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Comment by bookmarkable | Hacker News Reader

I really wish they would stop this reporting of who is the richest. It is lazy reporting and just recalculates by the minute based on stock values.

I'd rather see who has the highest liquidity. Who is holding on to cash they could, right this minute, spend, or stocks they could freely sell without tanking their own companies? Not Musk, not Zuck, not Jeff... at least, not likely.

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These people can personally borrow large amounts at such low interest that it’s effectively cash (if not 0% altogether) because a bank will value its relationship to these people that high (because they’re probably also the corporate bank for these companies).

I also think you’re extremely underestimating just how big these companies are. Jeff is liquidating ~1 billion a year just to fund his space company. Zuckerberg sold $280 million in 1 month in 2020 for walking around money.

No they can’t liquidate their entire position. They do have effectively almost unlimited financial reserves through multiple different channels. Said another way, they have $10s of billions in buying power even if they can’t access that entire wealth instantly as cash.

Can you expand on what are those other channels are?

I'm geniunely curious.

Of course, probably just by virtue of being "friends" with other high net-worth individuals you will have access to financial vehicles that allow them to buy/invest without cash but I don't really know exactly how.

Securities lending, OTC Swaps, and highly favorable margin rates (although the underlying economics of this are actually driven by the securites lending business)

You're right. But unfortunately, that is what feeds the media companies like the BBC with lazy articles like this one and glossing over details.

> I'd rather see who has the highest liquidity.

That would be interesting.

I agree with this. There's no way Musk or Bezos could liquidate all their shares and retain that value.

Best way to be worth $1m. Create a company with an idea, find an investor and sell 1% for $10,000 and on paper you're worth $990,000. That money doesn't exist, just the $10,000.

That's just a step away from making a bank believe the valuation and borrow you, which is how the billionaires do it.

Anyway it's more likely Putin at around $200b. You can be pretty sure his is not as heavily based on some bubble market cap.

https://foreignpolicyi.org/vladimir-putins-net-worth/

Saudi king?

I wonder if there's really a difference between the wealth of these ultra-rich people, besides a different number.

I.e. is there anything someone with 200B can do that someone with "only" 50B can't?

Putin and the Saudi king are probably in a different category as they don't "just" have ultra-wealth, but also political power (as heads of countries), military at their disposal, etc.

But, say, between Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, et al? (I know they don't have all their wealth in cash, which might change things a bit. But still)

Perhaps my imagination is lacking?

Edit: Also, I wonder how long before the ultra-rich start spending in truly extravagant projects, besides just bigger boats. I would imagine that by now someone besides Elon would be designing/building their own personal space station or something like that..

I personally don't get the Putin thing, at all (nor does it seem to be well sourced). Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, so of course the royal family can effectively use the nation's money as their bank account. But why and how would Putin amass hundreds of billions privately? A few billion is enough to meet any personal needs if he retires, and he currently has extreme political power. What would his holdings look like and how would they be so well hidden? The only way to reach a 10 or 11 figure net worth in the West is to own a lot of a public company.

The allegation is that he gets a cut of every business in Russia, or else.

I always liked Felix Dennis' metric that he said in his book about "lifetime spending totals". Which he claimed he won at (hundreds of millions) with the amount he spent on crack, wine, and hookers. Good times.

It's not lazy, it's highly interesting and people obviously love hearing about it, given how popular these stories are. Why care about liquidity? All of these hundred-billionaires can buy whatever they want anyway.

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