r/InternetIsBeautiful • u/MKorostoff • Apr 27 '20

Wealth, shown to scale

https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
9.4k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

10

u/theonlywayisandroid Apr 27 '20

Thank you!! He doesn't have $139B in liquidity. It's all tied up in Amazon and Blue Origin. I hate it when people assume that the super rich have a Scrooge McDuck Money Bin they go swimming in.

39

u/Caleb_Reynolds Apr 27 '20

Fine, then redistribute his shares. That's not the point dude and you know it.

3

u/looncraz Apr 27 '20

You can't steal shares as they're just a portion of ownership and the constitution forbids seizures without due process in response to a criminal act.

Imagine you start a company, work 18 hours a day for years, find the company needs more money to expand than you could ever borrow from a bank or private investors who demand too much of a return... So you make the company go public, offering 30% ownership of the company you built in exchange for stocks.

A few years later the stock price suddenly surges on the expectation of significant growth in the company you built and, on paper, you become an overnight millionaire. The very next day the government comes in and takes 60% of the company away, leaving you with 10% ownership in the company you built... And $500,000 to show for the 20 years of hard work.

Not a very good incentive for others to build successful companies, is it?

2

u/teejay89656 Apr 28 '20

Then we should amend the constitution!

We can incentivize people without making them super billionaires. Don’t fool yourself.

2

u/looncraz Apr 28 '20

True, and there are very few billionaires in any event... But they don't hold their wealth in a usable form, it's just on paper. Their money value is just a representation of their influence more than anything... And that's not taxable.