Well, let’s use Jeff Bezos. If we ignore his Amazon stocks, since those aren’t money until sold and the value fluctuates, and selling those stocks would mean he doesn’t own Amazon- which then removes him as having an obligation to Amazon-
The man has about $25 billion in personal wealth by public figures in rough numbers. Actual money and property- rocketships and yachts and such.
If he were to liquidate all his personal wealth for face value of $25 billion and divide that up between all his companies employees it would equal a one time payment of less than $17,000. If we amortize that one time payment into the form of an anual raise and spread that raise over 10 years, each CURRENT Amazon employee who worked there would receive a $1700 anual raise for 10 years, or roughly a little over $100 a month. Yay. We solved poverty. $100 a month- less than $1 an hour raise on average full time hours- is just the cost of living increase desperately needed. Would you give up everything you
own to give each Amazon’s worker a sub $1 an hour raise? You probably would not and you probably have much less you’d be losing- meaning that you giving up all you owned to give them a raise is a greater cost to benefit ratio hypothetically. But you likely wouldn’t do it if a genie gave you the option. Do I need to explain why you wouldn’t? You already know.
You give a dollar to a charity maybe or $500 at a dinner or $1000 once a year perhaps or just here and there. Because it’s easy. It doesn’t really require any sacrifice on your part and you feel good about it.
Bezos will give $100 million to a school or for some charity and it won’t really hurt him and he’ll feel good about it. He’s given more to charity in a year than most anyone will in their lifetime- he just has a lot more than you or I so he can give more but still afford a space ship. For many people giving $500 to charity would mean not eating or paying rent.
But again- how much of that money makes it to how many people? Let’s do the entire fortune. Let’s sell everything the man owns including his stocks and leave him penniless. That gives us a much more meaningful $100,000 (round numbers) ONE TIME payment to all Amazon workers currently employed. Or 10,000 a year for 10 years, or $4.81 an hour. Before taxes.
So figure you’ll keep about half or so. That’s enough to be life changing to the poorest workers perhaps. For many in popular dense areas that won’t but a house or allow them to buy a house near their work.
Also consider that if May negatively impact things like tax bracket and any aid from government assistance like food stamps or housing assistance to student fee waivers, grants, loans, subsidized medical care etc.
for the worker and possibly for any children who might be on public medical or looking for college fee waivers and low income grants etc.
So being paid in a lump sum might actually hurt more than it helps for many. It is a well documented phenomenon among lottery winners and contest winners for example who suddenly come into relative large sums that often they lose that money and may end up worse off. But ignoring the hypothetical- the math just doesn’t work out. If we expand to a global scale, selling Bezos entire fortune stocks and all pits about $20 in each persons hands. A one time payment of $20.
If we go after all the billionaires why we might be able to give each person on earth a couple hundred, maybe a couple thousand dollars.
It seems that an obvious solution would be to give employees stock- partial ownership in the company. Of course many companies do this already- core problems include:
- stock value isn’t liquid. You can’t spend it unless you sell the stock.
- stocks complicate taxes and finances generally and many employees most at need for cost of living adjustments don’t have the knowledge to navigate the matter themselves without significant personal risk.
- people can sell their stocks and miss the big wave. If you started at Amazon at 18 and got 100 shares and sold them for $5000 to buy a car to show off.. that wouldn’t help your cost of living at 26 most likely because the stocks are gone and the car likely has t appreciated significantly or at all. Likely it’s lost you lots of money over the stock value. If you laughed at your coworker who sold their
shares at 18 and you waited until you were 26 and sold yours at $150k and bought a house and an engagement ring, neither of those would likely outperform those same 100 shares now.
So just giving stock doesn’t cut it and it isn’t really… it’s worthless unless you can find a buyer and the value changes. If I give you $200 in stock today it could be $1000 tomorrow or $4 tomorrow or a week or 10.
So then Bob and Jane have the same job. Jane started near the company start and was given 10000 shares worth $5000 as her cost of living bonus. Say they are worth $4.5 million now.
Bob starts now. Do you give him the same 10000 shares Jane got- so she received $5000 and he received 4.5 million? Do you give him $5000 in stock at todays value- let’s say that is 1 share. Round it off.
But if the stock goes up $1 in value Jane makes $10,000 in wealth and Bob makes… $1. That’s hardly equal is it?
So the way I can explain it is like this to a kindergartener.
You have been lied to.
They told you to take turns, share, not bring something if you don’t have enough for everyone.
That isn’t the way the world works.
I’d put out 10 cookies for 20 kids and then tell them all to take as many as they think is fair. I’d let them all do that and see what the world is like, and then I’d go around and take all the cookies I wanted and eat them in front of them and say to fight over what was left or try and stop me. They couldn’t stop me. And I’d explain to them that they can’t stop me because I have all the power and they can’t stop me. I’d ask them if that is fair. Then I’d shame any child that took more than half a cookie earlier and ask them if it isn’t fair, why did THEY take more when they had the power?
