I downloaded for defending a rich person. “His networth is tied up in stocks” is the kinda shit someone says who doesn’t understand that that doesn’t make them any less rich. A trillionaire means a trillion dollars of your shit is owned by him, houses and farmlands and workers and production capacity and art. No one should be allowed to have more than 10-20 million, at that amount they can pick someone to never have to work again in their life every year for the rest of their life. That’s too much money.
Not defending, just an explanation, and one that if anything would enrage Elon more.
He’s still an absurdly over-wealthed taint stain, but the specific numbers over that threshold were just not quite as substantial as other (also somewhat imaginary) numbers.
Point in fact, he was a trillionaire, and now he is not, but he didn’t lose anything real. He still has every bit the amount of real wealth and control over all that stuff you listed that he had before, just the number shifted by billions of dollars while preserving every last thing of import that was wrong with his wealth. He is no longer a trillionaire but that means absolutely nothing about the problems his wealth pose in real terms.
At some point, the numbers cease being a thing for meeting their needs, their comforts, and at some point even their every whim and preference they could possibly imagine. It just becomes a score and they peg their egos to the score. This is a level no one should ever be at.
I understand and appreciate what you’re getting at but the comment chain was:
I can’t believe Elon musk is a trillionaire, that doesn’t sit right with me.
he’s not a trillionaire, his stock went down, most of his wealth is in stocks
i downvoted because that statement sounded like a defense of the wealthy, not the TH letter (which I actually like, sorry to the people on Lemmy who seem to have a hate boner for it).
I understand how his wealth is tied up and how volatile stocks are. The reality is Elon will be a trillionaire again this year or next, and more importantly he will not be the only trillionaire we see by the end of this decade unless something is done about it.
So I appreciate your comment. My point was only “no one should have a trillion dollars” is a far more important conversation to be having than “actshully his numbers went down this month and he’s not a trillionaire”.
It’s not defending a rich person, it’s a statement of fact pertinent to the conversation.
Musk has most of his net worth in volatile investments. The total value of those investments once exceeded $1tn, but have lost value and no longer exceed $1tn. Therefore, he is no longer a trillionaire.
No other implications were made. Stop tilting at windmills.
I’ll post what I said to the other guy who thought it necessary to explain stocks to me.
The comment chain was:
I can’t believe Elon musk is a trillionaire, that doesn’t sit right with me.
he’s not a trillionaire, his stock went down, most of his wealth is in stocks
i downvoted because that statement sounded like a defense of the wealthy, not the TH letter (which I actually like, sorry to the people on Lemmy who seem to have a hate boner for it).
No, I do not think saying “actshully his numbers went down this month and he’s not a trillionaire” is value added or demonstrating a grasp on how wealth works. Elon will be a trillionaire again this year or next, and more importantly he will not be the only trillionaire we see by the end of this decade unless something is done about it. He will not always have his money heavily tied up stocks, and he’ll begin diversifying it. The difference between someone having 900 billion and 1.1 trillion is not significantly important, they’re both unbelievably bad.
Maybe I’m responding too much to this chain, he obviously wasn’t heavily defending him, but it is what people tend to say before they defend him elsewhere in the chain. I’m just interested in keeping these societal issue topics more focused and clean.
Billionaires shouldn’t exist. That’s the important part of this that I want to echo and protect. I’m sorry if it sounds like I’m “tilting at windmills” or making the cause seem bad, that’s not my intention.
I downloaded for defending a rich person. “His networth is tied up in stocks” is the kinda shit someone says who doesn’t understand that that doesn’t make them any less rich. A trillionaire means a trillion dollars of your shit is owned by him, houses and farmlands and workers and production capacity and art. No one should be allowed to have more than 10-20 million, at that amount they can pick someone to never have to work again in their life every year for the rest of their life. That’s too much money.
Not defending, just an explanation, and one that if anything would enrage Elon more.
He’s still an absurdly over-wealthed taint stain, but the specific numbers over that threshold were just not quite as substantial as other (also somewhat imaginary) numbers.
Point in fact, he was a trillionaire, and now he is not, but he didn’t lose anything real. He still has every bit the amount of real wealth and control over all that stuff you listed that he had before, just the number shifted by billions of dollars while preserving every last thing of import that was wrong with his wealth. He is no longer a trillionaire but that means absolutely nothing about the problems his wealth pose in real terms.
At some point, the numbers cease being a thing for meeting their needs, their comforts, and at some point even their every whim and preference they could possibly imagine. It just becomes a score and they peg their egos to the score. This is a level no one should ever be at.
I understand and appreciate what you’re getting at but the comment chain was:
I understand how his wealth is tied up and how volatile stocks are. The reality is Elon will be a trillionaire again this year or next, and more importantly he will not be the only trillionaire we see by the end of this decade unless something is done about it.
So I appreciate your comment. My point was only “no one should have a trillion dollars” is a far more important conversation to be having than “actshully his numbers went down this month and he’s not a trillionaire”.
It’s not defending a rich person, it’s a statement of fact pertinent to the conversation.
Musk has most of his net worth in volatile investments. The total value of those investments once exceeded $1tn, but have lost value and no longer exceed $1tn. Therefore, he is no longer a trillionaire.
No other implications were made. Stop tilting at windmills.
I’ll post what I said to the other guy who thought it necessary to explain stocks to me.
The comment chain was:
No, I do not think saying “actshully his numbers went down this month and he’s not a trillionaire” is value added or demonstrating a grasp on how wealth works. Elon will be a trillionaire again this year or next, and more importantly he will not be the only trillionaire we see by the end of this decade unless something is done about it. He will not always have his money heavily tied up stocks, and he’ll begin diversifying it. The difference between someone having 900 billion and 1.1 trillion is not significantly important, they’re both unbelievably bad.
Maybe I’m responding too much to this chain, he obviously wasn’t heavily defending him, but it is what people tend to say before they defend him elsewhere in the chain. I’m just interested in keeping these societal issue topics more focused and clean.
Billionaires shouldn’t exist. That’s the important part of this that I want to echo and protect. I’m sorry if it sounds like I’m “tilting at windmills” or making the cause seem bad, that’s not my intention.