[iratic0]

Nice graphic, but also a bit misleading.

Bezos would never be able to immediately realise that amount of assets in to useful cash. So saying no human deserves this amount of wealth is kind of already fulfilled? He may have 2 or 3 billion as cash maybe.

[dredmorbius]

I agree to an extent with this view, though the reality is complicated.

The wealth of the ultra-wealthy doesn't exist in bank accounts or vaults of gold, but in assets, and largely assets which have appreciated. The $13 billion dollar single-day appreciation in Bezos's wealth wasn't from someone cutting him a check, but as a result of an increase in the value of his holdings (largely Amazon, Inc., stock).

And liquidating those holdings would not result in receiving the full closing-bell price for that day --- a movement the size of Bezos's on the market would itself influence the price. (A very similar situation exists for other novel assets, notably cryptocurrencies, whose "market value" is something of a polite fiction.)

At the same time ...

... the ultra-wealthy can excercise their wealth without liquidating or spending it, largely by using it as collateral against loans or for investments in other areas. At sufficient scale, the mere threat of making a move in some direction (investing in an industry or market or backing a politician, party, or legislative initiative).

In both instances, the key point is that money doesn't behave at these scales as most people reading this are given to understand. Much as with relativistic physics and quantum mechanics, our quotidian experiences don't give us the proper intuition for these phenomena.

[opheliate]

The author responds to this at about $14.8 billion into the "400 richest Americans" section, see [0], which they link to.

0: https://github.com/MKorostoff/1-pixel-wealth/blob/master/THE...

[dillondoyle]

What's "cash"? A marketable security?

I'm insanely poor by these standards but wealthfront will front me hard cash using my account as collateral with one click i think up to 30%. Super cheap interest rate.

Bezos has way more favorable banking. Even if he was 'only' worth $10-15 billion I bet he could get 2-3 billion in hard cash overnight.

He might not hold a lot of cash, but he doesn't need to he can get it immediately without selling.

[inter_netuser]

Not just that, he could trivially offload 15 billion without price moving at all.

Tons of private equity M&As have happened at much larger valuation.

[albertgoeswoof]

There are many, many ways that wealth is realized without spending it. Once you get past a few hundred million you literally cannot spend the money as fast as it comes in.

These billionaires aren't amassing wealth to spend it on things, they're gathering it for power, leverage, status, prestige, legacy reasons etc, and using it to influence and control the world to further their own agenda.

[chrisco255]

In Bezos's case, he built a company that literally didn't even exist 27 years ago. It's gotten so huge, because globalization has gotten so effective. That's true of all tech companies: they benefit disproportionately from globalization and network effects.

As far as what to do about it? The only solution could be to break up Amazon, Google, Apple, etc. Taxation is not it. The Federal government and the Fed controls the money printer and influences how high these stock valuations are getting. They're a large part of the problem.

We can't print trillions of dollars without side effects in supply, demand and price mechanics. In this case, dollars are chasing productive growth assets as yields in bonds hit the floor and go under zero in some countries.

The growth in inequality correlates with the growth in the national debt, and monetary supply growth.

[wildfire]

Why isn't a tax rate that increases proportionate to your wealth workable?

[carnitine]

At this point I think there must be a propaganda campaign to convince people down this line of thinking. Bezos could realistically liquidate the majority of his wealth, though obviously not all at once. Look at how much Gates has liquidated.

[pydry]

>Bezos would never be able to immediately realise

Why would he want to? Who tries to spend 100 billion all at the same time? Nobody wants 100 billion in cash in their bank account either.

I think you're confusing liquidity and wealth.