[_DeadFred_]

"The Stupidity of GDP per Capita"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiymTzsZfoA

How much of this years GDP growth in the USA went to average citizens? What does GDP growth matter if your citizens have zero access to healthcare, can't improve their conditions, can't innovate, can't try new ideas because they are tied to healthcare via their current job?

How much of American GDP growth goes to Billionaires and isn't a useful health metric?

See: Billionaires added record $2.2tn in wealth in 2025 https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/dec/31/billionaires-ad...

[WalterBright]

Billionaires become billionaires by making and selling things people want. Obviously, a lot of people want what they are selling, and think it is worth buying.

[dTal]

That's such an excessively naive, childlike take that it's hard to know where to start. You don't become a billionaire by "making and selling things". That doesn't scale beyond the low millions. You become a billionaire by leveraging existing capital to rearrange bits of the economy in such a way that money flows towards you [note]. Productive output, be it goods or services (which you seem to have forgotten exist) is strictly optional. You think Warren Buffet sits in his garage cranking out widgets? What planet are you on?

[note] For example, you might contrive to purchase the entire supply of some valuable resource with inelastic demand, and then sell it back to people, perhaps at an inflated price.

[WalterBright]

> You don't become a billionaire by "making and selling things".

See Microsoft, Walmart, Amazon, Apple, Tesla, SpaceX, Pixar, Lego, and on and on.

> you might contrive to purchase the entire supply of some valuable resource with inelastic demand, and then sell it back to people, perhaps at an inflated price.

Example?