3 ms·
Yes... and it's important to remember that unrealized stock gains aren't really wealth either. It's not like Bezos can go out and buy 100 billion things from th
by xhkkffbf 5y ago
Yes... and it's important to remember that unrealized stock gains aren't really wealth either. It's not like Bezos can go out and buy 100 billion things from the McDonald's dollar menu. The money is locked up in the shares and he has so many that any attempt to sell more than a few could really depress the price of the stock.
If anything, he's sort of a curator of the wealth for everyone in the Amazon world. Yes, he's able to live very well, but the simple value of his unsold shares doesn't capture his true ability to buy things.
- boatsie 5y agoThe article explains this, they use those unrealized gains as collateral for loans—bypassing the need to pay capital gains by actually selling the shares.
- abstractbarista 5y agoHow do they pay back those loans? I've never understood that part.
- xhkkffbf 5y agoPresumably they sell stock, but any money works. It's all a gamble. If the stock tanks -- and they often do-- then it's easy to end up in bankruptcy. But this article is all about hating on the rich and imagining that it's all perfect for them. They don't want to talk about the times when the stock falls and the once rich turn into very poor.
- triceratops 5y ago> the times when the stock falls Remind me when that's ever been allowed to happen in the past 10 years. At the first sign of any market trouble, the default Fed response is OMO and cutting interest rates to shore up the markets. Stock prices can never fall even if the actual economy is in the shitter.
- NaturalPhallacy 5y agoWith their income, and they get to write off most or all of the income tax with the interest paid.