Do you know what the difference is between a millionaire and a billionaire? About a billion.
this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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A million seconds is 11.574 days, a billion seconds is 31.7 years
I always think it as the difference between a nice vacation and a whole generation.
I'm saving this one 👍
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It’s interesting that the wealth bar of the 400 richest Americans is about 6-times as long as the author needs to say some interesting points.
I’d argue that’s another good argument for seizing their assets and making them pay for their asshole behaviour.
The owner's deluded peasants would never allow that.
Honestly, probably the only way to save the Environment and Democracy. Too much power in the hands of the few leads to perpetual effective monarchy. It's why the Founding Fathers were against large amounts of inherited wealth, particularly inherited wealth that creates dynasties in perpetuity.
I know people don't like the Founding Fathers that much lately, and I see why, but conservatives really don't understand them, and deliberately misrepresent them, because not doing so would undercut all conservative "policies".
World's a mess because of inequality and the concentration of almost all wealth and power into the hands of a small amount of sociopaths. I honestly think the only way to solve this permanently is to cap the amount of wealth and power any individual or family can have.
I’m actually ok with wealthy people being wealthy, but when they took over the government as a way to make even more money at our expense is where I draw the line. We need to take back regulatory power, it’s the only thing that can compete at today’s scale.
Wealth is power. If you allow a tiny sliver of society to amass society warping levels of it, this is the outcome. There need to be limits and controls, or this will always happen.
We need to recognize that janitors are also integral and valuable. An MBA large company well paid executive doesn't provide value to society in general, only private shareholders.
Our society's values and incentives are perverse and self-destructive.
You ever see those comments on youtube that describe themselves as future entrepreneurs or whatever and absolutely slobber over shitty companies and rich people? Makes me cringe so fucking hard
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Many years ago, I used to work in infosec. One of my employer's clients was a big and famous brand well-established in the luxury sector. One day, a colleague of mine was sent to test their POS. Inside one, he found a single transaction for around 6M € from a credit card swipe. It wasn't a payment made from a bank transfer or a check, just a single credit card swipe! At the time, I couldn't even dream a card with such a credit allowance would exist. I had a pretty good living then, with money for the rent, daily expenses, and even some savings. Still, for an instant, I remember feeling like a poor child living in a house made of mud.
When there are so many that don't have their needs met this is pretty disgusting
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Now This is Doom Scrolling.
I've lost the will to live. Why do this place even exist?
There is no reason
That's the best part!
None of this, anywhere, exists by any other means than chance. The entire universe has no reason to exist. It has no reason to not exist.
It also showcases the most unique thing about awareness of the human problem - If the meaning of life isn't a thing, what is it? Well, maybe it's not a question to be answered, but a journey to be experienced.
So we can say "well, fuck, we'll be miserable forever." Or, we can individually ask if we are ok with that, and if we aren't, how can we influence this journey to be worth experiencing?
That's quite lovely.
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i feel you, but i keep living just in case this ever changes. getting a job is unironically one of the best things i did for my mental health. helps paying for my hobbies too, still not enough to move out though. my solution is to endure and wait until i can sustain living on my own.
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I don't like how American - centric this is but otherwise very... impressive
I recommend visiting Gapminder. For example the Dollar Street, where you can get an inside how different life around the world is, depending on income.
Also, it's various other statistical tools like this animated graph, where you can see the billionaires running away to the right. Also interesting is the short blip of people having more wealth at around 1980 - 2010, which immediately got sucked back into "slightly right of extreme poverty mountain".
It also seems very American to me that there is not a single mention of climate change in there
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Holy shit
They are so rich that my browser crashed while I was trying to speed scrolling the page to the end
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"It has to stop" I agree. But how do I make it stop? There's a lot of talking about what is the issue and its consequences, I say this also for climate change. But they don't say what can we do about it
A possible solution could be to limit the personal (family?) wealth, fortune, possession, etc. to for example 100 million. That should be enough to live a luxury lifestyle and give your children’s children a ‘care free life’. Everything above that amount goes to the aid of the less fortunate, public and social improvements, energy transition, solving pollution problems, etc. (worldwide). In exchange you get a certificate with: “Congratulations you won capitalism!”
P.S. When you ‘cheat’ you get 1 dollar (or equivalent) and may start over. In addition and not exclusive of all possible legal proceedings.
P.P.S. The above is just an example to illustrate that there are possibilities. But this doesn’t solve all problems of inequality or everything else that is wrong on this planet.
P.P.P.S. Too many people think the have the possibility to also collect wealth above the 100 million ( or think they are entitled to an amount above that). They will protest and vote against any such solution. (I’m not talking about those 400 Americans from the website graphic).
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Not to be fatalistic deliberately, but what can we do about it? If we try to take on the system individually, we face the Plucky Ninja problem. If we try to coordinate, it's too big a movement to keep secret, so the rich and powerful can subvert it before we get anywhere. (They're doing a pretty good job of it already.)
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Yeah, this is gonna end really well.
Visited the site, and holy fucking shit
holy shit it's spez
fuck you
/s
The fact that the account has his name proves that it really is spez. This is exactly how the internet works.
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“Congratulations you have won capitalism! Here is your signed certificate.”
Spoliers! You owe it to yourself experience it first without anyone else's comments, it only takes a few minutes.
An extremely powerful infographic, well designed and well sourced. I love how after they said everything they said, they leave you to keep scrolling the last third of the 3 trillion. No more commentary, just letting the scale of it sink in.
Though, something I wish they touched on in the infographic itself is rebuking the argument of "all that money is tied up in stocks! they don't have that much money sitting around!" There are plenty of issues with that rebuttal of course and it's not actually a valid defense of the ultra rich, but it's a common enough counter that I think it warrants being mentioned to cover all your bases so to speak.
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I went to that link and it was horrible, no the site is simple it's just when it went to Bezos ... then look at all the things we could have to make things better (free healthcare, free college, etc) just sickening.
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Soon™ iwill have a panic attack, hemlp me🤕
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