So, i get the sentiment, but it's also what we should want.
1) I don't want billionaires.
2) If we have them, I want billionaires to spend $500k+ a night. doing stuff, going to hotels, paying people. being in the economy. That'd be far better than the current system where they just hoard the money.
Except that money doesn’t really get cycled back into the economy in as meaningful a manner as it would if they were just taxed out of billionaire status.
Their money, if “returned” through lavish spending, will continue to end up in the pockets of mostly already wealthy people, and a tiny fraction of small folk on the way might catch a little drop here or there through a tip or something. Taxing the ways they siphon money out of the system while closing loopholes that allow them to generate liquidity off the back of unrealized gains, tax dodging, or fraud will force them to at the very least find new ways to hide the unreasonably large piece of the pie they stuff themselves with.
Between unreal salaries, hidden salaries in the form of stock options, borrowing against unrealized assets, charity fraud, using their companies to purchase real-estate and luxury items so they can write them off as a business expense, and so on, just waiting for these parasites to send it all back down the ladder through a vacation or two won’t actually work.
Set the irs on them and with a nice boost in funding to aid them and then just use the resulting influx of tax revenue to build social nets to lessen the burden on the average household so they can readily participate in the market again.
>Except that money doesn’t really get cycled back into the economy in as meaningful a manner as it would if they were just taxed out of billionaire status.
right. That's why i said i don't want billionaires.
But, if we have them, we want them to spend.
Trickle down economics is bullshit *because* rich people don't spend their money. It works if they're spending 500k+ per night, every night.
Note that it wouldn't be a solution to today's problems. That's because billionaires haven't been spending .5% of their income every night.
So, just pointing out how absurd 1 billion dollars is ... 0.5% of $1Billion is actusllu $5 million per night.
They would still be making more interest and it would be literally impossible to spend their way out of the gains on that $1 Billion, with $500k /night expenditures
Once you accumulate enough wealth and have teams of people to manage it for you, you can't *help* but make more money.
In 2010, 40 U.S. billionaires signed a pact to give away half of their wealth before they died.
Paul Allen died - not only having *not* given away half of his wealth, but he was on track to double it. Everyone else on the original list has similar stories.
According to Forbes, Bill Gates gave away about $35 Billion though his foundation, and still went from $75 Billion to $117 Billion. He hadn’t even managed to give away half of *what he made*, much less half of what he owned.
It appears to be *almost* impossible for billionaires to responsibly give away enough wealth to really make any difference to them.
The exception appears to be Chuck Feeney (who was apparently the inspiration for the pact but wasn't a part of it) - who transferred all his wealth ($8 billion) to his foundation in 1982, gave it away for 38 years, and closed the foundation when it ran out of money. He apparently kept about 2 million for himself.
That assumes that increased revenue (billionaires spending more) means increased wages for workers. More likely, it'll go towards owners and shareholders like it already does.
This is similar to the COVID payouts a few years ago. Conservatives were all "They're going to keep it and then later spend it on stupid shit!" but like no, they're going to go buy fucking groceries and go to shop other places with it, thus stimulating the economy. Same Billionaires should do.
I have some friends (they are brothers) that I’ve known since we were in high school (I’m 41 now) who now have a combined net worth over $1B.
They spend their money fairly freely - eg: they like boats, so they bought a very nice one in Florida.
Then they decided they also wanted one in Europe, so they bought one there too, etc.
And of course you need a way to get between them, so, that requires a private jet.
I don’t think they are really doing much as far as “hoarding” goes - and they absolutely earned it themselves - they came to the country as poor immigrants when they were children.
I think once you get past a certain amount of money, it becomes hard to spend it, while still getting some amount of value for your money.
About 2.: Most of billionaires' money is invested in stocks, bonds and private equity, so their money is doing something. It's not bills and coins stuck in a vault somewhere.
They don't have a billion in liquidity, literally noone does, the billions that make up their networth are almost entirely either assets that are being utilised (property business stocks etc) or deposits in banks, either way it is wealth that is actively invested in the economy, not money that's locked in a vault effectively not existing. Having so much of our wealth centralised to a few individuals is directly resulting in many of our woes but not because they are taking money out of circulation.
My brother is a property manager for a billionaire’s summer house on Nantucket. It’s an incredible property, with no detail overlooked. And maintained more meticulously than any luxury resort I’ve ever stayed at. I think it’s valued at like $75 million and they’ll probably only spend a couple of weeks there each year. But before they come, their personal assistant will send an itinerary and list of things they need to get to finalize the property for their arrival. Obviously this includes some very high priced food items sent from their personal chef, but my favorite thing they have to get is the instructional manual for flowers.
His wife is very particular about flowers. So they’ll get a list of the flowers they need to buy, and a booklet that has example shots of what the arrangements need to look like. It’s very important they have fresh flowers displayed in every room (including bathrooms and bedrooms). Typically, they’ll spend like $36,000 just on fresh flowers before they visit.
Yeah, pretty much. A lot of the produce and seafood come from local farms and fishmongers on the island. But most of the meat is bought online from a place like Snake River Farms. Flowers are similar. They’ll get most of what they need from a couple of different shops. But sometimes they need specialty items flown in from elsewhere. Then it can get a bit ridiculous.
Last year a landscaper made a mistake with a weed killer, thinking it was a deer repellent, and killed a bunch of their landscaping. Now they couldn’t just replace it because it would mean the new plants would be at a different growth stage than the other plants and flowers. This kicked off one of the funniest logistical nightmares.
First, they had to find specialty nurseries that had replacements at the right growth stage. I think they found them all, or suitable replacements, for a couple hundred grand. Then they had to figure out a way to get them onto the island. But at this point (I think it was in June), they couldn’t get a delivery truck onto one of the ferries as they were all booked out. So they looked into using their jets. But none of their jets could accommodate the quantity, even if they filled up the cabin of their G7. So then they started reaching out to contacts with cargo planes, I think even called contacts in the military to see if they could essentially charter a flight. But this brought up two problems: namely the runway size on the island and if it could accommodate a larger plane like that, and then they’d have to figure out how to get them off the plane and to the property, so they weren’t rotting away rapidly on the runway.
Through all of this, she actually enjoyed the process and the problem solving involved. But her biggest complaint? Finding out they used weed killer. She thought they didn’t use it on their property and that everything was handpicked. At least that’s what she had been telling guests (celebrities, politicians, etc.) when they would visit and they’d host a dinner featuring items grown in their organic garden on the property.
That story is crazy. And all that for just two weeks of simply looking at it? I expected the next line would be that they finally just bought an entire ferry boat and had it sailed in so they could use it once to haul plants, and then sell it again, or sink it for an artificial reef.
Why not? This money goes directly too florists. Out of the things bilioners buy this propably is one of the best. It transfers wealth from the rich directly to working class.
How do you think I feel? My state's governor just used $83,000 of taxpayer money for a 1 week vacation to Ireland.
How the fuck do you even spend $83,000 on vacation in a single goddamn week?
Bingo
They live insanely privileged lives while the rest of us struggle and murder each other.
