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

    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.