a real act of billionaire (closer to trillionaire) hubris? Look at the Saudi's quixotic quest to build their supercity of Neom. How much money have we pissed away clinging to fossil fuels, so MBS can create a five mile long Mall of America?
The problem is not simply whether they can spend these enormous pots of wealth, but how they reshape the economy as a whole in the attempt. So much of the world exists to meet the whims of these plutocrats. We pay in our time, our health, and our political autonomy, so a handful of elites can have their every whim indulged.
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Look at the Saudi’s quixotic quest to build their supercity of Neom.
For some reason the answer is never to fix existing towns that actually have people in them for a variety of reasons (resource availability, locations adjacent to ports, etc.) but to build a new city with no infrastructure or reason for being in the middle of nowhere.
I think it's because with existing areas you can't be ideologically pure...homeless people are already there, inequality is already evident, decay is already visible...but when you build a new "utopian city" and it'll just be empty so you can pretend that the same societal ills that plague everything else will not show up somehow magically when (or if) the people arrive.
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Spent by being traded amongst rich people which does nothing at all to the economy. It's hoarding with extra steps.
Don't take my comment as excusing the wealthy. It wasn't intended to be critical of them, but it was intended to give an idea of the scale of the problem. It's not just rich people who are the problem. It's the system (which my comment is intended to be critical of). It's designed to make the rich richer. That's what needs to be dismantled.
Spending the money at the rate they would need to to put back into circulation would crash markets. It would make things worse for poor people.
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I dunno man, you say you're on the side of "eat the rich," but it sounds like you're making a case for the billionaires.
They're just modern day royalty.
Neither should exist, because both require a hierarchical system that ranks people by worth (however it's measured). No single human life is more valuable than another.
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No single human life is more valuable than another.
That's just factually incorrect.
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If you don't understand the scale of them problem and what pitfalls you can potentially fall into while trying to fix it, you will absolutely make things worse. I don't give a fuck about any individuals. I do see a lot of people giving "daily reminders" that "tswift is a billionaire". But nobody says that about Oprah or Jay Z or Rhianna. Nobody mentions them as if they are also problematic and they are. Because wealth hoarding is bad no matter who does it. Money needs to circulate and it needs to do so without crashing markets and further compounding the problems of the poor and working classes. Which means there is a responsibility to understand the system before we can dismantle it.
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It's not about the money.
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In a Capitalist system Money Is Power and under Neoliberal Capitalism (which is all about the State removing itself from Regulating money, or in other words removing the Power From The Vote via the mechanisms of the State, controlled by representatives chosen via said vote, exercising almost no power, which, if you think about it, is against Democracy) Money is the greatest Power there is by a wide margin (even Fascism puts the State above Money, whilst Neoliberal Capitalism does the very opposite).
So these people hoard money because they live in a system were it gives them immense Power.
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If you were a senator in 1789, you spoke for on average 39 000 people. If you are a senator today, you speak for 3 300 000 people.
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There shouldn't be any billionaires. We got that, because the system has derailed. There were some lackluster failsaves against the in capitalism inherent push to centralisation but those failed due to human greed.
Btw, what happened with the measures against "too big to fail" in international banking?
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In the not-too-distant future (later than Next Sunday, A.D. though), there will be trillionaires. How sick is that?
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As the system further becomes absurd, so too do the foundations of it.
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Probably already have the resources to shoot a janitor into space to endlessly torture.
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They are hoarding money, not because they need it, or even because they just want more.
I am convinced by now that the reason they are hoarding wealth is to keep it away from you.
Billionaires don’t want you to have money because then you’ll be competition.
It’s just another example of boomers pulling the latter up with them.
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Not even. Billionaires don't want you to have money because if you did you'd have bargaining power and the ability to turn down jobs you don't like, well, you'd turn down jobs you didn't like. Or at least work fewer hours.
So long as you need some sort of job, you'll do some work for them or those who work for them (essentially supporting their structure) rather than for others in your community for that sake (ie: earning less money to do a job you relate to more, which I think a lot of us would naturally do instead of working for corporations).
So long as someone is having trouble paying rent, they'll do jobs they otherwise would have considered degrading or unconscionable.
So long as someone is stuck in the street without a home or job and hardly able to get food, and we see him, we'll work twice as hard to make sure we don't end up like that.