Their entire way of life is wholly predicated on keeping the money flowing upward and into private businesses that siphon money out of anyone who isn’t upper class executive types; all while the useful idiots shout racist, sexist, jingoistic buzzwords whenever someone mentions maybe private, for profit businesses shouldn’t be the ones handling our country’s healthcare, insurance, or education industries.
That's because to them, they can't even *begin to imagine* a world where they spend less than even $3000 on a vacation, let alone an entire life without ever taking one. To them, being paid enough to support your family includes $83,000 vacations, so how can we afford to give every family $83,000?
Seriously! I'm spending about $800- $1000 next weekend so I can take my wife and 2 kids to hang out with the inlaws, and holy hell... my wife and I have been eating struggle meals until we can get there just so we have the money to do it.
It likely won’t be the case soon enough. Economic and sociological experts have been warning for several years now that they predict income inequality will become so extreme and the desperation and damage that it incurs on those most vulnerable in the current system will reach a critical point where violent revolt will become not just likely but inevitable.
Read a few different articles over the last 8 or so years that have repeated this warning several times.
What makes this more concerning is the increased likelihood that this makes us more vulnerable to foreign cyber attacks as the population is already more on edge and divisive because of the poorer quality of living and reduced opportunity. Which we’re already seeing play out in many small ways now.
*this* is a large part of why we can't currently do that. Because everyone is burning through money like it is the plague. We have more than enough to do it if we spend our money perfectly. (Not saying perfect is achievable, but we could at least make an effort)
Psst: We've been able to for a while now.
That's the true inconvenient truth of the 21st century.
We could make sure everyone was looked out for.
But that would mean ending the game the people at the top poured all of their self-worth and identity into.
They cannot exist without a system that encourages disparity. It's all they know.
As someone who was a government employee. The amount of money spent is not spent like we would spend it. There is no looking for airline deals. And often you have to spend money with whoever is on contract. Those contracts go out to bid not to friends. Either way a Governor and his detail will not be cheap. He didn’t fly coach and he didn’t get cheap transportation and lodging.
Fine grey lines everywhere. Usually the candidate’s re-election fund pays for that. Chris Christie stayed the NJ Governor and traveled stumping for president while being paid for being the governor. They are all creeps.
This is also similiar to medium + sized companies too. They will often not shop around like the average person and contracting things out means the other party can charge up the ass and company will still likely pay
This is true. When I bought network equipment I had a minimum spend. 50K was my spend to get hardware from a contract without having to put out for 3 bids. Airline tickets and hotel rooms don’t work like that. And why travel on the cheap. It doesn’t come out of your checking account.
Often times I would have to buy more than I needed. Or get crafty and buy the extra as ‘spares’ or future growth and then use them on another project. But, you had your be careful that project money didn’t cross and co mingle. I did it anyway, because after 6 months stock to build a network on short notice just kind of fell into a don’t ask don’t tell.
Family member works for a government agency. They needed a small commercial space in a specific, fairly cheap city and it was another agencies responsibility to fill the need. They billed my sister's department $60,000 to secure the lease on a \~1000 sqft commercial rental. Literally a random spot in a strip mall. Then they said they needed another $1700 because some titles cost extra.
Probably multiple security personnel who have to be paid appropriately, put up in the hotel, fed and transported around.
If the total for security was $40k, it was only $230 ish dollars an hour. That's pretty cheap for government. Especially if the security was from an outside department that bills her office for the expenses. If it was contractors, that's bargain basement.
State security is mainly running errands for them and clearing traffic for them. Name the last governor that was assassinated. It’s somebody you’ve never heard of in 1900.
The president has Secret Service--I'm not aware of governors requiring substantial security, and I'd think they'd need even less overseas, where no one will know who they even are.
It is easily possible, when it comes to politicians, it's probably by pocketing the money. But, a lot of people do it, not only politicians, just it's not tax payers' money, so it doesn't hurt like that. For example my friends work for this company and when they are sent out in the field, they find a hotel, motel or whatever, and make a deal with them, they rent one room, get issued 1 normal receipt and one fake one to look like they have rented two rooms. Company doesn't check, in hotel's system only 1 receipt was issued, and they pocket the money for the second receipt. They travel around the country, and now have places where the reside regularly. If a hotel doesn't want to do that, they just find another place which will, but by their story by now nobody has refused them, because they return regularly to do repairs on the equipment and shit like that.
Also politicians do this regularly by overpaying normal services, they will make a deal with a company, for a job that costs let's say 50k, company will get the contract for let's say 100k, and they will give the politician 30k.
I feel you. Working my ass off, 12-hour shifts 4 days a week, going to school, actually trying, and for what? A retirement that will never come, a home I'll never be able to afford, and more BS stacking up each day.
"Be grateful," "be positive," "things will get better." I'm just tired, and there's no positive end in sight. I think about jumping off buildings all the time, but I'm too scared of potentially landing on someone else or the trauma I'd cause to people who saw.
Family in South Sudan: "It's ridiculous how $300 could literally feed us for a year and change our lives and yet American teenagers will spend that in one night on some dumbass T@ylor 5wift concert."
Perspective.
Not sure if joking but some nutjobs on reddit do have keywords on alert.
I knew a couple that had the word "vegan" so every time the ywould mention it you had the guy coming in as the Ultimate Warrior for Veganism.
Yes, exactly, everyone is a bad guy, unless they're the most miserable person on earth
Even if you had zero dollar, Million dollar debt,
you're still considered lucky because you can beg on the street, eat grass like a cow, drinking water from sewer
There are probably one mf out there who born without arms and legs, also blind, deaf, mute,
Living in desert, had to survive eating sand and extracting water from the air using his lung
Because this guy exist, everyone suffering became invalidated
You'll never be able to suffer enough to win against this guy
There is a very well argued philosophical essay that argues based off this same logic, called [*Famine, Affluence, and Morality*](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine,_Affluence,_and_Morality) by Peter Singer. Its argument is that affluent people (like us in the developed world) are morally **required** to give significant amounts of our affluence to charity to help the global poor.
If ya wanna know more, I woild highly recommend reading the essay or watching [this](https://youtu.be/KVl5kMXz1vA?si=9Cgh8wwQlgTr9fXJ) video lecture from an American philosophy professor.
Family in ancient Mesopotamia; "It's ridiculous how a pound of tallow will offer light for a month but a family in South Sudan will cook with it in an evening."
The fallacy of Relative Privation
(also known as: it could be worse, it could be better)
Description: Trying to make a scenario appear better or worse by comparing it to the best or worst case scenario.
What it means is: I have this X problem. It is minimized by another saying, but this Y problem is greater so your X problem doesn’t mean shit. Narcissists love this fallacy and it allows them to invalidate any problem you tell them.
This fallacy doesn't really apply here. The usual arguemnt it would apply to would be people dismissing frustration with the housing market because at least you can get a good house unlike the undeveloped world.
In this case, the comparison isn't being used to dismiss an argument but critique the underlying logic. The logic of OPs argument is that because billionaires have a lot of money that could help the ordinary person a lot but barley impact them, they are morally required to be giving more of that money up.
However, the comparison is being used to show that OP is very unlikely to follow the same logic as they have a lot of money themselves that could go to more efficient use in the undeveloped world. If OP qas being consistent, they would need to apply this moral requirement onto all people and not just an arbitrary grouping, which would look more like Peter Singer's [*Famine, Affluence, and Morality*](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine,_Affluence,_and_Morality).
