No One Really Needs Billions of Dollars

Just think for a second:

What can’t you do with a net income like $10,000/month?

Aside from living in extremely dense, prime real estate like Manhattan or central SF, or wasting money in extravaganza like $10,000-per-bottle champagne, is there anything that you couldn’t do in our modern society?

With a net income like that, you can live in decent housing in many varied locations, you can buy a house in a majority of cities, you can get a very good car, you can travel, you can save for retirement, you can raise children, you can acquire reasonable luxuries…

Even in high cost of living countries, this kind of net income can provide you with a pretty upscale life, at the forefront of the life standards of our modern society.

In contrast, what can you do with billions of dollars?

You can buy overpriced, extravagant real estate from prime locations, you can buy rare luxury cars like Ferrari, Lamborghini which you could not use in any daily setting, you could get extravagant yachts and…

Wait…

Even that kind of stuff doesn’t cost billions of dollars. They cost a few hundred million each at the highest tiers. Even the extravagant estate which Jeff Bezos is building in Beverly Hills costs $175 million…

Even buying an island can’t cost you that much… Even if you push the limits.

Maybe if you bought a pretty large island from a prime location, then you could spend a billion dollars or more. But that’s pretty much it.

Then What is the Purpose of Billions of Dollars?

This kind of wealth can’t even exist in the form of cash. Or ownership of real estate — with a few exceptions not making a rule…

It can only exist in the form of ownership of stocks, corporations, its value calculated over the value of these organizations.

Like how the value of Amazon is calculated based on the stock market prices and its profits. Or the value of Walmart. Or the value of any other corporation, or any investment fund which holds shares from such corporations…

This kind of wealth increases over time as the value of the relevant stocks go up and the corporations pay dividends. And if someone has enough shares, it can allow the control of the corporation as the majority shareholder.

That’s it.

That’s the point of billions of dollars of wealth — hoarding it to increase it more, and controlling entire organizations.

Hoarding to satisfy one’s own ego and psychological needs, and controlling gigantic organizations which command large parts of the economy as if they were your personal fiefdom…

It can’t be used for anything that is remotely near any kind of human need, any kind of human activity, regardless of how extravagant it may be.

Having hundreds of millions of dollars seems to provide you with the power to do things which are actually doable and get things which actually can be enjoyed by yourself or your family and friends as human beings, living at the top level of luxury which our civilization can provide today.

But having billions of dollars does not seem to provide for anything other than hoarding and having feudal control over gigantic organizations.

So, what’s the point of allowing people to amass that kind of wealth?