This is why they don't give us money. Material need is a lever of control, that keeps their power intact.
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Well, it seems that dragons are real lol
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You would never be hired to work for any of the media outlets that interview billionaires. Manufactured consent and aspirational capitalism is what media is for.
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*hoard
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You are correct:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/hoard-vs-horde-difference-usage
"The line between hoard and horde gets particularly blurred when the word is used simply to mean a large amount of something abstract, as in reasons or problems. Unless you are dealing with living creatures, hoard is the preferred spelling."
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Yes, this is the one time that "hoard" is the right one.
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Along with all the other times it's the right one, yes.
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The fact that people perceive the billionaires to be the problem --- and not the society, and in particular the government which allowed that to happen in the first place --- is, in my view, not a good starting point to effect change.
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The state is of, for, and by the bourgeoisie. The fact that a bourgeois state continued to allow the gross swelling of the bourgeoisie does not itself make the state the source of the problem. The state is a symptom of the disease.
The state isn't simply an instrument of evil by evil people. It's a tool. Since people act in their own interests, those who can abuse the system to gain outsized influence over it control the tools, and wield them in their own favor.
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It's a pissing contest. Who has the biggest number on their account.
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I believe it's mainly main character syndrome. Like when we play a game like GTA, you care more about your own stats, progress and wealth, and maybe that of other players, but couldn't care less about most of the NPCs, and that gameplay dynamic seems attractive to most people.
Another way to look at it is the higher up on the perch you are, the more everyone else looks like ants. You probably won't intentionally leave some sugar for the ants, but if they get a few you don't mind.
As for the richest of the richest of the rich, they need to stay influential for various evil reasons.
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For power, that's all they want
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Why hoard money?
When the fountain of youth is discovered, it's gonna be expensive.
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People think those telomerase injections are going to get free as fuuuuckkkkk
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"Sometime around the 80's. Next question."
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Wealth is not money.
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Money is a subset of wealth
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Mmm, no.
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Found the original, it's from Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog2g/176805334897/decayinginfrontofme-why-do-rich-people-need
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Real bootlicking hours in those comments
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I mean, all people need money but there is obviously a point where you really do have enough to live comfortably the rest of your life…
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How many yachts can you ski behind?
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If I was a multimillionaire I'd give so much of it away. I'd LOVE to singlehandedly fund our local cafe that feeds unhoused people every day, as well as house people all over the city. Nothing would make me happier than to actually do something meaningful. I'd be embarrassed to be greedy and buy Lamborghinis and shit. Give me a nice condo and a cute Mazda and a trip a year, maybe some clothes shopping, and that's all I need to make me happy. The rest can go to improving the lives of those in need.
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Bluntly, they need the money to make more money.
Most people of any significant wealth have a majority of their money/assets tied up in investments and other things. They're worth that much basically on paper only. Their actual liquid monetary assets are generally very small in comparison to their "worth".
They're generally taking a relatively small cut off the top for their personal spending, and reinvesting whatever else they have "earned". Once you get past a certain point with wealth, as long as you're not stupid about it and ether invest it yourself or hire a firm to do it for you, more wealth is a normal outcome of having wealth.
There are calculations, as you may expect, to perform payouts "in perpetuity" (aka "forever") which can account for growth/inflation. Personally, if I suddenly became ultra rich, I would find a good balance between how I live now and how I want to live, estimate what I would need to earn to acquire that lifestyle, then do the calculations to find out exactly how much I need to hold onto to achieve that, then either donate or otherwise give away the rest. I'd keep a healthy buffer on how much I'm keeping, and likely use some of it to update/upgrade key items in my life, not lavishly, but something better than I currently have (renovations to my home, upgrade for my vehicle, computers, electronics, etc)... Once my needs, both immediate and in the future) are satisfied and I have that extra "buffer" taken care of, the rest is useless to me.
I'd likely start with large donations to causes I believe in, and gift large sums to friends with coaching on how to make that money work for them as I did for me. My friends and I could become financially independent with a large enough financial "win".
I don't need more than what I require to maintain a fairly modest lifestyle. I don't like, want, or desire any "glamour" or "fame". I mainly want to be left alone. Paying off my house and having a good amount of passive income from investments is sufficient for me (where passive income grows with inflation year over year). Beyond that, I have no use for wealth. I only want enough that I can make that money "work" for me on the way that I'm no longer required to work. If my investments and buffer result in significantly more than I need being generated, I would give that extra away.