And they’d say they don’t know, or because they wanted cookies. And I’d say- exactly.
Because 99% of people will choose to get their kid into college instead of yours.
99% of people don’t care more than a single tear or some pocket change in a jar about you. Almost no one cares as much about you as they do themselves and the same is true of you. You’ll help your friend over a stranger and for all the people and families that have spent years or decades with less than you or practically nothing- how many times have you ever traded them?
Are you in the habit of going down to the homeless camp and telling someone long term living there that they can have the keys to your place and all your clothes and your car and your bank accounts and you’ll take their stuff and live their life so that they can have a break from suffering because you’ve had it good for awhile so it is only fair? No. Likely not. Because of course you care more about where you live and what you eat and or family than them or theirs. It’s your self interest.
The only people 9/10 times who leave anything for anyone else either don’t want the thing they left very much or lack the power or will to take it without consequences or concerns.
If you won a billion dollars tomorrow you probably wouldn’t give it all away to people who need it more and even if you gave some or lost away you’d likely take care of you and your people first. A treat for yourself, pay off the house, a college fund for little Johnny or a house for mom and dad or a vacation or whatever. You’d justify it as your little indulgence next to the scope of charity you’ve given.
Kids, when the food runs out you either eat the person next to you or they eat you. We’ve spent 40,000 odd years trying to build a society that can shield us from ever having to make that choice and we don’t like to think about it- but most people are eaters not eaten. That’s why you’re here. That’s why a chain of organisms that led to you through generations of breeding were able to persist to this day- they did everything they needed to do to fuck and survive- and some were just lucky and didn’t have to do much so some of you are moist and when the eating starts you are the main course.
That same spirit lives in all of us and comes out whenever we deal with any resource. We give freely what we see as inexhaustible or in excess of our desires and we hoard and kill to keep what we value or see as scarce and precious.
As a kindergartner you don’t have a lot of math skills yet but the cost of a rocket ship won’t do shit if you break it up and share it with everyone. Instead of one rocket ship and all the advancements and work that creates you get 7 billion cheap trinkets.
People who can do math aren’t mad that billionaires don’t t share their wealth with everyone. They are mad that billionaire don’t share their wealth with THEM.
Elon Musk could give every stranger he met $100,000 for a day and not really take a hit to his wealth, or one he can’t bounce back from. But every stranger he met wouldn’t even be 1% of a single city in a state in a country on a continent on this earth.
If Elon Musk gave someone $5 million dollars that’s like me giving someone a couple hundred bucks. It is not even the cost of a wild weekend.
On that $5 million dollars most people could live a middle class life for their entire life and never work. He has the power to easily and painlessly give you an entire life of comfort and freedom instantly. But- if he does that for 100 people that’s 500 million dollars. For 200 it is a billion dollars. For what he paid for Twitter, he could do that for about 9,000 people. Not even one small town. That’s 1% of 1% of the worlds population.
So not everyone can have that. You see- most people in developed nations live better than royalty did a century ago but it still isn’t enough. They feel pressure and stress and see what they don’t have and want it. They want everything.
The simplest concept- anything you have is something someone else can’t have.
If you take a cookie, I can’t have that cookie. If you take a book, So people get mad at billionaires because they have rockets and we can’t go on vacation because olee owe bills- but then 90% of the world has less than us. There are people starving and it isn’t to build a rocket ship- it’s because you want to have strawberries out of season or bread for $3 a loaf and you want dinner to be “tasty and fun” and can’t stand to eat rice and beans and locally available foods or you live in places that aren’t actually habitable and pipe in the resources to live from elsewhere. It’s because to keep your child safe you’ll use disposable resources and safety equipment that be Caínes obsolete in a few years that makes it so someone else’s child can’t eat.
Look at the problems in the world and then look in a mirror. The world shows us who we are. Watch your behavior. I’d you had wealth and power- what would you act like?
The man has about $25 billion in personal wealth by public figures in rough numbers. Actual money and property- rocketships and yachts and such.
If he were to liquidate all his personal wealth for face value of $25 billion and divide that up between all his companies employees it would equal a one time payment of less than $17,000. If we amortize that one time payment into the form of an anual raise and spread that raise over 10 years, each CURRENT Amazon employee who worked there would receive a $1700 anual raise for 10 years, or roughly a little over $100 a month. Yay. We solved poverty. $100 a month- less than $1 an hour raise on average full time hours- is just the cost of living increase desperately needed. Would you give up everything you
You give a dollar to a charity maybe or $500 at a dinner or $1000 once a year perhaps or just here and there. Because it’s easy. It doesn’t really require any sacrifice on your part and you feel good about it.
