Ah yes, when I think of people accumulating vast amounts of capital my first thought is also… Communists.
For those wondering, according to Forbes the top richest people are:
Musk. South African/Canadian/American depending on how you slice it
Bezos. American
Arnault. French
Zuckerberg. American
Ellison (Oracle). American
Page (Google). American
Brin (Google). American
Gates. American
Ballmer. American
Buffett. American.
I’d also consider the Walton family as a whole. While split up, the often join their money together and are also pretty American.
So… I know these things change over time but it seems really bizarre to list off countries famous for having too-wealthy people without naming America.
Also the whole idea of taking one of the finest, rarest specimens of something the universe produces naturally and making it ugly for the sake of these billionaires seems incredibly dumb. It’s just further contributing to the erosion of the commons.
The richest people in the world aren’t on the richest people in the world list because they own entire countries. Putin is probably the richest single person in the world. Kim Jong Un is up there too.
If you can have literally anything you want within your own borders that’s a lot more than having shares in some company that could lose value overnight.
Putin maybe, Kim-Jong definitely not. Just Meta’s net profit (let well alone revenue) is well over NK’s entire GDP. Even if he literally owned the entire country which he certainly does not, he wouldn’t be nearly as wealthy as Musk or Bezos.
That’s not really being rich, though. The guys on that list could theoretically buy whatever countries they wanted, hell, they could buy multiple, hell, they could just buy owning stock in every country by way of bribery. If you’re the leader of a single country, it’s as though your money is all invested for you already in that single country. You’re mostly locked down to wherever you are. But the Walton family, owning Walmart, last time I checked the third largest economy in the world, they can extract that money and pivot wherever they want, with basically no borders or limits.
Let’s be real… he’s exhibiting this in an art museum in NYC. And he’s still working as a TV and film composer.
Also the whole idea of taking one of the finest, rarest specimens of something the universe produces naturally and making it ugly for the sake of these billionaires seems incredibly dumb.
You suggest the real reason for doing it. So a billionaire can own it and say “see, I’m not one of the bad billionaires, because I’m in on the joke.”
Ah yes, when I think of people accumulating vast amounts of capital my first thought is also… Communists.
For those wondering, according to Forbes the top richest people are:
I’d also consider the Walton family as a whole. While split up, the often join their money together and are also pretty American.
So… I know these things change over time but it seems really bizarre to list off countries famous for having too-wealthy people without naming America.
Also the whole idea of taking one of the finest, rarest specimens of something the universe produces naturally and making it ugly for the sake of these billionaires seems incredibly dumb. It’s just further contributing to the erosion of the commons.
The richest people in the world aren’t on the richest people in the world list because they own entire countries. Putin is probably the richest single person in the world. Kim Jong Un is up there too.
If you can have literally anything you want within your own borders that’s a lot more than having shares in some company that could lose value overnight.
Putin maybe, Kim-Jong definitely not. Just Meta’s net profit (let well alone revenue) is well over NK’s entire GDP. Even if he literally owned the entire country which he certainly does not, he wouldn’t be nearly as wealthy as Musk or Bezos.
That’s not really being rich, though. The guys on that list could theoretically buy whatever countries they wanted, hell, they could buy multiple, hell, they could just buy owning stock in every country by way of bribery. If you’re the leader of a single country, it’s as though your money is all invested for you already in that single country. You’re mostly locked down to wherever you are. But the Walton family, owning Walmart, last time I checked the third largest economy in the world, they can extract that money and pivot wherever they want, with basically no borders or limits.
Let’s be real… he’s exhibiting this in an art museum in NYC. And he’s still working as a TV and film composer.
You suggest the real reason for doing it. So a billionaire can own it and say “see, I’m not one of the bad billionaires, because I’m in on the joke.”
Jimmy Buffett is dead