But I'm more communally focused than anything. Helping my friends and neighbors is more important to me than the idea of "more for me".
To circle back to the point, wealth is the ultimate indicator of success in capitalism. People with excessive wealth are seen as some of the most important and influential people in a capitalist society. So to their mind, they're important because of the money that they have. The mere suggestion of giving most of it away tends to be taken as handouts to those who haven't earned it. Artificially inflating that person's statue in society while diminishing their own. They're at the top of the ladder of success in their mind, giving away their fortune puts them lower on the social ladder of success and therefore it's unacceptable. The wealth they have is the representation of their importance, and by diminishing it, even a little bit, they're "moving down" on the ladder of success, which is something that they never want to do.
I don't agree with that, but I understand it. I'd personally gladly sacrifice my own excesses to bring people up. I only want for enough to secure my ability to provide for me and my family. Anything beyond that isn't useful to me. I have no illusions of grandeur that because I have money I'm somehow better than anyone. I hold the opposite view, where earnings well above what is required to secure yourself financially, are unnecessary, and shouldn't be kept. We're all supposed to be equals in a democracy, but people who are aggressively capitalist see it differently.
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*I only want enough to live comfortably for the rest of my life.
Okay this is great, I've got my house and enough money to live comfortably without worrying about the market at all.
Okay so I want a house in the city, but I also really value being able to get away from the bustle and noise of the city with a place by a lake in the country.
Well I can't really relax while my parents and siblings stress about money. I need them to be reasonably comfortable too. I'll set up trusts for them then relax by the lake and everything will be perfect.
This is great, but it's a bit lonely up here at the lake by myself, I need a partner. I'll try to meet some people in the city.
Everybody sucks once they find out I have money, yes I have enough money but I'm not in the business of buying dinner for everyone, we're still going to split the cheque. Everybody's just after my money. Well the people at the golf club are also interested in my money (well doing business) but at least they don't treat me like a meal ticket. Maybe I'll join.
Well I met the perfect partner. We deserve a wedding that won't embarrass us in front of our friends. Finally we can relax and live a quiet simple life by the lake in the country.
Wow, my partner's the best they really fulfill me. I should get them their dream car for their birthday.
Wow three kids, that happened fast. These are objectively the best humans in the history of the world. Also, I need to make sure they can focus on doing the amazing things I know they're capable of without having to worry about student debt or part time jobs. More trusts. Soon it will be enough and I can focus on philanthropy. We need a bigger house, and a lake house that's closer to the city.
The kids are complaining that they want a proper skiboat. Isn't two weeks in the alps enough skiing every year? Kids will be kids, and I'm happy they like to spend time at the lake I guess.
These fucking spoiled brats want goddamn Ferrari's for their 16th birthdays. No way. I draw the line at Audis. And now the ski boat sucks because it doesn't have ballast tanks to throw a wake for wake surfing. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST MAKE THE WHINING STOP.*
But all of that is probably like $10M. So fuck Bezos.
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This wouldn't be me. I'm in a long term relationship, I have very few long term friends, a very small circle, and they've stood with me through thick and thin, good people, not the kind to take advantage; I'd still want to take care of them as best as I'm able with whatever I can. Mainly focusing on paying off debts.
I don't really have need to find new friends, not flaunt my wealth nor horde it. I don't want to move, there are very good reasons why I'm living where I am and money doesn't change that. I don't want nor need multiple properties for myself; I don't like cities, I'm already living in a rural neighborhood.
If I were to move, I would only be doing it to have a bit more land. Our house is on a fairly small plot. I'd rebuild my existing house in a nearby location. The only real change would be adding a bit more floor space. But I wouldn't retain my existing property. I would continue to have only one home, in a rural location.
I don't really want anything lavish, just a little more land.
That's probably the biggest change I would actually make given enough money to do it, and the costs would be recouped in part by selling my current home...
I'm just happy with what I have. Largely, I don't want more than I do, I just want to be comfortable, and not worry about money.
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Being a multi millionaire in no where close to having enough money to do what you want when no regard. It's enough to keep you comfortable until you die.