Bezos will give $100 million to a school or for some charity and it won’t really hurt him and he’ll feel good about it. He’s given more to charity in a year than most anyone will in their lifetime- he just has a lot more than you or I so he can give more but still afford a space ship. For many people giving $500 to charity would mean not eating or paying rent.
So figure you’ll keep about half or so. That’s enough to be life changing to the poorest workers perhaps. For many in popular dense areas that won’t but a house or allow them to buy a house near their work.
Also consider that if May negatively impact things like tax bracket and any aid from government assistance like food stamps or housing assistance to student fee waivers, grants, loans, subsidized medical care etc.
for the worker and possibly for any children who might be on public medical or looking for college fee waivers and low income grants etc.
It seems that an obvious solution would be to give employees stock- partial ownership in the company. Of course many companies do this already- core problems include:
- stock value isn’t liquid. You can’t spend it unless you sell the stock.
- stocks complicate taxes and finances generally and many employees most at need for cost of living adjustments don’t have the knowledge to navigate the matter themselves without significant personal risk.
- people can sell their stocks and miss the big wave. If you started at Amazon at 18 and got 100 shares and sold them for $5000 to buy a car to show off.. that wouldn’t help your cost of living at 26 most likely because the stocks are gone and the car likely has t appreciated significantly or at all. Likely it’s lost you lots of money over the stock value. If you laughed at your coworker who sold their
So just giving stock doesn’t cut it and it isn’t really… it’s worthless unless you can find a buyer and the value changes. If I give you $200 in stock today it could be $1000 tomorrow or $4 tomorrow or a week or 10.
So then Bob and Jane have the same job. Jane started near the company start and was given 10000 shares worth $5000 as her cost of living bonus. Say they are worth $4.5 million now.
Bob starts now. Do you give him the same 10000 shares Jane got- so she received $5000 and he received 4.5 million? Do you give him $5000 in stock at todays value- let’s say that is 1 share. Round it off.
But if the stock goes up $1 in value Jane makes $10,000 in wealth and Bob makes… $1. That’s hardly equal is it?
You have been lied to.
They told you to take turns, share, not bring something if you don’t have enough for everyone.
That isn’t the way the world works.
I’d put out 10 cookies for 20 kids and then tell them all to take as many as they think is fair. I’d let them all do that and see what the world is like, and then I’d go around and take all the cookies I wanted and eat them in front of them and say to fight over what was left or try and stop me. They couldn’t stop me. And I’d explain to them that they can’t stop me because I have all the power and they can’t stop me. I’d ask them if that is fair. Then I’d shame any child that took more than half a cookie earlier and ask them if it isn’t fair, why did THEY take more when they had the power?
Because 99% of people will choose to get their kid into college instead of yours.
99% of people don’t care more than a single tear or some pocket change in a jar about you. Almost no one cares as much about you as they do themselves and the same is true of you. You’ll help your friend over a stranger and for all the people and families that have spent years or decades with less than you or practically nothing- how many times have you ever traded them?
If you won a billion dollars tomorrow you probably wouldn’t give it all away to people who need it more and even if you gave some or lost away you’d likely take care of you and your people first. A treat for yourself, pay off the house, a college fund for little Johnny or a house for mom and dad or a vacation or whatever. You’d justify it as your little indulgence next to the scope of charity you’ve given.
That same spirit lives in all of us and comes out whenever we deal with any resource. We give freely what we see as inexhaustible or in excess of our desires and we hoard and kill to keep what we value or see as scarce and precious.
People who can do math aren’t mad that billionaires don’t t share their wealth with everyone. They are mad that billionaire don’t share their wealth with THEM.
Elon Musk could give every stranger he met $100,000 for a day and not really take a hit to his wealth, or one he can’t bounce back from. But every stranger he met wouldn’t even be 1% of a single city in a state in a country on a continent on this earth.
On that $5 million dollars most people could live a middle class life for their entire life and never work. He has the power to easily and painlessly give you an entire life of comfort and freedom instantly. But- if he does that for 100 people that’s 500 million dollars. For 200 it is a billion dollars. For what he paid for Twitter, he could do that for about 9,000 people. Not even one small town. That’s 1% of 1% of the worlds population.
So not everyone can have that. You see- most people in developed nations live better than royalty did a century ago but it still isn’t enough. They feel pressure and stress and see what they don’t have and want it. They want everything.
If you take a cookie, I can’t have that cookie. If you take a book, So people get mad at billionaires because they have rockets and we can’t go on vacation because olee owe bills- but then 90% of the world has less than us. There are people starving and it isn’t to build a rocket ship- it’s because you want to have strawberries out of season or bread for $3 a loaf and you want dinner to be “tasty and fun” and can’t stand to eat rice and beans and locally available foods or you live in places that aren’t actually habitable and pipe in the resources to live from elsewhere. It’s because to keep your child safe you’ll use disposable resources and safety equipment that be Caínes obsolete in a few years that makes it so someone else’s child can’t eat.