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Comment by rubicon33 | Hacker News Reader

It boggles my mind that this can happen.

I'm as pro-capitalist, pro-democracy, pro-make-a-fuck-ton-of-money as you can get... But even I am blown away by the wealth of some of the top billionaires.

Just think about the good that some of that could do for the country. Put it into science. Put it into social welfare systems. I don't care, put it into something!

I don't know what the solution is. The naive comment would be if you make above X billion everything else goes to some re-distribution fund... Obviously that will turn a lot of people off. But the point is, I just don't think anybody needs that kind of wealth.

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It doesn't boggles my mind at all, and I prefer Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates rather than more corrupted people.

"All the good you can do with this tons of money" Money at that scale is power. Bezos could give away a little each year to a science institut for example, but it would not work for short term stuff. You are not going to discover 1000x more stuff tomorrow by pouring billions in science. But for a long term goal yes Jeff Bezos could nudge more people getting into science if he wanted that. And that's what he might do for Space exploration / technologies (at least that's what he publicly says) and that is called... Investment.

So which investment is the best ? Who knows ? Who has the power to decide it ?

PS : not spending its own money is NOT throwing it away, it increase power purchase of all others people that uses the same money. Spending it increases money circulation and can cause inflation for example.

PS2 : "I just don't think anybody needs that kind of wealth" who said anyone was given money because he "needed" it ? We don't live in a communism utopia

> It doesn't boggles my mind at all, and I prefer Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates rather than more corrupted people.

What makes you think gates and bezos aren't corrupt?

Capitalism != corporatism.

Capitalism: pro competition, pro markets. Corporatism: anti-competition, Freedom Markets™.

Conflating the two is the biggest failing of modern leftists, such as myself. We can hardly criticize, mitigate our modern winner-takes-all economy until we stop defending it.

The way Bill gates and Jeff Bezos made money look closer to free markets principles than the way others top 500 great fortunes made it, no ?

I don't follow. Please explain.

The billionaire himself would rarely have a significant pile of cash lying around. Someone somewhere decided to value AMZN at $1,046.00.

They could've done something for the country. They could've put $1,046.00 into science. Cut a $1,046.00 check to a social welfare system. Yet they chose to exchange $1,046.00 for a single share of Amazon.com.

> Just think about the good that some of that could do for the country.

It already has. Bezos has created value for millions of people and businesses, generated huge tax receipts and completely revolutionarised entire industries.

There's the little issue of him having to liquidate his shares to put it into charity.

He could transfer shares to charities of his choice. No liquidation required of Bezos.

Universities, and I would guess charities as well, tend to liquidate their shares immediately to avoid conflicts of interest. Liquidating that many shares that fast would cause havoc in the markets.

This is why foundations exist; to hold accumulated wealth.

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/

http://tsffoundation.org/

http://www.bezosfamilyfoundation.org/ <- Jeff's parents, not Jeff

The Gate's foundation opening line:

> "we are impatient optimists working to reduce inequity"

Ironic considering that these foundations literally exist because of the consolidation of wealth and resources, aka, inequity.

And if the global trend of further wealth consolidation is any indicator, they're not succeeding.

Money begets money through investment, like gravity. In any random distribution of particles you'll eventually have black holes form with gravity.

People with this level of money are equivalent to kings or other monarchs. On some level it really isn't their money at the same time. When he dies, it's not his money any more.

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