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There's a hell of a difference between a multimillionare who has a successful business and a billionare. The difference between a person who has a million doll

by malfist 7mo ago

There's a hell of a difference between a multimillionare who has a successful business and a billionare. The difference between a person who has a million dollars and a person who has a billion dollars is about a billion dollars.

JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
> a hell of a difference between a multimillionare who has a successful business and a billionare Yeah, I'm saying the ones worth hundreds of millions to low billions who aren't on social media are, in my personal experience, often fine people. The ones I don't like are the ones on social media, but that's also true of the folks worth a few thousand dollars. Plenty of billionaires are assholes. The world's GDP is over $100 trillion. That's going to produce diversity among the rich.
- malfist 7mo ago
  And who are you to personally know enough billionaires intimately enough to absolve them of any guilt they might have earned hoarding enough wealth to reach that level?
  - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
    > who are you to personally know enough billionaires intimately enough to absolve them of any guilt I'm not absolving anyone. I'm saying I know good people who are also billiionaires who most people have never heard of. The billionaires I've heard of I tend to dislike. But I think the correlate is the fame, not the wealth. > guilt they might have earned hoarding enough wealth to reach that level? This is where the hoarding metaphor breaks down. If you build a company, is it hoarding to not sell your stake off to a private equity firm? Because practically speaking, those are their choices. Hold it, manage it and live off the income. (They all donate most of their incomes, but that's neither here nor there. You can be a good person even if not philanthropic.) Or sell it to a private equity firm and then have a pot of money to stare at.
  - WarmWash 7mo ago
    What does "hoard wealth" mean to you? A vault full of gold that they swim in? Jeff Bezos's net worth is mostly in the form of server racks and amazon inventory. Elon's net worth is mostly in the form of share certificates that are marked to market and contingent on delusional investors swallowing Elons own promises. This is the peg that society is constantly snagging on. The billionaire class doesn't actually have much "hoarded" wealth. If we want to go after wealth that more classically fits the idea of "hoarded", i.e. cash and cash equivalents, then the middle/upper middle class is the golden goose (most people are surprised to learn they have almost twice the wealth billionaires have too, not a very clickable headline though...) The idea that everyone gets a suburban house and premium healthcare if we can only pass legislation that taxes billionaires, is a delusion on par with Jesus coming down to battle the transsexuals. The actual strain in the economy is between the upper middle class and the lower class. The senior developers and the shipping room clerks.
    - cindyllm 7mo ago
      [dead]

by malfist 7mo ago

JumpCrisscross 7mo ago

> a hell of a difference between a multimillionare who has a successful business and a billionare Yeah, I'm saying the ones worth hundreds of millions to low billions who aren't on social media are, in my personal experience, often fine people. The ones I don't like are the ones on social media, but that's also true of the folks worth a few thousand dollars. Plenty of billionaires are assholes. The world's GDP is over $100 trillion. That's going to produce diversity among the rich.

malfist 7mo ago
And who are you to personally know enough billionaires intimately enough to absolve them of any guilt they might have earned hoarding enough wealth to reach that level?
- JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
  > who are you to personally know enough billionaires intimately enough to absolve them of any guilt I'm not absolving anyone. I'm saying I know good people who are also billiionaires who most people have never heard of. The billionaires I've heard of I tend to dislike. But I think the correlate is the fame, not the wealth. > guilt they might have earned hoarding enough wealth to reach that level? This is where the hoarding metaphor breaks down. If you build a company, is it hoarding to not sell your stake off to a private equity firm? Because practically speaking, those are their choices. Hold it, manage it and live off the income. (They all donate most of their incomes, but that's neither here nor there. You can be a good person even if not philanthropic.) Or sell it to a private equity firm and then have a pot of money to stare at.
- WarmWash 7mo ago
  What does "hoard wealth" mean to you? A vault full of gold that they swim in? Jeff Bezos's net worth is mostly in the form of server racks and amazon inventory. Elon's net worth is mostly in the form of share certificates that are marked to market and contingent on delusional investors swallowing Elons own promises. This is the peg that society is constantly snagging on. The billionaire class doesn't actually have much "hoarded" wealth. If we want to go after wealth that more classically fits the idea of "hoarded", i.e. cash and cash equivalents, then the middle/upper middle class is the golden goose (most people are surprised to learn they have almost twice the wealth billionaires have too, not a very clickable headline though...) The idea that everyone gets a suburban house and premium healthcare if we can only pass legislation that taxes billionaires, is a delusion on par with Jesus coming down to battle the transsexuals. The actual strain in the economy is between the upper middle class and the lower class. The senior developers and the shipping room clerks.
  - cindyllm 7mo ago
    [dead]