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My hot take is that if the Forbes 500 ranking was determined based on verified taxable income and personal taxes paid to the country of primary residence - inst

My hot take is that if the Forbes 500 ranking was determined based on verified taxable income and personal taxes paid to the country of primary residence - instead of arbitrary self reported income and self-appraised of property valuations - a lot of stuff would work itself out naturally.

godelski 3y ago
I like this. Because it is both funny and points to the fact that for these people it is more about having a leaderboard score than utility. I mean there's really nothing Musk (or even Gates) could do that say... Gianluigi Aponte (#50) couldn't do. Which really is no different from what Pierre Chen (#500) can do.
- organsnyder 3y ago
  That's not quite true. Musk bought one of the largest media platforms in the world and remade it to his whims. There's "fuck you" money, and then there's "fuck everyone" money.
  - godelski 3y ago
    Yeah, there's a non-obvious qualifier there. There's definitely things that Musk can do that those people can't. But the number of things that richer person A can do that poorer person B can't do exponentially decreases based on B's net worth, not on A's. So yeah, Pierre Chen is gonna have a hard time buying Twitter but he's still not going to have a hard time buying a mega yacht, multiple million dollar homes, and could start a space company if he wanted to. We're quibbling over some pretty fine nuances here but from technical correctness I agree that you're correct. Just not in the "practical" (for lack of better words) sense. They're approximately equal. Much more equal than, say, between you/me and John Bogle (created Vanguard: net worth ~80m). I'd say there's even a bigger gap between Bogle and Chen than Chen and Musk. However you define value (things, capital, good life, whatever) is not linearly or exponentially tied to monetary wealth, but that's a sublinear function that looks exponential near the origin.
aeternum 3y ago
This is my take as well. The US/IRS could be giving awards to those that pay the most tax. It's kind of ridiculous that a 1 mil campaign contribution gets more publicity than paying the IRS 100mil in taxes.

godelski 3y ago

I like this. Because it is both funny and points to the fact that for these people it is more about having a leaderboard score than utility. I mean there's really nothing Musk (or even Gates) could do that say... Gianluigi Aponte (#50) couldn't do. Which really is no different from what Pierre Chen (#500) can do.

organsnyder 3y ago
That's not quite true. Musk bought one of the largest media platforms in the world and remade it to his whims. There's "fuck you" money, and then there's "fuck everyone" money.
- godelski 3y ago
  Yeah, there's a non-obvious qualifier there. There's definitely things that Musk can do that those people can't. But the number of things that richer person A can do that poorer person B can't do exponentially decreases based on B's net worth, not on A's. So yeah, Pierre Chen is gonna have a hard time buying Twitter but he's still not going to have a hard time buying a mega yacht, multiple million dollar homes, and could start a space company if he wanted to. We're quibbling over some pretty fine nuances here but from technical correctness I agree that you're correct. Just not in the "practical" (for lack of better words) sense. They're approximately equal. Much more equal than, say, between you/me and John Bogle (created Vanguard: net worth ~80m). I'd say there's even a bigger gap between Bogle and Chen than Chen and Musk. However you define value (things, capital, good life, whatever) is not linearly or exponentially tied to monetary wealth, but that's a sublinear function that looks exponential near the origin.

aeternum 3y ago

This is my take as well. The US/IRS could be giving awards to those that pay the most tax. It's kind of ridiculous that a 1 mil campaign contribution gets more publicity than paying the IRS 100mil in taxes.