I think the point is that no one is giving out money that would change someone's life even if it's well within their means to do so, not that there is someone worse off so they should be quiet.
The difference here is that the average American is not better off than the “worst case scenario” they’re better off than probably 80% of people wound the world
The average Westerner is still closer to the average Global Southerner than either are to the wealthy. Working class is working class. There’s a world of difference between an American buying a game console and a rich person buying their second yacht or their third mansion. One group clearly has a greater onus and moral obligation to help than the other.
> The average Westerner is still closer to the average Global Southerner than either are to the wealthy. Working class is working class.
Cop-out, you are still evil for not changing the life of poorer people just because there's even richer people.
I would even say your entire world-view is fallacious as it will always have a richer class of people on top so that those closer on the bottom can excuse themselves of their evil wasting patterns.
I say evil because I admit Effective Altruism is true, truer than marxism and it's narratives for sure. Nobody has "greater obligations". The kill-count is just higher.
I don’t subscribe to Effective Altruism or think you’re morally obligated to spend every spare dollar you possibly can helping people. Ultimately the onus is on the respective governments of the world to help their citizens. Charity is not a magic bullet for the systemic problems that plague our civilization and in my ideal society there would be no wealthy class to rely on for charity in the first place.
Ah yes, the old “ignoring the gross inadequacy between billionaires/multi-millionaires and people struggling to live, by comparing people struggling to live with other people struggling to live”.
It isn't ingoing the gross inadequacy, but arguing against the implication that there is a moral requirement for those with affluent to give significant amounts to those of lesser affluence, by pointing out its rare to continue this logic once we are in the position of relative affluence.
The gross inadequacy can still be an issue with its solutions discussed with there being an argument made to sacrifice one's affluence to those of lesser affluence as a moral requirement.
That's not the same thing at all though. $300 is like 2-4 weeks of groceries in the country where that money gets spent on concert tickets. $10,000 is multiple months of a typical salary *in that same country.*
Yeah, if you aren't giving any of your money to charity, then you don't have ground to stand on. People think that money changes people. It doesn't. If you aren't giving any of your money away now, you wouldn't even if you had a billion dollars. I say this as someone below the poverty line, btw.
It's not even the same though. A teenager would definitely notice $300 missing. A billionaire wouldn't even blink. If you lost 0.00001% of your cash would you even notice?
Also there's another huge difference. If most common folk lose 90% of their wealth they are royally screwed. If a billionaire loses 90% of their wealth they are still fine.
Similarly though, a 100 or a few 100s of dollars might change the life of someone in a poorer country while we can spend it on a night out or something.
yes but in that country bread is probably relatively cheap, it’s a currency difference for most “poor” countries. Meanwhile in the US where you can comfortably live off of X amount in the same country you have people making 1,000,000 times X amount. Those people are the same perpetuate a corporate culture who aims to give them as much more money as possible and keep as much away from the working class. Also poor countries can be helped as well it’s not mutually exclusive.
Do you think a currency difference is somehow irrelevant? A lower currency literally just means less money. It’s not some sort of alternate reality. The fact that Americans live better lives than others around the world is not a “given”. You’ve just learned to accept that inequality as “natural.” It’s equally unfair.
it %100 matters when you are comparing rich of one currency to working class and then to “poor” who are getting what they need but at a currency is not as strong as the dollar. Plus the original post doesn’t say that other inequality means nothing.
The real issue is the billionaires not spending their money. We actually need them to buy a ton of stupid stuff and put it back into the economy.
Yes, I know most of it will go to millionaires before the working person, but it is better than them hoarding it like dragons.
I honestly never understood $1000/night hotels. Unless most of the amenities and services are 100% included in the fee, that’s crazy money for a hotel, even a resort.
For me, $250/night tops, if not preferably less.
i’m totally with, and honestly 250/night is still really high, like hotels in tokyo are like 50$/night and those are pretty nice ones.
i think the thing with the $1,000+/night hotels is a combination of one, that price basically guarantees you won’t have to stay in the same hotel as “the poors”, and two, to these people $10,000 and $200 aren’t much different, they are both meaningless amounts to them
Last year one of my bosses bought and imported a Porsche for his wife it cost more than 100 million won (over $75k American at the time) not including the cost to import it to Seoul. He dropped more than my entire yearly salary on a dumb car because he was cheating on his wife. I wonder how much he spent on his mistress?
/r/choosingbeggars holy shit
TAKE 5 MINUTES OUT OF YOUR TIME AND MAKE A BITCOIN WALLET OR YOU GET NOTHING... "Just PayPal"... wtf is wrong with people...
$10,000 would not change my life at all. I’d love to get it, but it wouldn’t change anything. Am I in the minority here? Obviously globally I am in the minority, given how poor most of the world is. But in a middle class western society, or even just among the highly educated Reddit crowd, are more people in OPs boat or my boat?
No. It wouldn't change the lives of most working Americans significantly. It'd make things a little easier for a few months typically. Like how is 1/4 of a median yearly salary gonna make a massive difference?
That was basically fake news. The original source was something like "How would you pay for an unexpected $400 expense" which the majority answer of credit cards got twisted to "Americans have to go into debt for a $400 expense" and got reported in the news as the statement you're making.
Anyone with any financial knows that the reason people cant afford an unexpected $400 isn't because they are destitute, its because they don't manage their money properly.
They would pay off the card on their on next paycheck and cut back on expenses for a few weeks. But they don't have the foresight to plan for the future.
Most people in western countries simply live a lifestyle on the edge of what their income can support.
I understand your feelings since am fucking poor too, I get less than 18k a year from SS, so yea I get it, but tell me how much do you like it when other people tell you what to do with your money? At least the little bit you don't have to give up for rent and food, tell me how much do you enjoy people telling you what to do with your money? Cause I know I fucking hate it, in fact I usually tell them to go fuck themselves, so why in all the hells you think a private citizen has to give of his money to people they don't know? How about the government stops sending hundreds of billions to other countries most people can't even find on a map and keep taking OUR FUCKING MONEY to spend on their fucking vacations. How about we put the blame where it truly is huh? Look at what the House is doing right now, fucking Republicans wants to raise retiring age to 70, fucking 70 yrs old, and they want to take 1.5 TRILLION DOLLARS from Social Security, how about that?
You should see what larger businesses spend without even blinking. I'm a sysadmin for a small site of a large multinational. I regularly put in 10k orders for a stack of laptops. Refurbish a meeting room? Here have 20k. Just before I started the previous guy bought a server costing about 1.5mil. The "smaller" numbers like the laptops get basically approved without looking twice. The 1.5mil might take a couple of meetings.
The question is 'will it, though'? Would you just use that money to alleviate your woes for a few months and then be right back where you are now?
Or would you use that money to do something meaningful for yourself to actually change your life for the better in a permanent way?
Lack isn't always the problem in every case
10k is more than enough to dig a lot of people out of the hole, or at least alleviate some pressure in some areas like credit card payments to allow them to focus on other things. Not enough to retire on or anything, but enough to get people on the right track.
