tzikeh:

bruddabois:

1r7: comcastkills: theangryscarfcat: comcastkills: At least Bill Gates chilled out and gave away some money when he neared $100 billion, Jeff Bezos is just out here raking in cash and donating nothing 100 BILLION WHAT THE FUCK Jeff Bezos has $105 billion now lol literally was does one do with all that money literally nobody can even spend that much money in a lifetime If Jeff Bezos spent ten million dollars every single day it would take him 27 years to get down to his last million

Yeah no, this is a perfect example of what they don’t teach in schools about the wealthy and the “capital” part of capitalism. (Or compound interest but ehhh I’ll simplify)

Let’s start with the most ridiculously conservative version of where Jeff Bezos keeps his money. (Also let’s lose a quick $5b and say he has $100b rather than $105b, for simplicity.) Now, let’s say he keeps $100b in a savings account that earns 1% interest, compounded annually.

(Let me make it clear that both the rate and the percentage are ridiculously low and nobody would do this ever, especially with one hundred billion dollars. This is for educational purposes only.)

So, that means, at the end of the year, he’ll have “earned” a billion dollars just for having this much money in this particular savings account.

I put quote marks around “earned” because he didn’t work for it. He got money for having money. HE GOT A BILLION DOLLARS FOR HAVING A HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS. (And again I remind you that this is the absolutely ridiculous lowest version for explanation’s sake.)

So in this example, if he spends $10m a day for a year, that’s $3b650m he spends in one year. BUT HE “EARNS” BACK A BILLION DOLLARS JUST FOR HAVING MONEY. So he actually only spent $2b650m. (Again, these are not the real numbers; I’m simplifying.) So your span of time has to be much, much longer than 27 years. It’s not that straightforward.

BUT! Jeff Bezos doesn’t keep his $105b in a 1%/yr savings account. He has a diverse portfolio, high-yield interest investments, most likely offshore accounts (I can’t remember if he was in the Panama Papers or not), etc. So if the lowest possible example has him “earning” a billion dollars a year just because he has money, imagine what he’s “earning” just because he has money in a diversified portfolio where he’s getting way, way more than 1% back annually.

He could spend, as the above comment says, ten million dollars every single day, and literally make it all back plus a whole lot more. He would never run out of money.

Try to understand the evils of capitalism here.

A person with $100 billion could spend $10 million a day, every day, for his whole life, and that person would die with more money than they had when they began spending $10 million a day.

Extra credit: find out how much the people who work in the Amazon shipping centers are making. Let those figures sit in your brain for a few days. You get 5 extra credit points if your head doesn’t explode.