[avalys]

That's cute, but these measures of "wealth" are misleading in a subtle way.

The way articles like this and most popular media portrays it, people like Jeff Bezos are wealthy because they are hoarding money that they somehow extracted from the productive economy and diverted to their use by nefarious means. Like fairy tale dragons perched on their pile of gold and treasure at the top of a mountain, lording it over the poor peasants in the village down below.

When in reality, someone like Bezos or Musk is "worth" their billions of dollars only in some theoretical sense, based on the notional book value of their ownership of the immensely productive and valuable compan(ies) they built. This is entirely abstract - they could likely not sell their share for cash. But more importantly, it generally represents wealth that truly has been "created" - in 2000 there was no SpaceX and no Tesla, and now there is, and they're 'worth' $800 billion dollars, and Musk "owns" a large fraction of that. But this is entirely wealth that was created from zero through the creation and organization and leadership of these companies. It wasn't taken from anyone, taken from workers or consumers, or diverted from the economy. It was created out of thin air!

[spencerflem]

Its not theoretical, and they can borrow cash against their hoard and spend it on things.

[avalys]

So what?

[Kirby64]

In the same way the dragon hoarding their loot wields immense power over the peasants (strained analogy, I know), having immense amounts of wealth accessible allows for one to wield immense amounts of influence. Just look at what is happening the last few weeks. Basically explicitly buying favor with the government.

[spencerflem]

I could say "so what" to their wealth being in stocks. What does that change?