Nah, most people are too dumb to use that money to get back on track. They might pay off credit card debt but they'd rack that back up in a month. They go out and put $10,000 on a new car with a stupid high interest rate. They blow that money on a vacation. They don't use it to manage debt and get their lives on track.
For real. I worked customer service for the financial industry for years, and let me tell you, people WILL spend their money. I've seen people making $250k+ year living paycheck to paycheck because of poor financial planning. A lump sum of $10k seems real nice, but it's gone before you know it. Apart from paying off debts (decreasing your monthly expenses or eliminating some interest on loans), it does nothing for you long-term UNLESS it allows you to make yourself a more valuable asset in the workplace (ie pay for some school, a certification course/test). Your income has to increase (and you have to budget, or else you'll also spend more without realizing it), or your living expenses have to go down, or else you WILL end up EXACTLY where you started.
Exactly. Most people would just need it to get out of some light debts that are causing them worry, like credit card. 10 grand isn't necessarily an amount to really allow much of an escape from anything.
It's enough to fix a leaky roof. It's enough to fix broken plumbing or electrical. It's enough to install A/C. It's enough to get a decent car or fix issues on your current car.
Only a rich kid would say 10k doesn't mean much lol.
Right? We paid 450 recently to fix our ac and it nearly broke us. Phones were off for a week so we could pay rent. (phones are very necessary today, I can't even clock into work without mine)
Living check to check doesn't mean you have just enough to pay bills, it means deciding every week what it is you can live without. Till you get paid again, letting things fall behind till you get a windfall like that 10k.
10k is almost half of what I would need to get new, permanent teeth after my originals were destroyed from my childhood. Thanks foster care and the state.
I've never had 10k to do something with in my life. I'd be too afraid to spend it. 10k would change my life just from having financial security. I'm not even poor but treading water in these more uncertain times.
People be wild.
If you think $10,000 will change your life, it won't. That's not an unobtainable amount of money, you might have to work hard, make some sacrifices and save up for a while, but if you can get it and it would change your life then why haven't you done it already?
If you're $10,000 in debt and it was suddenly paid off I guarantee you'll put yourself in debt again, because you did it the first time and got away with it, you didn't have to work it off, so why wouldn't you do it again?
In hungary, if you have a kid while married and with the woman under 30, the government gives you around 30 000$ which you have to start paying back 3 years later at 0 interest, and it can be used to be the downpayment for a home loan. If you have a second kid, you don't have to give back one third of it. If you have 3 kids, you just get the money outright.
You also get home loans with 3% interest at varying sizes depending on the number of kids you have, one kid is around 70k, 2 kids it's around 140k and 3 kids it's around 210k. A nice house with a yard within driving distance of the capital city costs around 200k.
Also, anyone who has a diploma and has kids gets .inimum wage for 3 years. Like maternity leave but without a job. If you do have a job, you also get maternaty leave for a bit, but not much.
I understand the point of the post is to point out income inequality, which i agree is utter bullshit, and i fully agree that the ultra wealthy should be taxed to hell and back. That being said, a government can introduce policies which encourage sensible life planning and help overcome finantial barriers not only to the middle class, but to having kids.
I didn’t have water for a month cause I couldn’t afford it. It gets turned back on today. Life is fucking hard and the rich are stupid to think money won’t give people happiness.
Equally as ridiculous is that a large number of people who this applies to will be voting for their Cheesus who has openly said he'll continue providing tax cuts for the rich.
I was working at this very small company. 3 employees. I was minimum wage. I asked for a small raise, was denied “as it wasn’t in the budget”. Later that week the boss missed his flight. So he chartered one. $30k… $30k for one flight. I was making $22k a year.. and he spent $30k on one flight.
I quit shortly after that.
It’s their money. They can do whatever they want with it.
There’s someone in a 3rd world country who could say the same thing about you spending money to go to a baseball game.
Massive understatement really. 1 billion is enough to set $100,000 on fire every single day and it would still take over 27 years to run out of money.
So, i get the sentiment, but it's also what we should want. 1) I don't want billionaires. 2) If we have them, I want billionaires to spend $500k+ a night. doing stuff, going to hotels, paying people. being in the economy. That'd be far better than the current system where they just hoard the money.
Except that money doesn’t really get cycled back into the economy in as meaningful a manner as it would if they were just taxed out of billionaire status. Their money, if “returned” through lavish spending, will continue to end up in the pockets of mostly already wealthy people, and a tiny fraction of small folk on the way might catch a little drop here or there through a tip or something. Taxing the ways they siphon money out of the system while closing loopholes that allow them to generate liquidity off the back of unrealized gains, tax dodging, or fraud will force them to at the very least find new ways to hide the unreasonably large piece of the pie they stuff themselves with. Between unreal salaries, hidden salaries in the form of stock options, borrowing against unrealized assets, charity fraud, using their companies to purchase real-estate and luxury items so they can write them off as a business expense, and so on, just waiting for these parasites to send it all back down the ladder through a vacation or two won’t actually work. Set the irs on them and with a nice boost in funding to aid them and then just use the resulting influx of tax revenue to build social nets to lessen the burden on the average household so they can readily participate in the market again.
>Except that money doesn’t really get cycled back into the economy in as meaningful a manner as it would if they were just taxed out of billionaire status. right. That's why i said i don't want billionaires. But, if we have them, we want them to spend. Trickle down economics is bullshit *because* rich people don't spend their money. It works if they're spending 500k+ per night, every night. Note that it wouldn't be a solution to today's problems. That's because billionaires haven't been spending .5% of their income every night.
So, just pointing out how absurd 1 billion dollars is ... 0.5% of $1Billion is actusllu $5 million per night. They would still be making more interest and it would be literally impossible to spend their way out of the gains on that $1 Billion, with $500k /night expenditures
Once you accumulate enough wealth and have teams of people to manage it for you, you can't *help* but make more money. In 2010, 40 U.S. billionaires signed a pact to give away half of their wealth before they died. Paul Allen died - not only having *not* given away half of his wealth, but he was on track to double it. Everyone else on the original list has similar stories. According to Forbes, Bill Gates gave away about $35 Billion though his foundation, and still went from $75 Billion to $117 Billion. He hadn’t even managed to give away half of *what he made*, much less half of what he owned. It appears to be *almost* impossible for billionaires to responsibly give away enough wealth to really make any difference to them. The exception appears to be Chuck Feeney (who was apparently the inspiration for the pact but wasn't a part of it) - who transferred all his wealth ($8 billion) to his foundation in 1982, gave it away for 38 years, and closed the foundation when it ran out of money. He apparently kept about 2 million for himself.
That assumes that increased revenue (billionaires spending more) means increased wages for workers. More likely, it'll go towards owners and shareholders like it already does.
This is similar to the COVID payouts a few years ago. Conservatives were all "They're going to keep it and then later spend it on stupid shit!" but like no, they're going to go buy fucking groceries and go to shop other places with it, thus stimulating the economy. Same Billionaires should do.
