Peter GleickIf you make $100,000 a year (not bad), it will take you 10 million years to earn a trillion dollars.
If you make a million dollars a year (wow!), it'll still take you a million years to earn a trillion dollars.
Tax the rich.
Otto W@petergleick That's some nice explanatory math of big numbers and how they can be applied. I think that's one I might give to my students to play with. I won't make the judgement about taxes though...gotta stay neutral you know.
Scott Laird@petergleick that's not bad for a part-time job.
Rob Ricci@petergleick "earn" a trillion dollars
Albert Cardona
Dud (Mx)
ZoidtesI love that comeback ๐๐๐ช๐ช
Someone wants to tax the Zimbabwean people ๐คฆโโ๏ธ๐
WhichOne'sPink ๐ซ๐ฎ@petergleick You misspelled "guillotine".
My own personal Life@petergleick $1 trillion is also over $4,700 economic dollars from every single working age individual in the US.
argonaut@petergleick @mementomaori
even funnier to me:
if you made a billion dollars a year, itโll still take you a thousand years to make a trillion dollars
and, yeah hear me out, it you made A TRILLION DOLLARS A YEAR, itโll still take you A FULL BLOODY YEAR, and not just some ratโs arsed voting, to make a trillion dollars
Richard W. Woodley ELBOWS UP ๐จ๐ฆ๐น๐ดโโ๏ธ๐ท ๐บ๏ธAnd by earn I assume you mean acquire. Nobody actually earns that much money, others hard work earns it for them.
PetterOfCats@petergleick every dollar a billionaire or trillionaire or whatever-aire has was taken from some one somewhere. Nothing was earned. The money just didnโt poof into existence nor is there an infinite supply of it.
Brahms@PetterOfCats @petergleick well, in a way it did poof into existence (when it was created by a central authority)
of course your point still stands and is absolutely valid
@brahms @petergleick oh I know, but itโs rare to find people that understand that fact or at least understand it to the point of awareness.
Zen Zero โฏ๏ธ โฏ@petergleick @SRDas The right question is โwhy does anyone need a trillion (or even a billion) dollars?โ
Toni M.
flere-imsaho ๐บ๐ฆ
Marcus ReynoldsAccumulating wealth leads to a meaningless life. Serving others leads to a meaningful life.
wraptile@petergleick most importantly any half decent financial advisor or economist would tell you that hedging investments will always be a winning long term strategy. By consolidating wealth to a few central points we are NOT doing this.
So no matter how you look at, even discarding ethics and humanity, it makes absolutely no sense to consolidate wealth like that for any long term system, ever.
I genuinely don't understand how anyone could be against this except for some form of fear?
Jordan@petergleick I'm still waiting for all of us to decide to simply disregard the monetary system all together, and motivate ourselves to accomplish great things based on our personal and collective morals and ethics.
Just think of what schmucks all the uber-wealthy will look like then.
Slash909uk@thedarkener @petergleick I'm with Graebner on this; money should really only represent keeping score of the good one has provided to society i.e. a 'moral debt' thus should be earned by doing good for others. The only way such stupidly huge greed can exist is because money isnt real; it only has value if we collectively believe it does.
Currency collapse can and does happen. See Zimbabwe!
Currency collapse can and does happen. See Zimbabwe!
Momo@petergleick
Nobody and nothing but the state should own a trillion dollars. And even the state should use it to pay for the needs of the people. There should be a limit and every cent above it should go to the people.
Nobody and nothing but the state should own a trillion dollars. And even the state should use it to pay for the needs of the people. There should be a limit and every cent above it should go to the people.
The Tattooed Nonna ๐งโโ๏ธ@petergleick @Binder at this point I'm back to thinking taxing them is not enough
Systemic Muser@petergleick
Half a trillion could fund the infrastructure for roads and shipping lanes for an entire continent. Elon's bonus package could fund two.
The fact that so many governments allow their constituents to wield so power is dumbfounding. Everyone knows power breeds corruption.
I wish our checks and balances worked.
Too bad this is America. Where we vote for felons and PDF besties to ruin our economy.
Jones Murphy@petergleick confront the bigoted. They're the ones who just once again cut taxes on billionaires.
Simon ZerafaIf you spent 1 Million per day it would take 2738 years to spend 1Trillion.
Given investing the principle at 10% pa interest this is effectively an infinite money glitch, short of catastrophic hyper-inflation.
๐๐คฆโโ๏ธ
Zoidberg For President@petergleick No, destroy the rich, this difference in power shouldn't exist.
6502 ALU@petergleick if you make a trillion dollars a year, you can employ 10,000,000 people to do essentially whatever you want for you.
Joe Cooper ๐บ๐ฆ ๐@petergleick there needs to be a special 100% tax specifically for Elon Musk. If every billionaire is a policy failure (and it is), I don't know what to say about a trillionaire. Taxes seem kinder than any other reasonable alternative, though (but, if he won't be taxed, I guess we should consider the other alternatives, because a trillionaire that's also responsible for the deaths of 600,000 people, so far, mostly children cannot be a allowed to exist).
Rasmus Lindegaard@petergleick and not by 2%
europlus 
@petergleick @nygl Iโm thinking of the one million jobs lost figure and how each one could have been given a million dollars each insteadโฆ
That is how obscene billionaires and trillionaires are.
Gumberculese 86 47What's the difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars?
Answer: About a billion dollars.
Coach Pฤแนini ยฎDoes. not. compute.
https://inaniludibrio.com/2025/02/11/cro-magnon-quantification/
Criminy@petergleick So a trillion is, like, all the money that exists and you could buy the whole universe with it? What is someone going to do with the entire universe???
Neil@petergleick And all because Tesla shareholders think they're in a cult. They basically liquidated the company and gave the proceeds to Elon.
Osma A ๐ซ๐ฎ๐บ๐ฆIf Elon paid a million dollars of tax every day for his likely remaining lifetime, that would still leave his estate 95% of his current half a trillion net worth, and each of his children more money than he'd have paid in those taxes.
@petergleick
@petergleick
Jonathan
Lesley M ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ณ๓ ฃ๓ ด๓ ฟ ๐ช๐บHere's a visualizer of EM's extreme wealth from last year. Which will have effectively doubled with the recent news.
Thierry Van Kerm@petergleick it's just insane. Because what he gets, someone lost it
Diana Barbosa 
๐บ๐ฆ๐ต๐ธ@petergleick 100 000/year? That's a fortune (for me)!
CM ThiedeWell, when you say it, like, thaaaa-at.