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While I think there are limits to how much money anybody can reasonably spend, if someone works hard and makes money legally and ethically by virtue of their efforts then that's their own business. It's different of course if they made their money through crime or exploitation, and it's easy to think of examples, but that isn't the case for most people.
Also, if people perceive inequity then the answer is progressive taxation and other forms of financial remuneration to the state which can be dispersed as they see fit. If billionaires were hit with super taxes then they'd still be billionaires but it would pay for services that would raise the quality of life for everyone else.
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There are a few big issues with that statement. First, Capitalism itself is exploitative, as ownership creates no Value yet entitles the Capitalist to all of the power. It is the case for all bourgeoisie.
Secondly, progressive taxation is a fantastic first start, but is absolutely not the solution, even with state reimbursement. The state is owned and run by the bourgeoisie, and as such they will pay as little as they can. It is only through revolutionary pressure, such as via vast grassroots movements like Unionization, that the bourgeoisie gives up any amount of power. Worse still, the exploitation of Capitalism remains!
The actual solution is replacing Capitalism with collective ownership of the Means of Production. True, Democratic control. This eliminates exploitation and creates more equitable outcomes, levels the playing field, and results in true liberation of the Proletariat.
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No one can do a billion dollars worth of labor in a human lifetime. The only way to get a billion dollars is to exploit the labor of many, many others.
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Define "exploit". If I give you a job at a competitive rate and you do the thing and you are financially compensated and enjoy a decent standard of living then where is the exploitation?
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I would argue that it's difficult to attain that level of wealth ( hundreds of millions and/or billions) without someone being exploited.
Most commonly this is in the form of underpaying workers, essentially stealing their wages to bolster your own. This is incredibly common for any business owner, majority shareholder or CEO.
I would also remark that it's especially common in tech. Where the only way to get any reasonable increase in salary is to change to a new job. Raises are basically non-existent in tech. They happen, but are frequently far below what should be given. The only "reasonable" raises I've ever seen were from Union positions, and tech jobs are notoriously non-Union.
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Why do these posts constantly think a Billionaire literally has a billion dollars sat in a bank like Scrooge McDuck. Most of their 'net worth' is tied up in stocks, normally as part of the business they founded decades ago. Sure, a billionaire likely does have many millions sat in a bank account and the point is valid, but please stop suggesting rich people have their entire worth in cash because it makes them sound better than they really are. Just look at Trump, he feeds off this misconception. He ain't got anywhere near a billion dollars in cash until he sells his golden toilets.
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Doesn't matter that they don't have it in the bank. Banks will trip over themselves to lend them cash.
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Here's the honest truth about money.
Rich people aren't as rich as you think.
Elon Musk is a perfect example. He has all of this supposed money, but if he ever TRULY tried to access all of it he would be cut off at the knees.
All of his money is tied up in investments. and if he tried to pull all of that capital investment they simply wouldn't let him. Because if he did do so, it would destroy the global economy. So in reality he basically has only a real access to only a fraction of his supposed wealth. just enough to be rich, just not super rich.
The sheiks in Saudi Arabia have more wealth and power than him because they can collapse oil revenues whenever they want. and their wealth is tied up in commodities. the big one people need.
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The thing is, even if someone that's super Ritch stops making more money, it doesn't mean you will make more. You have to work for your money regardless and you have to have the same mentality as someone who is Ritch to have a "decent life". Ritch people need poor people the way way you'd need employees if you have a small company.
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In the end it's about a feeling of fairness in society. A certain amount of inequality is probably beneficial as a motivator. But we are getting into territories where wealth is most likely to be acquired by inheritance rather than saving your income, this has to do with the economical and demographical growth rates as well as the typically higher yields already owned capital provides (and secondary the fact that bigger capital stocks tend to have bigger relative yields than smaller ones).
Again, some of this may be desirable, the level of inequality and the fact that this process is not going to slow down soon, means that a growing portion of the population is going to feel that they are treated unfairly.
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Capitalists do not actually have to work to make money, that's kind of the point.
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Ok but your point is weird. We don't live in castles of cash as cash itself is only a concept.
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Good metaphor. I think the downvotes are because your language is abrasive, but I believe it's because you're passionate about this and English may not be your first language (hard to tell due to your native-level fluency though). Keep it up
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