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Comment by epx | Hacker News Reader

I don't really understand why someone would not just stay with $200M without hassles, instead of hiding $400M. The value of money is logarithmic. What can be bought with $400M that cannot be bought with $200M??

If it were a case of wife wanting 99% of his assets, it would be reasonable to fight. If I lived some of these FoaF stories where the husband is wiped out, then I'd rather go to jail (and profit from an MRA blog some years later)

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To many of us, money is a tool. You convert time and effort into money, store it, then convert it back into other things when necessary or desired.

To many others, money is a high score.

There are quite a lot of things that can cost a meaningful % of $200M. Artwork, property, vehicles (planes, yachts, expensive cars), upkeep and potentially staff for all those things, etc. The impact to your net worth is thus 50% lower if you can double your net worth.

Also, if you get to that level, I imagine there reaches a point where those things become much more realistic to obtain, and your expectations for your earnings go up. Why settle for $200M when you can have $400M like your friends? Why settle for $400M when you can reach the three comma club?

> What can be bought with $400M that cannot be bought with $200M??

More money. Example...OPEC negotiated a deal today to cap oil output. If you are into trading futures or ETF's related to oil, you stood to earn roughly 8%(3x ETF's could pay 24%) of your investment. 8% of 400m is nicer than 200m.

Though that's not related to being rich. You can participate on that market with less than $1k. If you knew that they'd reach a deal (many people thought they wouldn't), you didn't need $200m to play that game.

You don't get to be the kind of person who has $400 million by writing huge checks to make people go away.

Sure you can.

Here's an example of someone who hand-wrote a $975 million check to make his wife go away:

http://www.businessinsider.com/harold-hamm-divorce-settlemen...

> I don't really understand why someone would not just stay with $200M without hassles, instead of hiding $400M.

Pride. It's not about the money, it's about "winning".

Near the end of the article it said that they were finding out he may not actually have the $400M after all (It was just a claim to get a loan), or that has lost/used it all up over time during this case. Then he will have to prove his real hidden wealth, along with how he did it, otherwise risk paying out the $200M that he may not even have.

It's probably more about sticking it to the wife than the money. That's why a lot of people spend a fortune on divorce attorneys to divide up things that neither party actually wants.

I don't really understand why someone would not just stay with $200M without hassles, instead of hiding $400M.

I think like you and I believe this is why you and I will never be billionaires.

There is always something bigger and better and more expensive. Always.

I actually don't think it would be a crazy strategy to focus a business on the extremely high end of the market. I always think about the person who offered a $1m travel tour to each UNESCO world heritage site. Free to offer the theoretical tour, and charge enough that you can worry about the details later. Only ever skim-read about it, but I believe he got a taker.

What can be bought with $400M that cannot be bought with $200M??

Four movie studios instead of two! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korda_Studios

If the value of money is logarithmic, then going from $200M to $400M would be identically valuable to him as you doubling your net worth; I'm sure you'd like to do that.

Are you referring to the divorce or the taxes?

In terms of taxes, if you are hiring all those people, banks and lawyers to deal with it for you, I do wonder what the actual amount of hours it takes for this person to manage things. 3 hours a week? Slightly more or less? I wonder what the return on that time works out to be.

The article also alludes to the fact that most of this stuff seems to be in a legal grey area, like driving over the speed limit or something.

Note that he describes the US as "the country of Evil".

It's motivated by a revenge-like emotion, rather than necessarily reason.

Let's say you think you can earn 3% real after tax (big assumption but let's use it), the difference between $200m and $400m is $6m and $12m a year of annual spending power. If your boat costs you a couple million a year, and your plane the same, $6m is really not going to cut it...or it could just be spiteful...

Why $200M?? What not just stay with $100M? etc...

Staying with 40M of 400 would not be acceptable because then the log marginal value of money is one level smaller. Would need to trade that jet for a turboprop, etc.

love can be ... bitter

There's a word for it - hubris.

Trump has some kind of airliner. I'd want a modified B2 for mine. Low profile. Know how much those cost? ;)

Fun fact, Trump bought his plane from Paul Allen. It's an aging gas guzzling Boeing 757, quite costly to fly.

Didnt know it was a hand me down from Paul Allen. Wow. That's funny given Trump's ego and sense of being Number 1.

It's a lot cheaper to install some gold plating on an aging airframe and pretend it's the best (it was built in 1991).

"install some gold plating ... pretend it's the best"

Is that Trump's trillion-dollar infrastructure plan in a nutshell?

At current oil prices it's likely that the decision pays off. He'll not fly the plane on a daily basis (post-election) and even many airlines are putting back new orders because old machines are overall cheaper at current prices. 20% less fuel for an expensive plane doesn't pay off at $50/bbl. And they probably fly at least 10x the distance of the Trump plane.

He didn't buy it at current oil prices or for rational reasons. It was an emotional buy in the past likely connected to ego. That it's a hand-me-down from a more successful businessman is where it gets funny for me. He finally topped him by riding in the more exclusive plane they all want.

Cool story, but he bought the plane from Allen in 2011 when oil prices were about double the price today (it averaged $111/bbl for the year).

Trump bought it not because of oil prices, but because it was huge (among other things, Allen used it as the team plane for the Seahawks).

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