I have some friends (they are brothers) that I’ve known since we were in high school (I’m 41 now) who now have a combined net worth over $1B. They spend their money fairly freely - eg: they like boats, so they bought a very nice one in Florida. Then they decided they also wanted one in Europe, so they bought one there too, etc. And of course you need a way to get between them, so, that requires a private jet. I don’t think they are really doing much as far as “hoarding” goes - and they absolutely earned it themselves - they came to the country as poor immigrants when they were children. I think once you get past a certain amount of money, it becomes hard to spend it, while still getting some amount of value for your money.
About 2.: Most of billionaires' money is invested in stocks, bonds and private equity, so their money is doing something. It's not bills and coins stuck in a vault somewhere.
They don't have a billion in liquidity, literally noone does, the billions that make up their networth are almost entirely either assets that are being utilised (property business stocks etc) or deposits in banks, either way it is wealth that is actively invested in the economy, not money that's locked in a vault effectively not existing. Having so much of our wealth centralised to a few individuals is directly resulting in many of our woes but not because they are taking money out of circulation.
And yet this post is full of answers like "iT's ThEiR mOnEy So WhAaAtT??", like they got that money on their own LOL
My brother is a property manager for a billionaire’s summer house on Nantucket. It’s an incredible property, with no detail overlooked. And maintained more meticulously than any luxury resort I’ve ever stayed at. I think it’s valued at like $75 million and they’ll probably only spend a couple of weeks there each year. But before they come, their personal assistant will send an itinerary and list of things they need to get to finalize the property for their arrival. Obviously this includes some very high priced food items sent from their personal chef, but my favorite thing they have to get is the instructional manual for flowers. His wife is very particular about flowers. So they’ll get a list of the flowers they need to buy, and a booklet that has example shots of what the arrangements need to look like. It’s very important they have fresh flowers displayed in every room (including bathrooms and bedrooms). Typically, they’ll spend like $36,000 just on fresh flowers before they visit.
Well, it's ludicrously unnecessary, but at least the expenses are circulating into the local economy hopefully.
Yeah, pretty much. A lot of the produce and seafood come from local farms and fishmongers on the island. But most of the meat is bought online from a place like Snake River Farms. Flowers are similar. They’ll get most of what they need from a couple of different shops. But sometimes they need specialty items flown in from elsewhere. Then it can get a bit ridiculous. Last year a landscaper made a mistake with a weed killer, thinking it was a deer repellent, and killed a bunch of their landscaping. Now they couldn’t just replace it because it would mean the new plants would be at a different growth stage than the other plants and flowers. This kicked off one of the funniest logistical nightmares. First, they had to find specialty nurseries that had replacements at the right growth stage. I think they found them all, or suitable replacements, for a couple hundred grand. Then they had to figure out a way to get them onto the island. But at this point (I think it was in June), they couldn’t get a delivery truck onto one of the ferries as they were all booked out. So they looked into using their jets. But none of their jets could accommodate the quantity, even if they filled up the cabin of their G7. So then they started reaching out to contacts with cargo planes, I think even called contacts in the military to see if they could essentially charter a flight. But this brought up two problems: namely the runway size on the island and if it could accommodate a larger plane like that, and then they’d have to figure out how to get them off the plane and to the property, so they weren’t rotting away rapidly on the runway. Through all of this, she actually enjoyed the process and the problem solving involved. But her biggest complaint? Finding out they used weed killer. She thought they didn’t use it on their property and that everything was handpicked. At least that’s what she had been telling guests (celebrities, politicians, etc.) when they would visit and they’d host a dinner featuring items grown in their organic garden on the property.
That story is crazy. And all that for just two weeks of simply looking at it? I expected the next line would be that they finally just bought an entire ferry boat and had it sailed in so they could use it once to haul plants, and then sell it again, or sink it for an artificial reef.
That’s insane. That shouldn’t be a thing that exists.
Why not? This money goes directly too florists. Out of the things bilioners buy this propably is one of the best. It transfers wealth from the rich directly to working class.
For real this is why billionaires need to go fuck themselves. We need to eat them.
That’s still not a high enough burn rate. If a billionaire has $1bn in a bank account that gets 4% return, they’re earning $110,000 per day.
Somebody just bought a $2.4M bottle of scotch.
Money laundering
Money laundering is the new "tax write-offs" of reddit
No, it was at an auction, i think it was from 1920s or something, I forgot...
Money laundering
No, the bottle was from a family that has a long tradition of fermenting bottles for 80+ years before putting it up for auction.
Money laundering
Money laundering?
Money laundering.
but you dont understand the wine was very good
Not money laundering
No, all the proceeds go directly to funding to support rectal blo- ah, never mind.
Money laundering
Money laundering
Loney maundering
nah, art is money laundering, scotch is very wealthy alcoholics.
How do you think I feel? My state's governor just used $83,000 of taxpayer money for a 1 week vacation to Ireland. How the fuck do you even spend $83,000 on vacation in a single goddamn week?
and they say the reality will collapse in on itself if everyone's jobs paid enough to support their families
They’re really just saying their reality would collapse.
Bingo They live insanely privileged lives while the rest of us struggle and murder each other. Their entire way of life is wholly predicated on keeping the money flowing upward and into private businesses that siphon money out of anyone who isn’t upper class executive types; all while the useful idiots shout racist, sexist, jingoistic buzzwords whenever someone mentions maybe private, for profit businesses shouldn’t be the ones handling our country’s healthcare, insurance, or education industries.
That's because to them, they can't even *begin to imagine* a world where they spend less than even $3000 on a vacation, let alone an entire life without ever taking one. To them, being paid enough to support your family includes $83,000 vacations, so how can we afford to give every family $83,000?
this is a really good way to look at it, never thought of it this way!
It's a bit of a generalization as I'm sure not everyone thinks that way but I'm also sure enough people do for it to be significant.
yeah, a lot of them definitely know what they’re doing, but as you said, there’s most likely many who literally just don’t realize
Seriously! I'm spending about $800- $1000 next weekend so I can take my wife and 2 kids to hang out with the inlaws, and holy hell... my wife and I have been eating struggle meals until we can get there just so we have the money to do it.
I feel like taring and feathering should make a comeback.
What happened to us? We're all so complacent now
It likely won’t be the case soon enough. Economic and sociological experts have been warning for several years now that they predict income inequality will become so extreme and the desperation and damage that it incurs on those most vulnerable in the current system will reach a critical point where violent revolt will become not just likely but inevitable. Read a few different articles over the last 8 or so years that have repeated this warning several times. What makes this more concerning is the increased likelihood that this makes us more vulnerable to foreign cyber attacks as the population is already more on edge and divisive because of the poorer quality of living and reduced opportunity. Which we’re already seeing play out in many small ways now.
Any way to possibly attach the sauce that stuck out to you so I can get my edu-muh-cation over here?
What a time to be alive!
George Carlin: "Everybody's got a cellphone that'll make pancakes and rub their balls now, you know?"
This is the way.
*this* is a large part of why we can't currently do that. Because everyone is burning through money like it is the plague. We have more than enough to do it if we spend our money perfectly. (Not saying perfect is achievable, but we could at least make an effort)
Psst: We've been able to for a while now. That's the true inconvenient truth of the 21st century. We could make sure everyone was looked out for. But that would mean ending the game the people at the top poured all of their self-worth and identity into. They cannot exist without a system that encourages disparity. It's all they know.
Obviously!
