[tstegart]

I feel like this is one of those things people imagine happens, but actually never happens. If it did happen, eventually someone would get caught and we'd see evidence of said secret room and the painting would be recovered from a mansion or something. Instead, they're always recovered from warehouses or behind walls to in attics of crooks.

[viklove]

Yeah, after paying off the local officials to frame it that way. A rich person being accused of theft will tank their reputation, and if they spent $250M for the painting, they'll easily spend $10M to cover it up.

[phpnode]

This is pure fantasy, who would spend $250m to acquire a stolen painting that they cannot resell? If it really is rich people buying them the purchase price is going to be a fraction of a percent of the amount you're talking about.

[viklove]

When your net worth is in the hundreds of billions, you can spend a couple hundred million to impress your "friends," and many billionaires do. Yeah, it's disgusting, but that's only because the modern global economy allows such disgusting levels of wealth.

[jcranmer]

The number of people with net worth in the hundreds of billion right now is... 1. The second-richest person is Bill Gates, at only $96.5 billion. By #10, we're at $50 billion. Fewer than 200 people are worth $10 billion. Granted, this only includes people with known net worths, but by the time you're hitting tens of billions, it's hard to hide that much wealth.

[viklove]

It really makes a huge impact on this conversation to say "billions" and "2.5M" and "200k," so thanks for pointing all of this stuff out. Leave it to HN to get buried in a pedantic technicality that has no effect on the points being made.

[shadowprofile77]

The "modern global economy" allows it? I suggest you look up the wealth (adjusted for inflation) of many, many historical business and political figures. Extreme wealth for a few is nothing new and if anything modern global economics and markets have done a massive leveling up of standards of living for many more people who aren't incredibly rich.

That aside, how should something like your subjective notion of "disgusting" levels of wealth guide how much of what they earned people should be able to keep?

[viklove]

Seems like you took my statement "the modern global economy allows it," and inferred that I meant every system other than the modern one does not allow it. Of course not. Of course there are many systems that existed in the past that also allowed for gross levels of wealth disparity, but did I ever claim otherwise?

> massive leveling up of standards of living

For who? Impoverished workers in China and India? How have American labourers benefitted from globalism and Keynesian economics? They haven't, at least not in the last 50 years.

> That aside, how should something like your subjective notion of "disgusting" levels of wealth guide how much of what they earned people should be able to keep?

I think you're just pretending you're naive, but you can feel free to look up many of the proposed solutions. UBI, wealth tax, limits on how much money can be passed through inheritance, etc. There are many solutions that have been _proposed_, but the problem is that with massive wealth comes massive power, and the individuals who possess disgusting levels of wealth will never let these solutions come to be.

> what they earned

Jeff Bezos has not earned 100 billion dollars. You could probably convince me that he's earned at least 1 billion dollars, but there is absolutely no way one man can generate that much wealth in one lifetime. He has stolen his wealth through asymmetrical agreements with powerless individuals, who chose to work for him rather than starve due to a lack of accessible jobs.

We've created a system that makes individuals dependent on large corporations for healthcare and rent, and then we wonder why poor individuals can't start businesses or change jobs freely (hint hint, it's due to food security and access to healthcare). If I point a gun at you and take your money, I haven't earned anything, have I? But if I starve you out, and tell you you can't see a doctor, then I can rob you of the value of your ideas and labor. For some reason our system allows that.

Bezos got a $300k interest-free loan from his mother to start his business. Are you telling me he earned that? No, it was given to him by birthright, and it's a luxury the vast majority of people don't have.

Bezos did not earn 100 billion dollars, he stole it.

[lotsofpulp]

Bezos doesn’t even have $100B, so the premise of your argument is nonsense.

Owning shares of something isn’t the same as liquid cash. And valuing 1 share at the most recent market closing price the same as a founder liquidating their whole investment is also nonsense.

FYI, all those worlds richest lists are clickbait.

[phpnode]

You just don't need to spend that much, it would be grossly overpaying.