I do feel like statements like "Musk has $180 billion dollars" are too easily argued against and only work if you're talking to people who already agree with you, because he kinda doesn't.

I'm not well versed in economics and I don't wanna look like a clown when confronted about it, so could someone explain what this $180 billion dollars figure actually means?

Like, how could it be taken away? How much money do these billionaires actually have, and on the other hand, how much do they have direct or indirect control over?

Also, this might be a stupid question, but I really would like to understand this and google hasn't given me a real answer:

If Elon Musk has $180 billion dollars, but "only" in the form of assets: Is that, simply said, equal to $180 billion dollars that the rest of the population doesn't have?

Is it fair to say that he is hoarding that money when it's like, not really money? Like, could a theoretical socialist state feed it's hungry by taking away stocks and assets from Jeff Bezos? Granted, even if he "only" has a couple hundred million in his bank account that's still way too much.

I guess the overarching theme is the net worth, how real is it, how much can be done with it and should we maybe stop bringing it up in debates based on the answers? I hope you guys can help me out.

  • thefunkycomitatus [he/him,they/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    If he wanted to go buy something for $150B his bank would simply tell the seller that he's good for it. As long as his value keeps rising and appears stable, his bank would be okay with this. They would simply invent a sum of money to transfer to the seller's account. His value would be collateral for all intents and purposes. If his value maintains he could do this with multiple banks.

    Trump is a good example because he does what all billionaires do, he just does it more. The guy basically lives is life in debt while still maintaining a lavish lifestyle. He just keeps borrowing and banks keep lending because of his brand's value. Not because Trump has billions sitting in a bank account somewhere or in loose cash.

    You can't use the same standards for billionaires as you use for us. Yes, our value is some cash in an account. Yes when we borrow $100k for a house, that has to eventually be matched to a pile of cash somewhere (well, not really but you know what I mean). When we're talking billions of dollars it's way more abstract. Cash means nothing. It's all about financial vehicles, investments, promises between banks, valuations, treasury instruments, etc. It just becomes a group of people pretending that some discrete amount of money exists. That's practically like having an unlimited credit card.

    The $180B not being $180B in cash doesn't matter. They still live a lifestyle way beyond their means. It's not like they're not really rich and they're eating tuna sandwiches in the break room with the other employees. They still have $200M yachts and multiple estates and all this luxury shit. It's just all on the assumption that this guy is worth tons of money so he gets what we wants. The argument that their value isn't liquid cash is used to imply they're not as wealthy as dumb commies think, which is supposed to shoot down arguments over taking their wealth. But they are that wealthy.

      • thefunkycomitatus [he/him,they/them]
        ·
        4 years ago

        I'm no finance guy and I hope I didn't come off as too authoritative. I have no idea how you turn that $150B into $145B in tax money. What they can do is reclassify income or just tax capital gains or other forms of wealth holdings to get money over time. In that way you're not going to Amazon tomorrow and saying they own you $100B in a suitcase. But you're siphoning off that extra value while they conduct business, not asking for a lump sum when they turn up with these high valuations. That's more of a tangible action than just saying seize the wealth.

        I think the real value of something like Amazon lies more in its physical infrastructure and IP than Bezos' net worth. A nationalized distribution network on the scale of Amazon would be incredibly valuable. And since it's already built, the cost of expanding isn't as bad as doing it from scratch. The IP of how Amazon distributes everything and their software and all that internal stuff would be useful too. Same thing with a company like Walmart. Imagine distributing vaccines with a network that can prioritize them and get them anywhere in the country within 2 days.

        If the revolution comes we shouldn't tear down these capitalist infrastructures. We should dissect them and analyze them and build something that works for the people rather than one guy. That's seizing in a good way.