Is it possible that the people figuring up "wealth" for these articles have multiple reasons to exaggerate the totals? Perhaps outweighing their impulses towards scientific and journalistic credibility?
Let’s assume that the article is so off base that it literally got everything wrong by doubling the true value in their estimates which is a completely ludicrous assumption.
This does almost nothing to that graph. The wealth gap is still completely out of this world.
Of course, if someone like Elon liquidated his TSLA holdings he'd be worth nowhere near the estimate. I don't think it matters though, because he can use those holdings as leverage for cash that makes him effectively as liquid as his estimated net worth.
Can the other 99%?
Let's say I had all the same holdings as Musk or Bezos, just in much much lower amounts, proportionate to the difference of our net worth.
Use Amazon stock as an example. If Bezos indicates a desire to liquidate his Amazon holdings he has to file paperwork with SEC, and the very act of him selling his stock would impact the price downward. People wondering if he knows something would also start selling their shares, and just the sheer volume would take hours or even days to unload.
If I wanted to divest my proportion of AMZN I would click a few buttons in an online portal. 10 seconds later, my stock would be sold off at the then-current price, and I'd have a cash balance in my account. In the typical hourly trading volume of AMZN my transaction wouldn't even stand out.
Even if my entire net worth, and the net worth of all my closest friends was in AMZN, we could sell it for market price and the transactions would be settled in a few seconds. Nobody would even notice.
This amount of assets cannot meaningfully move the market equilibrium, so the person will realistically sell all of it for 100% of what it's worth, with say a 2% margin of error.
The higher up you go in wealth, the less it is the case. But it's not black and white, just a scale.
Would the richest people WANT to liquidate holdings for the value that Forbes estimates their worth at? I doubt it.
The marginal value of millions of dollars to these billionaires' lives is close to zero.
However, those holdings constitute control and power over important institutions at the heart of the power structures of the most powerful country on earth.
I don't care about how much money other people have. But I do care about how much control other people have.
Ergo, I am much more concerned about the power-distribution effect of a few people controlling large stakes in institutions significant to the operation of society, than I am about the estimated dollar value of their stake.
If anything, the hypothetical value of these assets under-estimates the amount of social power for which those dollars are a proxy.
There's a reason billionaires buy money-losing newspapers and social networks.
my only conclusion from TFA is "someone has emitted some horseshit with chunks of numbers in it"
your point is far more central to the discussion i feel the people compiling the figures wanted to spark. And while its a worthy argument i hafta say "why didn't they put it in those terms, then?"
Thank you; that's very kind.
> your point is far more central to the discussion i feel the people compiling the figures wanted to spark.
I tend to agree.
> And while its a worthy argument i hafta say "why didn't they put it in those terms, then?"
Writing is difficult. Persuasive writing is even more difficult. And persuasive writing to a large and undefined audience, in a way that will make that entire audience happy, is basically impossible.
This is not a serious argument. You're telling me that if shareholders see a founder divest entirely from their companies, they aren't going to take that as a bad signal, and also choose to divest? Bullshit. The size of the total market is completely irrelevant.
But you know, if this was a serious argument, the author would've been able to have it published SOMEWHERE and it wouldn't just be a gist
Don't know why I wasted my time clicking that link. I knew it would be what it was.
ad hominem and appeal to authority fallacy
> Don't know why I wasted my time clicking that link. I knew it would be what it was.
If you already had your mind made up, why did you bother clicking and reading the link?
Other investors would choose to divest because ownership of those shares signals control and power over those institutions. Someone with a massive set of shares selling their stakes signals some lack of confidence, perhaps. But more importantly, it injects serious uncertainty and risk into the future of the organization. Who will buy those shares? How will they vote? Will there be power stuggles on the board? How will that filter into the effectiveness of executives, and down from there? Uncertainty and risk come at a premium. Redistributing ownership of a huge institution introduces at least uncertainty and probably risk. Therefore, stock price goes down.
But there's an important corollary to that. This isn't just a graph of how wealth is distributed. It's also -- perhaps primarily, to your point -- a graph of how power over other people is distributed.
I don't particularly care about how money is distributed; call me selfish or lazy or stupid, but I have plenty of money to live my relatively simple life in the countryside as I wish, and that's enough for me.
But I do care deeply about how power over me and others is distributed.
When I look at this graph, I see the consolidation of power in the hands of the few, and in that I see a threat to my freedoms and way of life, regardless of whether I have enough cash to sustain myself indefinitely.
I don't think the author was trying to argue what would happen if the assets were to be sold, what they were arguing is the downplaying of billionaires wealth, largely people's belief that the extent of the wealth is exaggerated because it's just "on paper".
I posted this link to respond to this assertion:
> Is it possible that the people figuring up "wealth" for these articles have multiple reasons to exaggerate the totals