A question I have is once you are a billionaire, why do you need more money?
What is there left that you can’t buy?
It’s a dick measuring competition with their buddies at that point, at the expense of the rest of us.
Not necessarily true. More money at that level isn’t about more material possessions or even more services: it’s about more power and influence. It’s playing toward oligarchy.
I didn’t say anything about possessions and purchasing power, the competition in that echelon is about who has more ability to bend the world around them, thus the dick measuring comment.
Elon Musk bought a president
The personality required to “earn” a billion dollars off the backs of your working employees is exactly why it will never be enough for them. Have enough money that all your grandchildren’s entire lives are paid for? Then it’s now about control. Who can you influence and how much of your shitty mentality can you project onto others?
People who want money for specific things and will eventually be satisfied stop long before reaching billionaire status.
It’s an addiction, plain and simple. If the number isn’t going up, they’re not happy. They’re willing to do anything, hurt anyone, to get their fix.
Billion dollars grows by 70 million passively per year. Next year you have 1,070,000,000 which grows by 74.9 million and next year by 80 million and so on. Basically the more money you have the easier it is to make more money.
Also, a billionaire doesn’t have billion dollars in the bank. That’s not what being a billionaire means.
Cumulative interest is absurdly powerful. Turns out that the best way to earn a fuckton of money is to start with a heckton.
Tangentially related: a friend told me that they worked out that £1,000,000 in the bank/invested in safe options would accrue enough interest that you could retire and have a decently comfortable income just off of the interest (meaning that the million pounds would remain untouched and able to be inherited by kids of whatever).
It weirdly reminds me of growing things like moss, yeast (for bread) or fungi. It takes far more time than work; you set up the conditions for them to grow, and then you leave them to their own devices for a while. I can’t imagine treating money like this; growing up poor means that no matter what level of financial security I achieve as an adult, I will always be acutely aware of exactly how much money I have, and how fast it is growing or shrinking.
It’s not about buying things, it’s about winning the game and staving off boredom and existential dread.
We need more people like Luigi to add excitement back into their lives!
What is there left that you can’t buy?
Politicians are cheap, but getting the President of the USA to let you have all the power of the US President is pretty expensive.
Unless you’re Putin. But Musk managed to do it without being Putin.
Because you have to win the billionaire game.
A city on Mars? I’m pretty sure that’s what Elon is trying to buy, he’s paying several billion dollars to work on it.
If this happens, he gets a pass. It’s the only reason I can think of to focus that much wealth in one place.
We broke our economic system a while ago. Citizen United really help drive that home. The part I find so funny is the people I know complaining about taxes and never getting anything from the government.
Yet the very same individuals don’t make a peep about the ridiculous amounts of money our society funnels to the wealthiest. Some kid getting a school meal for free? No no we can’t have that. Billionaires able to buy social media companies and make them shittier? Why just go right ahead. Multiple private space companies? Perfectly fine. How about maybe some college for the people? No dice nerds that’d cost too much money!
Elon Musk is the biggest welfare queen of them all. He took in billions of government tax payer’s money…
I see this a lot, but people often don’t understand where a lot of the money he’s gotten comes from. The big ones that come up beyond regular tax incentives for building something somewhere are… (these often don’t cost money, it means less money in though)
SpaceX - They bid on contracts and won them and are often the lowest cost bidder. Sure it’s government money but its not in anyway shape or form close to welfare. They are actually saving tax payers billions of dollars.
Tesla - They got a DOE loan while times were hurting yes, but it was a LOAN, that they paid back in full early. Nothing special here and not a bailout. Tax payers benefited from the interest.
Tesla - ZEV credits - People can complain about this one if they want as it’s the closest to what you’re describing, but it was intended to spur new business which it did. This is the one that others couldn’t realistically benefit from but Tesla could. The money comes from other manufactures though, not taxpayers. But it was forced by the government, so in a sense this one is a handout in the form of a punishment.
