I’m completely serious. Jeff Bezos’s billions mostly just represents the right to receive a share of Amazon’s profits in the future. If AMZN goes up, he gains billions in “wealth.” But to actually have any impact on the external world with that wealth, he has to either receive dividends, which are taxed as income, or realize the gain. Even if he takes a loan with Amazon stock as collateral, at some point he has to realize some gain somewhere to have cash to pay back the loan.

Even to the extent we should care how rich a billionaire gets, surely we only care to the extent they can actually do things with that wealth. Bloomberg has to realize gains to pay for his campaign ads. Bezos has to realize gains to buy WaPo (in his personal capacity). Why on earth should we care about illiquid wealth that can’t be used to do anything?