Reply With QuoteThere’s a similar one about Columbus discovering America in 1492 - something like save $$$$ a day but you still wouldn’t be a billionaire by now.
Numbers and time are fascinating
I read an interesting stat today about the distribution of wealth!
If you had worked for £2000 net per hour for 40hrs/week and had done since the year 0AD and you had saved every penny, then you would have saved approx £8.4billion. This would not even make the Times Rich List top 10!!!
I did a quick calculation and it seems to be about right!!
There’s a similar one about Columbus discovering America in 1492 - something like save $$$$ a day but you still wouldn’t be a billionaire by now.
Numbers and time are fascinating
Obscene. Nobody needs more than a billion quid. Once you hit that figure you should get a bench in a park or a plaque somewhere to recognise your achievement and the fact you gave all future earnings away.
Great stat though.
Taking of stats, the expansion of the Universe isn't governed by special relativity. You know, the speed of light limit.
Oh no. It's general relativity. So stuff a long way from us is moving away from us much faster than the speed of light.
We'll never see it. In fact we'll never see light from most of the Universe and bits we can see will eventually just be the local stuff.
I might have overly simplified this a bit but the theory is correct. Sort of.
This is an interesting graphic: https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/ Absolutely mind blowing.
Wow.Originally Posted by hogthrob
And wow again.
As it says, unimaginable.
Indeed it is, and truly obscene.
Just one of the truly obscene facts from it:
"Contaminated water is a major source of disease, including cholera, dysentery, and typhoid. It is estimated that contaminated water kills about 829,000 people every year, making it one of the world's biggest killers. The cost to provide clean water and waste disposal for everyone on earth would be about $240 billion, or 7.5% of the wealth controlled by the 400 richest Americans."
So clever my foot fell off.
some staggering stats to be sure and agree once at a certain point whats the point ?..
this is an equally scary set of numbers that serve to highlight just how huge the debt numbers are particularly 'debt per tax payer'...
https://www.usdebtclock.org/
https://www.nationaldebtclock.co.uk/
Or looking at it the other way, you can lose over 8 billion in one year by being an incompetent government.
" Fraud and error in the benefits system in Britain have reached record levels, with £8.4 billion overpaid in the last financial year "
I don’t completely understand the outrage, it’s obscene I get it, but there’s hypocrisy at every level.
Members here are buying 80k SUVs, the opportunity cost of that car could be dozens of educations for deprived children, 1000s of COVID vaccines in India. You could literally do the same graphic with a kid living on a dollar a day and someone earning 6 figures. To them we are Jeff Bozos!
The scale is bigger for the Super rich but principals are the same. People choosing to buy crap instead of helping others. I’m guilty of it, and it haunts me occasionally.
The problem is by focusing on Jeff et al it gives us a reason not to face our own short comings.
And that’s the problem with virtue signalling (not accusing anyone here) in general. One gets the happy glowing feeling of being morally sound without needing to make a sacrifice.
Last edited by Rodder; 26th May 2021 at 09:47.
Indeed, it's all relative and, often, those billionaires are only THAT rich on paper (although they're still interstellarly rich compared to most).
I remember eons ago, when went to meet some friends who had just had their first child.
I'd just bought myself a year old Vauxhall Calibra (yeah, rock and roll or what?) and I met my friend at some shops near his house (long before the days of sat nav) to go onto his house. I was standing by the car and he said "Is this yours then?", understandably I replied it was and he laughed.
He didn't believe I could afford it and was only persuaded when I got in and started it.
A lot of people on here think nothing of spending 5 figures on a watch - I can't imagine ever doing that, personally, but then most people I know think it's insane to spend 4 figures on one.
Everyone's zero is different, that's how it is.
If you REALLY care about billionaires sucking up all the cash and not solving hunger, then stop buying stuff on Amazon and Teslas...
M
PS I'll never buy a Tesla, I think Musk is a total sh*t
Last edited by snowman; 26th May 2021 at 11:23.
Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?
My father said to me when I was very young "why would anyone want more than a million quid ?"
I must have been just about primary school age at that time but I still remember it - that would be about £23.5 million in todays money (from 1960s).
B
Do you know if they've still got any jobs going?
Possibly
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavir...alary-12104028
Compare that figure to the lost income from tax loopholes and big tech not even paying a quarter of their fair share and you wouldn't give a second thought about benefits.
Not many people enjoy paying tax but I'd rather there was loss like this in the benefits system than (even more) people going without.
billionaires are mentioned so much now its become normal. Unless you spend a few minutes thinking about it you realise just how obscene that much money really is.
I really don’t understand why people refer to large amounts of money as obscene; they are just large amounts of money.
Also, if someone has made huge amounts of money legitimately by their own merits, why should they be expected to give large amounts of it away? I agree, philanthropy is good and should be applauded but it is neither their duty or obligation to support those less well off.
No problem with billionaires. I think the issue is most billionaires gain (and become/stay billionaires) through their employee's losses.
Amazon warehouse and delivery staff are prime examples. Pissing in bottles because they're not allowed toilet breaks and wearing wrist bands which vibrate when they're not moving fast enough. Something like 15 seconds to find and scan each item or they go on performance review.
Then there's Apple farming out production to Foxconn with suicide nets around the factories because workers had a habit of comitting suicide at work as their lives were that bad. Also the confirmed use of child labour.
And finally Musk who sends out tyrant style emails and is famous for being an awful employer openly manipulating the crypto markets personally profiting in the hundreds of millions from his idiot followers and speculators buying/selling Doge and Bitcoin on his every tweet.
If you can honestly put in a shift and become a billionaire off your own back more power to you and well done. However if you're a billionaire because you severely underpay your workforce and pay poverty wages then you deserve to lose it all IMO.
Some billionaires give vast amounts to charities, Bill Gates for one. I had a customer who was worth a few million, had an air of snobbishness about him, luxury cars, yacht in the S of F.
One day I was chatting to him when he told me he was off to India on what I thought was a holiday. Instead he was going to a school he pays for for the poor children of a run down area.
I found that to be a very noble thing to do and was quite touched by his generosity.
It’s a general belief that riches become rags in 3-4 generations ...
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