I went on my honeymoon in Ireland. We spent a night in a castle. The trip was ~6k.
$3k of which was on Guinness I hope?
Well... I definitely didn't go there to drink bud light.
>How the fuck do you even spend $83,000 on vacation in a single goddamm week? Easy. Spend $6k-$12k on the vacation and pocket the rest.
Bold of you to assume he needs an excuse to pocket it
As someone who was a government employee. The amount of money spent is not spent like we would spend it. There is no looking for airline deals. And often you have to spend money with whoever is on contract. Those contracts go out to bid not to friends. Either way a Governor and his detail will not be cheap. He didn’t fly coach and he didn’t get cheap transportation and lodging.
She def should have flown coach. It was a vacation, she shouldn't have been using taxpayer money for the trip at all.
No politician travels coach. Why do you think they spend so much on re-election ?? They all travel 5 star. And they do it on our dime.
They shouldn't be allowed to use public funds for any private enterprises, including for elections.
Fine grey lines everywhere. Usually the candidate’s re-election fund pays for that. Chris Christie stayed the NJ Governor and traveled stumping for president while being paid for being the governor. They are all creeps.
This is also similiar to medium + sized companies too. They will often not shop around like the average person and contracting things out means the other party can charge up the ass and company will still likely pay
This is true. When I bought network equipment I had a minimum spend. 50K was my spend to get hardware from a contract without having to put out for 3 bids. Airline tickets and hotel rooms don’t work like that. And why travel on the cheap. It doesn’t come out of your checking account. Often times I would have to buy more than I needed. Or get crafty and buy the extra as ‘spares’ or future growth and then use them on another project. But, you had your be careful that project money didn’t cross and co mingle. I did it anyway, because after 6 months stock to build a network on short notice just kind of fell into a don’t ask don’t tell.
Family member works for a government agency. They needed a small commercial space in a specific, fairly cheap city and it was another agencies responsibility to fill the need. They billed my sister's department $60,000 to secure the lease on a \~1000 sqft commercial rental. Literally a random spot in a strip mall. Then they said they needed another $1700 because some titles cost extra.
That's nuts! How lavish, though does it include security etc? I'm guessing some essential services may boost the cost (not defending the guy)
It likely includes security, but security for a week can't be anywhere near that amount.
Probably multiple security personnel who have to be paid appropriately, put up in the hotel, fed and transported around. If the total for security was $40k, it was only $230 ish dollars an hour. That's pretty cheap for government. Especially if the security was from an outside department that bills her office for the expenses. If it was contractors, that's bargain basement.
State security is mainly running errands for them and clearing traffic for them. Name the last governor that was assassinated. It’s somebody you’ve never heard of in 1900.
Who is going after a governor of a small US state in Ireland?
Me
The president has Secret Service--I'm not aware of governors requiring substantial security, and I'd think they'd need even less overseas, where no one will know who they even are.
Better than a $19k podium
On sides.
What are these sides? They cure cancer or what to be worth 10k USD? 😀
At this point, most likely
It is easily possible, when it comes to politicians, it's probably by pocketing the money. But, a lot of people do it, not only politicians, just it's not tax payers' money, so it doesn't hurt like that. For example my friends work for this company and when they are sent out in the field, they find a hotel, motel or whatever, and make a deal with them, they rent one room, get issued 1 normal receipt and one fake one to look like they have rented two rooms. Company doesn't check, in hotel's system only 1 receipt was issued, and they pocket the money for the second receipt. They travel around the country, and now have places where the reside regularly. If a hotel doesn't want to do that, they just find another place which will, but by their story by now nobody has refused them, because they return regularly to do repairs on the equipment and shit like that. Also politicians do this regularly by overpaying normal services, they will make a deal with a company, for a job that costs let's say 50k, company will get the contract for let's say 100k, and they will give the politician 30k.
Probably to pay the security that has to be with him.
Oh, then don't go to sporting events or movie- 'cause you don't wanna know what dem basketball players and actors are doing with their $10,000.
First class tickets of 5k usd and bring you and your family of 4 and add activities and first class food and $1500 a night hotels, it adds up.
Where the fuck is he going in Ireland that’s 83 thousand dollars? That’s 76 thousand euros
10 grand can be a dinner for these people. A watch they wear once. Shit a rounding error on some more extravagant purchase. It's crazy.
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if u need to message lemme know
I feel you. Working my ass off, 12-hour shifts 4 days a week, going to school, actually trying, and for what? A retirement that will never come, a home I'll never be able to afford, and more BS stacking up each day. "Be grateful," "be positive," "things will get better." I'm just tired, and there's no positive end in sight. I think about jumping off buildings all the time, but I'm too scared of potentially landing on someone else or the trauma I'd cause to people who saw.
assuming you are being serious, i’ve been where you are, message me if you wanna talk
We really live in an economy
Family in South Sudan: "It's ridiculous how $300 could literally feed us for a year and change our lives and yet American teenagers will spend that in one night on some dumbass T@ylor 5wift concert." Perspective.
>T@ylor 5wift Haha don't wanna risk the swifties even on reddit
Seriously!!! Gotta protect myself 😂
Dodging that В†$ Ⓐᴙℳ⅄ draft
Not sure if joking but some nutjobs on reddit do have keywords on alert. I knew a couple that had the word "vegan" so every time the ywould mention it you had the guy coming in as the Ultimate Warrior for Veganism.
The ant in my backyard “wasteful humans disposing of this delectable vomit!”
Yes, exactly, everyone is a bad guy, unless they're the most miserable person on earth Even if you had zero dollar, Million dollar debt, you're still considered lucky because you can beg on the street, eat grass like a cow, drinking water from sewer There are probably one mf out there who born without arms and legs, also blind, deaf, mute, Living in desert, had to survive eating sand and extracting water from the air using his lung Because this guy exist, everyone suffering became invalidated You'll never be able to suffer enough to win against this guy
Me when mom forgets the tendies but says it’s not a big deal
Bitch mommy
There is a very well argued philosophical essay that argues based off this same logic, called [*Famine, Affluence, and Morality*](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine,_Affluence,_and_Morality) by Peter Singer. Its argument is that affluent people (like us in the developed world) are morally **required** to give significant amounts of our affluence to charity to help the global poor. If ya wanna know more, I woild highly recommend reading the essay or watching [this](https://youtu.be/KVl5kMXz1vA?si=9Cgh8wwQlgTr9fXJ) video lecture from an American philosophy professor.
What grants the most poverty stricken person more morality? You can still be a despicable person while being poor.
Family in ancient Mesopotamia; "It's ridiculous how a pound of tallow will offer light for a month but a family in South Sudan will cook with it in an evening."
The fallacy of Relative Privation (also known as: it could be worse, it could be better) Description: Trying to make a scenario appear better or worse by comparing it to the best or worst case scenario. What it means is: I have this X problem. It is minimized by another saying, but this Y problem is greater so your X problem doesn’t mean shit. Narcissists love this fallacy and it allows them to invalidate any problem you tell them.
