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Twelve U.S. Billionaires Now Have a Combined $2 Trillion (inequality.org)
submitted 20 hours ago by Garibaldee@lemm.ee to c/usa@midwest.social
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[-] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 8 points 9 hours ago

To put a liiiiitle perspective here:

Have, or control?

That is saying, do they have 2 trillion dollars in their bank accounts or is it an Elon Musk situation where you just own companies that are literally 100-1000 tikes over valued and when you sell a good swatch of stock, the value of said stock would crash (hello, Tesla!)?

Just saying that in reality, it's likely to be a lot less

Having said that, fuck these assholes, take it all away and let them live homeless on the street like all the people that live like that because of them

[-] villainy@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago

When you can use that stock as collateral for a personal loan that does go straight into your bank account... then what's the difference?

[-] moistclump@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

12 people with $2,000,000,000,000

[-] surph_ninja@lemmy.world 13 points 11 hours ago

Seize it.

[-] athairmor@lemmy.world 14 points 12 hours ago

It should be more dangerous to hoard that much wealth.

[-] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 25 points 17 hours ago

The ascendancy of Huang is noteworthy. As cofounder and CEO of Nvidia, his wealth has skyrocketed from $4.7 billion in 2020 to $122.4 billion — a mind-boggling 2,504 percent increase — over the last four years.

Huang’s surging wealth is directly tied to the hype surrounding artificial intelligence.

Right place right bubble.
It'd be nice if these people used that insane wealth to make anything better.

[-] frunch@lemmy.world 9 points 13 hours ago

Wtf do you even do with that much money? Everything i can possibly conceive of wanting out of life (that money can get me) is covered long before i can put a dent in the sprawling mass of wealth. Wouldn't it make more sense for everyone's safety and well-being that there's a cap to the amount of wealth one person can possess? Money on that scale is the kind of funding that could make things like proper healthcare and food security available to everyone. Instead some exceptionally small group get nearly all the resources that the labor of millions of people provide

[-] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 6 points 11 hours ago

They can’t do anything with it, even if they wanted to. Trying to sell $120 billion worth of stock will cause the price to crash. Plus since he’s an officer of the company he has to go through a bunch of reporting requirements and basically announce the stock sale well in advance. Announcing that you’re going to sell $120 billion of the stock, without providing a strong reason, is just going to cause investors to believe you think the company is in trouble and drive the price down before your stock sale goes through.

[-] CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 5 points 11 hours ago

Even 1 billion covers everythign most of us could ever hope for in our entire live.

[-] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 5 points 10 hours ago

Right, but then a CEO like Jensen Huang already has a paycheque to cover that sort of thing.

The question is what is it really like to have your stock holdings go from $5 billion to $120 billion as a result of the company you run getting caught up in the AI hype bubble? Honestly I think not much. Just a number changing on the computer screen, like a new high score in an arcade game.

How much do I think it affects his daily life? Pretty much not at all. Yet if it went back down to $5 billion people would be screaming at the company and he might be fired. It’s very strange!

[-] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 4 points 9 hours ago

If he’s smart he’s not taking a pay check. They get bank loans backed by stock. They never part them of and the bank just assumes the estate will settle it.

They have to bet on Nvidia staying valuable enough to cover the loans though. (Or not, hence the adage about owing the bank a billion dollars).

[-] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

That’s a consequence of capital gains tax being structured the way it is.

I think one of our biggest issues as a society is the way we try to use tax to target specific people. It never works out! They just find ways around it.

We should be trying to set up a tax system that’s very simple, straightforward, and easy to enforce, such as land value taxes.

[-] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

You mean income tax.

His stock options would be capital gains. But the loan trick works on either one. No selling stock, no capital gains taxes, paycheck/salary, no income taxes.

But you still get mansions, compounds and mega yacht fleets.

[-] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

And land value taxes work on both. I mean, unless he wants to live on that yacht and not own any mansions of course. But the land value tax is still going to get him (indirectly) when he pulls into the marina.

[-] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 3 points 11 hours ago

I think they get loans against the stock. Less taxation and regulation, can still spend money freely.

[-] saltesc@lemmy.world 3 points 19 hours ago

lol, losers.

[-] Linktank@lemmy.today 2 points 18 hours ago

That's an expensive meal.

[-] Hupf@feddit.org 1 points 11 hours ago

Avocado toast with a side of small European country

[-] Linktank@lemmy.today 1 points 3 hours ago

I was talking about those 12 billionaires. Eat the rich!

this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2024
114 points (99.1% liked)

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