Dr. Bradley J. SommerMay 29, 2023
When we talk about how billionaires shouldn’t exist I don’t think people really understand the massive difference in scale between a million and a billion. One million seconds is 12 days. A billion seconds is 31 years. It’s an unfathomable amount of money that no one should have. Even uber-rich mega millionaires - hundreds of millions - really shouldn’t exist. We need to tax the rich; they’re the real free loaders. They’re the drains on the economy. They’re the ones dragging society down.
Show threadReay

@drhistorybrad @falcennial I’ve been saying this for a while. And think of all the good that money could do *and not affect their lifestyles at all.*

Over Covid lockdowns I crunched some numbers and I believe it was $200K — a life-changing amount to many, whatever the exact number was — that Bezos could personal give to every employee of every company he owns, and he’d still be a billionaire. And counting, of course. (I now realize I didn’t include Blue Origin among those companies, but by all means, anyone who’d care to update the numbers, please do. My overall point would remain that sharing the wealth would still be entirely possible even while staying wealthy.)

But instead, the dragons horde their wealth, doing no good for anyone including themselves. You can only own so many properties and boats and only wear so many priceless outfits and items of jewelry. Only drive so many cars at once. Only own so may islands. And yet they keep more than they or their families could ever spend.

Not just billions, but tens of billions.
Not just tens but hundreds of billions.
How much is enough?
IS IT EVER enough?

We recently heard that food banks here in Toronto, Canada are thinking of limiting their use to once a month per family because of how strained their supplies are. Imagine how much food the effective pocket change of a billionaire would do for places like that. The latest article I saw on that suggested Bezos makes over $11,000 *per second* from Amazon alone.

Imagine what that one second worth of income could do for a food bank, even per month.

But nope.

It’s so gross.

Apr 8 at 11:45amWeb
Show threadmillennial fulcrum4d ago

@reay @drhistorybrad well said!

they aint dragons, they're packrats. in the human world that level of greed is a behavioural disorder that endangers themselves (by creating legitimate homicide motives) and others (by impoverishing people to harm and death).

they need to be sectioned and treated for their harmful behaviour disorder. before somebody corrects their behaviour out of necessity.

Show threadReay4d ago

@falcennial @drhistorybrad Behavioural disorder puts it well.

Like, listen, like probably most middle-class people, my wife and I have helped out charities when we can. But that’s not a lot and not often, because too much of course puts us in a financially tight spot.

But if you have no financial tight spots, ever, why wouldn’t you do as much good as you can with what you’ve got?

Fund those community projects and food programs and well digging and library building and new hospital wings and sponsorships and scholarships… why the hell wouldn’t you?

Why isn’t there a race to see who goes down in the history books at the most magnanimous, socially benefitting person ever? You’d get to do that AND STILL be a multi-billionaire? It’s weird to me to not even have that on their radar, let alone act on it.

I’ve got a good imagination, but can’t fathom people who have billions (let alone tens or hundreds of billions) of dollars — and more on the way — and know how much pain and suffering you could single-handedly ease, and yet not do it because that would mean you have a smaller number before those nine+ zeros in your bank account.

So weird.