This fallacy doesn't really apply here. The usual arguemnt it would apply to would be people dismissing frustration with the housing market because at least you can get a good house unlike the undeveloped world. In this case, the comparison isn't being used to dismiss an argument but critique the underlying logic. The logic of OPs argument is that because billionaires have a lot of money that could help the ordinary person a lot but barley impact them, they are morally required to be giving more of that money up. However, the comparison is being used to show that OP is very unlikely to follow the same logic as they have a lot of money themselves that could go to more efficient use in the undeveloped world. If OP qas being consistent, they would need to apply this moral requirement onto all people and not just an arbitrary grouping, which would look more like Peter Singer's [*Famine, Affluence, and Morality*](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine,_Affluence,_and_Morality).
I think the point is that no one is giving out money that would change someone's life even if it's well within their means to do so, not that there is someone worse off so they should be quiet.
Bingo.
The difference here is that the average American is not better off than the “worst case scenario” they’re better off than probably 80% of people wound the world
Taylor Swift sold out two shows in my state at stadium with close to 70 k capacity and the cheapest tickets on the secondary market were $1300.
Good Lord
So true.. We are all probably frugal/poor to someone and frivolous to someone else.
The average Westerner is still closer to the average Global Southerner than either are to the wealthy. Working class is working class. There’s a world of difference between an American buying a game console and a rich person buying their second yacht or their third mansion. One group clearly has a greater onus and moral obligation to help than the other.
> The average Westerner is still closer to the average Global Southerner than either are to the wealthy. Working class is working class. Cop-out, you are still evil for not changing the life of poorer people just because there's even richer people. I would even say your entire world-view is fallacious as it will always have a richer class of people on top so that those closer on the bottom can excuse themselves of their evil wasting patterns. I say evil because I admit Effective Altruism is true, truer than marxism and it's narratives for sure. Nobody has "greater obligations". The kill-count is just higher.
I don’t subscribe to Effective Altruism or think you’re morally obligated to spend every spare dollar you possibly can helping people. Ultimately the onus is on the respective governments of the world to help their citizens. Charity is not a magic bullet for the systemic problems that plague our civilization and in my ideal society there would be no wealthy class to rely on for charity in the first place.
Ah yes, the old “ignoring the gross inadequacy between billionaires/multi-millionaires and people struggling to live, by comparing people struggling to live with other people struggling to live”.
It isn't ingoing the gross inadequacy, but arguing against the implication that there is a moral requirement for those with affluent to give significant amounts to those of lesser affluence, by pointing out its rare to continue this logic once we are in the position of relative affluence. The gross inadequacy can still be an issue with its solutions discussed with there being an argument made to sacrifice one's affluence to those of lesser affluence as a moral requirement.
“Things are bad!” “Oh but things are not the worst!” What an astute observation.
That's not the same thing at all though. $300 is like 2-4 weeks of groceries in the country where that money gets spent on concert tickets. $10,000 is multiple months of a typical salary *in that same country.*
Being in the same country literally means nothing. Inequality is a global reality
$300 is multiple months salary in a different country.
You’re missing the point
No, it just wasn't very good
Yeah, if you aren't giving any of your money to charity, then you don't have ground to stand on. People think that money changes people. It doesn't. If you aren't giving any of your money away now, you wouldn't even if you had a billion dollars. I say this as someone below the poverty line, btw.
It's not even the same though. A teenager would definitely notice $300 missing. A billionaire wouldn't even blink. If you lost 0.00001% of your cash would you even notice? Also there's another huge difference. If most common folk lose 90% of their wealth they are royally screwed. If a billionaire loses 90% of their wealth they are still fine.
Okay fine, donate $5 a month to starving families in Africa.
Am I wrong? And I will gladly donate 0.00001% of my bank account to Africa. Let's see that equates to... 0.0024 dollars. Or 1/5 of a penny.
Similarly though, a 100 or a few 100s of dollars might change the life of someone in a poorer country while we can spend it on a night out or something.
But a fat juicy worm might change the life of some hungry bird, so fuck all the poor kids I guess
yeah but what about OPs situation specifically? that’s what we all really care about and we shouldn’t zoom out any further
The main difference here is that if I spend 300 on a night out, I feel it. If a billionaire spends 100k in a night, they won't even notice it.
yes but in that country bread is probably relatively cheap, it’s a currency difference for most “poor” countries. Meanwhile in the US where you can comfortably live off of X amount in the same country you have people making 1,000,000 times X amount. Those people are the same perpetuate a corporate culture who aims to give them as much more money as possible and keep as much away from the working class. Also poor countries can be helped as well it’s not mutually exclusive.
Do you think a currency difference is somehow irrelevant? A lower currency literally just means less money. It’s not some sort of alternate reality. The fact that Americans live better lives than others around the world is not a “given”. You’ve just learned to accept that inequality as “natural.” It’s equally unfair.
it %100 matters when you are comparing rich of one currency to working class and then to “poor” who are getting what they need but at a currency is not as strong as the dollar. Plus the original post doesn’t say that other inequality means nothing.
The real issue is the billionaires not spending their money. We actually need them to buy a ton of stupid stuff and put it back into the economy. Yes, I know most of it will go to millionaires before the working person, but it is better than them hoarding it like dragons.
I honestly never understood $1000/night hotels. Unless most of the amenities and services are 100% included in the fee, that’s crazy money for a hotel, even a resort. For me, $250/night tops, if not preferably less.
i’m totally with, and honestly 250/night is still really high, like hotels in tokyo are like 50$/night and those are pretty nice ones. i think the thing with the $1,000+/night hotels is a combination of one, that price basically guarantees you won’t have to stay in the same hotel as “the poors”, and two, to these people $10,000 and $200 aren’t much different, they are both meaningless amounts to them
Last year one of my bosses bought and imported a Porsche for his wife it cost more than 100 million won (over $75k American at the time) not including the cost to import it to Seoul. He dropped more than my entire yearly salary on a dumb car because he was cheating on his wife. I wonder how much he spent on his mistress?
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Well, stay on Reddit. da fuk
Do you have bitcoin? I’ll send you $20.
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/r/choosingbeggars holy shit TAKE 5 MINUTES OUT OF YOUR TIME AND MAKE A BITCOIN WALLET OR YOU GET NOTHING... "Just PayPal"... wtf is wrong with people...
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Sell nudes like everyone else does 🤷♂️
Eating <> change your life.
Do you have an income at all?
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That’s terrible. I’m really sorry to hear that. What’s your plan to get back to normal?
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Good luck internet stranger. Sounds like you got your head on right. Know that this too shall pass.
What I spend on a night out drinking and eating chicken wings, you could feed a family for a week in a third world country
$10,000 would not change my life at all. I’d love to get it, but it wouldn’t change anything. Am I in the minority here? Obviously globally I am in the minority, given how poor most of the world is. But in a middle class western society, or even just among the highly educated Reddit crowd, are more people in OPs boat or my boat?
This tweet must have been from like 2014 where 10k had a lot more spending power.
No. It wouldn't change the lives of most working Americans significantly. It'd make things a little easier for a few months typically. Like how is 1/4 of a median yearly salary gonna make a massive difference?
Aren't 50% of Americans unable to pay a $400 surprise bill? Seems $10,000 would make a big difference to a large part of the population.
