If you saved $10,000 a day for 4,000 years

[edhopper]

Link to tweet

?lang=en

Staggering that we need to debate taxing these mother fuckers.

[OAITW r.2.0]

1. At a certain point, what's the point?

You could own a half dozen homes in great locations, a plane to fly you there, and all the cars and gadgets that could interest you. That's $100MM or so. What's the point after that? Money as a scorecard?

[fierywoman]

3. Isn't there a Chinese saying on this subject, something like:

you can only sleep in one bed at a time.

[SoonerPride]

4. They have a big empty hole inside them

That can never be filled.

With things.
Money.
People.
Power.
Pets.
Art.
Cars.

They seek and buy and acquire and still they crave.

Their souls are a black hole. An abyss that is all consuming and infinite.

And so instead of looking inward and asking why they simply move on to consume an infinity of everything.

Until they are dead.

[OAITW r.2.0]

5. I kind of like the Bill Gates model.

Make your mark, make your billions, build the house you want, and give the rest away, responsibly.

[csziggy]

14. The Andrew Carnegie model

Andrew Carnegie
History.com Editors

Updated: Feb 9, 2021
Original: Nov 9, 2009

Scottish-born Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) was an American industrialist who amassed a fortune in the steel industry then became a major philanthropist. Carnegie worked in a Pittsburgh cotton factory as a boy before rising to the position of division superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1859. While working for the railroad, he invested in various ventures, including iron and oil companies, and made his first fortune by the time he was in his early 30s. In the early 1870s, he entered the steel business, and over the next two decades became a dominant force in the industry. In 1901, he sold the Carnegie Steel Company to banker John Pierpont Morgan for $480 million. Carnegie then devoted himself to philanthropy, eventually giving away more than $350 million.

{SNIP}

Carnegie eventually gave away some $350 million (the equivalent of billions in today’s dollars), which represented the bulk of his wealth. Among his philanthropic activities, he funded the establishment of more than 2,500 public libraries around the globe, donated more than 7,600 organs to churches worldwide and endowed organizations (many still in existence today) dedicated to research in science, education, world peace and other causes. Among his gifts was the $1.1 million required for the land and construction costs of Carnegie Hall, the legendary New York City concert venue that opened in 1891. The Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Foundation were all founded thanks to his financial gifts. A lover of books, he was the largest individual investor in public libraries in American history.

More: https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/andrew-carnegie

And he still had more money than he could spend.

The thing I admire about Carnegie is the libraries he gave to towns all over the world. The library in my home town was a Carnegie library. One of his requirements was that the libraries he donated had to be open to all.

Some towns didn't like this and refused - Tallahassee, Florida was one. They had a private subscription library for the well-to-do, the State Library for public research, and both the Florida Women's College and Florida A&M University had their own libraries. As a result of this refusal, Tallahassee, the state capital of Florida, had no true public library until the 1950s. In the 1970s the public library was housed in the old Moose Lodge vacated by them since the basement flooded regularly. Later the library moved into the basement of an ailing mall - which was a vast improvement. But compared to towns that had their start with a Carnegie library, Tallahassee had a major struggle to finally get a real public library system. Now Tallahassee has a beautiful main library and many branch libraries across Leon County.

[OAITW r.2.0]

17. One of his libraries exists in my town of Dexter, Maine.

It's a great building for the town. Where great architecture/materials meet books. My late, ex-wife brought the 1st free internet stations to the library in the 90's.....something that I always thought was very cool.

[Yavin4]

12. "what's the point?" You ask? Robert Towne's script "Chinatown" answers that question for you.

The future Mr. Gittes. The future.

[Kablooie]

15. Bragging rights. That's about it.

Hoarding money while millions starve is a small price to pay for bragging rights to your fellow billionaires.

Particularly when you don't know the millions who are starving.

[Mr.Bill]

19. In an interview a few years ago,

Bill Gates said it was a way of keeping score. The context was him vs. Steve Jobs.

[Cartoonist]

2. It's like a game of Monopoly

There can only be one winner.

[multigraincracker]

6. We have a minimum wage and

we need a maximum income or wealth.

[Gore1FL]

21. Bring back the tax structure we had pre-Reagan.

Simply adjust it to inflation. Our deficits would end and our debt would plummet.

[NJCher]

22. Makes perfect sense

When you put it that way.

[Orrex]

7. Number of billionaires that the world needs: zero

Also, pitchforks and blueprints for guillotines are readily available online.

[krispos42]

8. You have a color copier.

You can fit four $100 bills on a sheet of copier paper, and the machine can print 15 double-sided sheets per minute.

So you're printing $6,000 per minute, $360,000 per hour, $8,640,000 per day, $3,153,600,000 per year.

You would have had to start copying in the Reagan presidency to have as much as today's billionaires. You'd print out the average American salary in about 8 minutes.

[wackadoo wabbit]

9. I so wish I could rec this a million times! /nt

[Baked Potato]

10. They are saving up in case there's a cure for cancer or a pill to live forever.

That may cost a lot, you know.

[PCIntern]

11. A great line from the movie Wall Street

“How many yachts do you need to water ski behind?”

[ansible]

13. We're allowed to criticize billionaires now?

Lots of them donate heavily to democratic causes

[edhopper]

16. We are allowed

to point out our ridiculous tax and wage structure that allows the biggest inequity in a Century.

And many more fund the GOP.

[Gore1FL]

20. I didn't see criticism of billionaires.

I saw criticism of our tax structure.

[Bucky]

24. I'm not particularly worried about billionaires reading DU

Those that do read Democratic Underground are probably not gonna this hypothetical personally

[Gore1FL]

18. I agree with "Tax the Rich."

If I were saving $10,000 a day it would be in equities, so I would probably have more than the 5 richest billionaires.

In this scenario, tax the fuck out of me.

[Bucky]

23. Should have put it in the bond market

$10,000 coins issued by the Pharaohs have lost most of their purchasing power due to inflation since the XIIIth Dynasty