Tesla - $7500 200k rebates were open to everyone up to 200k vehicles. GM also used these up.
Tesla - $7500 IRA Have convinced Tesla and other OEMs to source more materials within NA boosting the NA economy and it’s independence from outside threats, so while it’s money out, it’s also money in and improved national security.
You gotta remember, as a corporation, they are obligated to use any and all incentives available to them, or they would be breaching their fiduciary duty and open to shareholder lawsuits. They do not have a choice on the matter.
Edit: Clarity on some points, but I also wanted to add, that SpaceX is going to save the US government more money than Tesla will ever have taken from taxpayers. Its a fact, not up for debate. It might have already done so as well given the below quote.
Quote from a general in the military
“General Hyten, [then] the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told me last year … the fact that we have competition now on going to space – just for the military – has saved them $40 billion in launch costs.”
What bothers me admit space X, was they awarded a 3 billion dollar contract for Starship. They were awarded this by Kathy Lueders, and interim director at NASA, who reached out to only SpaceX and told them to drop their bid to get the contract. She, as an interim director, single handedly and I’d argue fraudulently awarded over 3 billion dollars to SpaceX. She then went on to retire from NASA six months later to take a job as manager of the SpaceX facility at Boca Chica.
Fraud and lies means we’re probably not going back to the moon. Just like how Tesla got so popular because they deceive investors with unachievable ranges on electric cars and the promise of full self driving cars.
I had to look this up, but that’s not exactly what happened.
Proposals from all 3 were looked at, but due to the funding available from congress (they only gave 25% of what NASA asked for) there was only enough funding to fund one and SpaceX was the best option. She did ask SpaceX to reasses their bid, but SpaceX did not change it, and still won.
Even given that though, it does sound a little sketchy how it all played out, especially with the job after.
Blue Origin the next lowest bid was 2x Spacex’s 3 Billion.
The protest from the other companies was then rejected by the courts.
Edit: Also Re: Tesla range - Your beef is with the EPA and their testing mechanism, not Tesla. Tesla cars have consistently met EPA ranges in EPA type tests. Until the Model 3 highland (released in 2024), they would rapidly drop off in range at prolonged 70mph (considered ‘real world driving’ which autoblogs test with) but that’s on the EPA test, not Tesla. Tesla built the car to get the EPA range.
Edit: More on the EPA, in addition to a better ‘real world driving’ metric at prolonged high speeds, they also need a cold weather metric, as all EVs suffer on range in cold weather, and knowing how a specific car will handle it due to differences like heat pumps vs resisitive heating, is much needed to make informed decisions.
Yup. And the US post office does a ton of the work for Jeff. Something like 2/3 of our “welfare” dollars just go to corporate welfare. What confuses me is why republican voters support this. Because I know they aren’t all multi millionaires or billionaires.
Socialism is for the rich.
Yeah, but wealth redistribution is communism and socialism and whatever…
we need a green plumber.
Hoo hoo
I just fucking hate them all so much.
That looks like the face Jeff makes when he is farting and thinking “god what a beautiful fart”
If it had grown with inflation, $6.3 trillion would have been turned into $8.4 trillion
Isn’t Jeff looking yummy today?
Get in my belly!
Seems like I remember seeing this headline a decade ago.
Stocks double roughly every decade so this isn’t surprising at all.
Isn’t 10 years around the time you’d expect a doubling anyway if it was in a board market ETF?
I’m not saying it’s great that their wealth has doubled… but it’s not surprising and isn’t beyond normal at the 10y mark.
Rule of 72
It’s called compounding interests and it’s not just for the rich. You can take advantage of it too. I sure do.
the made up number that is the value of their stock went up, oh noes
That made up number allows them to bend the ear of world leaders, to doom millions of people to poverty-related death, to take a joy-ride to space while their employees piss in bottles out of fear of losing their pitiful income.
You can try and diminish their wealth, but made up or not, those numbers are fucking the rest of us straight into hell.