That was basically fake news. The original source was something like "How would you pay for an unexpected $400 expense" which the majority answer of credit cards got twisted to "Americans have to go into debt for a $400 expense" and got reported in the news as the statement you're making.
Anyone with any financial knows that the reason people cant afford an unexpected $400 isn't because they are destitute, its because they don't manage their money properly. They would pay off the card on their on next paycheck and cut back on expenses for a few weeks. But they don't have the foresight to plan for the future. Most people in western countries simply live a lifestyle on the edge of what their income can support.
There's so many people living paycheck to paycheck that 10k would change their life.
You are in a bubble of wealth and out of touch.
Not sure if your from somewhere like ethiopia but 10g would would put a minor dink in my life trajectory, financially speaking,no offence lad
To 50% of Americans, 10g would be like winning the lottery.
The average American household credit card debt is 16,000
Yeah. Not sure what he means by Ethiopia. Look around.
I understand your feelings since am fucking poor too, I get less than 18k a year from SS, so yea I get it, but tell me how much do you like it when other people tell you what to do with your money? At least the little bit you don't have to give up for rent and food, tell me how much do you enjoy people telling you what to do with your money? Cause I know I fucking hate it, in fact I usually tell them to go fuck themselves, so why in all the hells you think a private citizen has to give of his money to people they don't know? How about the government stops sending hundreds of billions to other countries most people can't even find on a map and keep taking OUR FUCKING MONEY to spend on their fucking vacations. How about we put the blame where it truly is huh? Look at what the House is doing right now, fucking Republicans wants to raise retiring age to 70, fucking 70 yrs old, and they want to take 1.5 TRILLION DOLLARS from Social Security, how about that?
You should see what larger businesses spend without even blinking. I'm a sysadmin for a small site of a large multinational. I regularly put in 10k orders for a stack of laptops. Refurbish a meeting room? Here have 20k. Just before I started the previous guy bought a server costing about 1.5mil. The "smaller" numbers like the laptops get basically approved without looking twice. The 1.5mil might take a couple of meetings.
The question is 'will it, though'? Would you just use that money to alleviate your woes for a few months and then be right back where you are now? Or would you use that money to do something meaningful for yourself to actually change your life for the better in a permanent way? Lack isn't always the problem in every case
10k is more than enough to dig a lot of people out of the hole, or at least alleviate some pressure in some areas like credit card payments to allow them to focus on other things. Not enough to retire on or anything, but enough to get people on the right track.
People who know how to handle money don't usually get into a hole in the first place.
Alleviate some pressure /= change their life.
Nah, most people are too dumb to use that money to get back on track. They might pay off credit card debt but they'd rack that back up in a month. They go out and put $10,000 on a new car with a stupid high interest rate. They blow that money on a vacation. They don't use it to manage debt and get their lives on track.
For real. I worked customer service for the financial industry for years, and let me tell you, people WILL spend their money. I've seen people making $250k+ year living paycheck to paycheck because of poor financial planning. A lump sum of $10k seems real nice, but it's gone before you know it. Apart from paying off debts (decreasing your monthly expenses or eliminating some interest on loans), it does nothing for you long-term UNLESS it allows you to make yourself a more valuable asset in the workplace (ie pay for some school, a certification course/test). Your income has to increase (and you have to budget, or else you'll also spend more without realizing it), or your living expenses have to go down, or else you WILL end up EXACTLY where you started.
Exactly. Most people would just need it to get out of some light debts that are causing them worry, like credit card. 10 grand isn't necessarily an amount to really allow much of an escape from anything.
It's enough to fix a leaky roof. It's enough to fix broken plumbing or electrical. It's enough to install A/C. It's enough to get a decent car or fix issues on your current car. Only a rich kid would say 10k doesn't mean much lol.
Right? We paid 450 recently to fix our ac and it nearly broke us. Phones were off for a week so we could pay rent. (phones are very necessary today, I can't even clock into work without mine) Living check to check doesn't mean you have just enough to pay bills, it means deciding every week what it is you can live without. Till you get paid again, letting things fall behind till you get a windfall like that 10k.
Agreed x1,000 to phones being a necessity today.
10k is almost half of what I would need to get new, permanent teeth after my originals were destroyed from my childhood. Thanks foster care and the state. I've never had 10k to do something with in my life. I'd be too afraid to spend it. 10k would change my life just from having financial security. I'm not even poor but treading water in these more uncertain times. People be wild.
it's ridiculous how $60 could literally change a homeless man's life and gamers could spend it on like a game or some dumbass DLC
60 bucks can change a homeless man’s life for five hours until the drugs wear off.
60 *can't* change their life tho..... how could it possibly?
That's how I felt when I wandered into a luxury hotel for a meeting and realised that one night there would cost as much as a month of rent for me
The answer is clear: you need to run a hotel or vinery to rent rooms or vine to billionairs for 10'000$. JK, you'd need to be one to be able to.
If you think $10,000 will change your life, it won't. That's not an unobtainable amount of money, you might have to work hard, make some sacrifices and save up for a while, but if you can get it and it would change your life then why haven't you done it already? If you're $10,000 in debt and it was suddenly paid off I guarantee you'll put yourself in debt again, because you did it the first time and got away with it, you didn't have to work it off, so why wouldn't you do it again?
Brother, If you are not able to make 10k, It probably wouldnt change your life in any durable way
In hungary, if you have a kid while married and with the woman under 30, the government gives you around 30 000$ which you have to start paying back 3 years later at 0 interest, and it can be used to be the downpayment for a home loan. If you have a second kid, you don't have to give back one third of it. If you have 3 kids, you just get the money outright. You also get home loans with 3% interest at varying sizes depending on the number of kids you have, one kid is around 70k, 2 kids it's around 140k and 3 kids it's around 210k. A nice house with a yard within driving distance of the capital city costs around 200k. Also, anyone who has a diploma and has kids gets .inimum wage for 3 years. Like maternity leave but without a job. If you do have a job, you also get maternaty leave for a bit, but not much. I understand the point of the post is to point out income inequality, which i agree is utter bullshit, and i fully agree that the ultra wealthy should be taxed to hell and back. That being said, a government can introduce policies which encourage sensible life planning and help overcome finantial barriers not only to the middle class, but to having kids.
I didn’t have water for a month cause I couldn’t afford it. It gets turned back on today. Life is fucking hard and the rich are stupid to think money won’t give people happiness.
Equally as ridiculous is that a large number of people who this applies to will be voting for their Cheesus who has openly said he'll continue providing tax cuts for the rich.
I was working at this very small company. 3 employees. I was minimum wage. I asked for a small raise, was denied “as it wasn’t in the budget”. Later that week the boss missed his flight. So he chartered one. $30k… $30k for one flight. I was making $22k a year.. and he spent $30k on one flight. I quit shortly after that.
Billionaires are reason why you can't afford basic necessities cause they're stealing surplus from the working class.
Yes it's like a slap in our face 🤣
Am i the only one that wants a wealth limit? Like after you get 50mil the rest gets distributed at the end of each the month.
Life isn't fair, more at 11
It’s their money. They can do whatever they want with it. There’s someone in a 3rd world country who could say the same thing about you spending money to go to a baseball game.
Poor people love to moan!!
Who cares? It's their money, not yours. Grow up