$2,000,000 : I can live a great life, and if I’m frugal don’t ever have to work again if I don’t want to
$1,000,000,000 : I literally could not spend all this money on physical possessions if I tried, so the only thing left I can spend it on is owning and controlling other people
Bezos and Musk can both go to space in their very own rockets just to have a massive wank, and it still wouldn’t cost them the rounding error of their total wealth. It’s functionally impossible for them to spend the amount of money they have, and yet for some fucking reason they still want more. They’re sick in the head.
They are sick in the head, and I’ve been talking about it a lot.
These people have uncontrolled, unmedicated OCD that manifests as Financial Hoarding. They have more money than either they, or all of their descendants could ever spend, and yet they are driven to hoard more, even as it endangers the existence of the nation and economic system that made them so wealthy.
If someone hoarded hundreds of cats, or rusty cars, or old newspapers, or empty bottles, etc., to the point where it is damaging the entire neighborhood, the authorities would step in, get them help, and clean up the mess.
But with Financial Hoarders, society praises them as successful businesspeople, and encourages them to do more. Often, the government even gives them more money that they don’t need, even as it literally hurts every other citizen.
We have to recalibrate how we view these people. They are not business leaders and role models, they are severely mentally ill people who are destroying America, and the World, with their narcissistic and wholly unrealistic demands. We do not have to indulge them, and in fact, we need to stop them immediately, and remove the wealth that is driving their mental illness.
Or you can spend it on corrupting society, which can help make you more money. Which brings us to the favorite use of money of billionaires, using the money to make more money!
Because whomever has more wins.
You can buy politicians, can buy (more of a complicated tiered leasing situation with politicians and their appointees and agency leaders,) agency heads, appoint a former lobbyist for your companies’ trade groups to lead the enforcement of regulations on your company. Buy studies saying something unsafe is safe, starting with cynical science outfits paid to start at safe and design the study to get there. Then pay to get it published and supported, then pay to lobby, pay to get politicians and their appointees to pretend to believe it. Pay the courts and their proxies, (I’m sure this is a lot worse than we think, not just Clarence Thomas style either,) and then rules are changed, or not enforced, and you make more money than you spent corrupting everything.
$2,000,000 : I can live a great life, and if I’m frugal don’t ever have to work again if I don’t want to
$1,000,000,000 : I literally could not spend all this money on physical possessions if I tried, so the only thing left I can spend it on is owning and controlling other people
You forgot about rockets. They can always throw their money away on rockets.
Even then…
https://spaceinsider.tech/2023/08/16/how-much-does-it-cost-to-launch-a-rocket/
Bezos and Musk can both go to space in their very own rockets just to have a massive wank, and it still wouldn’t cost them the rounding error of their total wealth. It’s functionally impossible for them to spend the amount of money they have, and yet for some fucking reason they still want more. They’re sick in the head.
They are sick in the head, and I’ve been talking about it a lot.
These people have uncontrolled, unmedicated OCD that manifests as Financial Hoarding. They have more money than either they, or all of their descendants could ever spend, and yet they are driven to hoard more, even as it endangers the existence of the nation and economic system that made them so wealthy.
If someone hoarded hundreds of cats, or rusty cars, or old newspapers, or empty bottles, etc., to the point where it is damaging the entire neighborhood, the authorities would step in, get them help, and clean up the mess.
But with Financial Hoarders, society praises them as successful businesspeople, and encourages them to do more. Often, the government even gives them more money that they don’t need, even as it literally hurts every other citizen.
We have to recalibrate how we view these people. They are not business leaders and role models, they are severely mentally ill people who are destroying America, and the World, with their narcissistic and wholly unrealistic demands. We do not have to indulge them, and in fact, we need to stop them immediately, and remove the wealth that is driving their mental illness.
Or you can spend it on corrupting society, which can help make you more money. Which brings us to the favorite use of money of billionaires, using the money to make more money!
Because whomever has more wins.
You can buy politicians, can buy (more of a complicated tiered leasing situation with politicians and their appointees and agency leaders,) agency heads, appoint a former lobbyist for your companies’ trade groups to lead the enforcement of regulations on your company. Buy studies saying something unsafe is safe, starting with cynical science outfits paid to start at safe and design the study to get there. Then pay to get it published and supported, then pay to lobby, pay to get politicians and their appointees to pretend to believe it. Pay the courts and their proxies, (I’m sure this is a lot worse than we think, not just Clarence Thomas style either,) and then rules are changed, or not enforced, and you make more money than you spent corrupting everything.