It says to scale, but I couldn’t figure out the scale. Is it length? area? the blue ‘combined wealth’ screws the entire thing; at full screen, on my 4k at native scaling, I could not scroll with a mouse. A for effort.
The blue scale is really, really, really long. The average wealth of the 400 richest people in the US is $7,400,000,000.00 per person.
[edited to correct an arithmetic mistake - had to change from $740M to $7.4B. Thank you @Scientist ]
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No - it’s not about satisfaction. It’s about dissatisfaction - we could already cure malaria if we cared, but we don’t so we don’t. That’s the part that sucks.
There may be plenty of reasons to be mad that one person has (or controls or accesses) that much money, but the reasons to be mad about it always seems to say, well, with that much money think of all the things that could be done! But those things could already be done and aren’t.
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The US government is certainly not prohibited from owning equities - but for whatever reason we see it as a virtuous “principle” to not use OASDI and other funded trusts to “interfere” with the private economy.
As this analysis points out, we’d certainly have a better funded pension / Medicare program if we just invested our tax dollars in equities and financial markets rather than bonds, but - whoops! - that might be perceived as “socialism through the back door” or “picking market winners.”
Although the Managing Trustee may invest in U.S. securities that are sold on the open market (marketable securities) if it is deemed in the public interest to do so, in practice, the OASDI Trust Funds’ assets are invested in nonmarketable U.S. securities, known as special issues. The practice of investing solely in special issues has led the Board of Trustees to effectively adopt the principles of (1) nonintervention in the private economy, (2) security, (3) neutrality, and (4) minimal management. Although not explicitly codified in the Social Securities Act …
We’re so unwilling to eat the rich it’s not even funny.
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For “us” to cure malaria would still require immense political will, cooperation and shared sacrifice, because the United States government has limited resources to deal with a huge range of competing needs. In fact there are many Americans who have dedicated decades of their lives to just this one problem.
Bezos could practically cure malaria on a WHIM with no noticeable impact on his lifestyle whatsoever.
I don’t believe any one person should be able to amass that much wealth and power, but now that he has it he should at least be using it productively. Anything else would be the mark of a sociopath.
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actually its
$7,400,000,000.00 per the top 400
You were short one digit
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yeah. if we exclude his real assets, his land - he’s the 25thish largest land owner in the us - his yachts, sports cars, gold, and liquid cash ( it’s estimated he makes $2,489 per second )…
he’s probably only got about a buck fifty. no reason to tax him, or think he’s in anyway “rich”
though, for what it’s worth, the last time he did cash out amazon stock he made 4.1 billion, and he averages a cash out of a billion a year to fund blue origin
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Agree 100%. It’s impossible to get 400MM Americans to agree to fix any particular problem, but it should be possible for one person to convince himself to do it, especially if he won’t notice the money’s gone.
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a majority of americans support medicare for all, a right to abortion, gun background checks, moving off fossil fuels, coronavirus stay at home orders, and other so called “controversial” issues
it’s white wealthy people who are holding us back
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But…but…but! Regan said it would trickle down!!
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That’s what the rest of us call a hobby.
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I figured the US Treasury would be accepting only US dollars, not equities.
Indeed. Sensible people argue that the thing that gives money value is that you can pay your taxes with it.
That said, a large quantity of equities requires a very careful hand to liquidate, but it can be done with enough time without crashing the market. Billions in stock looks big to you and I, but trades every hour in various markets.
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It also ignores that the political will do so would be immediately countered by monied interests who see the expenditure of tax money and effort as something that doesn’t directly benefit them and thus inherently evil. Just like the anti-stay-at-home protests during the coronavirus pandemic have been funded by billionaires against the public interest.
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Right, even when a few hundred million of us DO manage to get our shit together the system is set up in such a way that our power and influence can be countered by one or two ultra-wealthy individuals.
This concentration of wealth is anathema to any kind of democratic society.
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Hmmm. The infographic is shocking but still not really comprehensible to me - doesn’t drive it home.
I was thinking that what if I compared Bezos’ net worth ($138.5B) to the median us net worth ($97.3k) and translated that into home size.
I did a rough spreadsheet and ended up figuring that if the median American with median net worth $97.3k had a median sized American home (~1,600 sq ft) then, projecting net worth to home size, Bezos with net worth $138.5B would have a house the size of Seattle (over 80 sq miles).
Edited to correct order of magnitude on Bezos’ net worth. Thanks @DukeTrout
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I think you’re off by a couple orders of magnitude on Bezos’ net worth.
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You’re right. 1.385E+11 in the spreadsheet. So, 138.5 billion.
The house to Seattle comparison is just based on that net worth divided by us net worth. Bezos has 0.14% of the total US net worth.
US median net worth over us total net worth is 9.92857E-10 or 0.0000001%.
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Er - isn’t that one of the things the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation tackles? IIRC they have spent a ton of money on it and other diseases with out “curing” it.
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These oligarchs need to organize and really do some good in the world or their wealth will eventually be taken from them (or their progeny) by force. Then a consortium of warlord quasi-govermental gangsters will be running things.
In other words, meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
