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[-] blitzen@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 month ago

I cannot take seriously any claim of the ultra wealthy “making” x number of dollars per minute/hour/day. That’s just not how wealth works.

[-] Randomocity@sh.itjust.works 20 points 1 month ago

I agree entirely. The rich don't "make" any money. They siphon it from the poor.

[-] jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago

if I had a pile of gold, it would increase in value without taking from anyone. Generalized statements don't help your agenda when it's generalizing hatred towards others.

[-] oo1@lemmings.world 7 points 1 month ago

I don't get it. If you have a pile of gold and there are no other people involved, how does its value change?

[-] jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago

the supply of gold is relatively unchanging (new mines are rarely built) but the demand increases

[-] oo1@lemmings.world 3 points 1 month ago

OK. So more people are buying it and they are paying more. How can they afford to do this?

[-] jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 month ago

I could say the same about the environmental impact of the poor buying small volume products with more packaging because they don't (probably "can't") save

[-] oo1@lemmings.world 1 points 1 month ago

now i really don't get it. Your gold is increasing in value because poor people like packaging?

i think you're maybe geoff bezos, except that i suspect a very small amount of his (your) assets are in gold.

[-] PenguinMage@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago

This is whats called a breakdown... if their yearly income is X, then you can find out what their hourly and daily incomes are through rather basic math.

[-] blitzen@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Most of these memes simply take a net worth a divide it by 365 or whatever.

The ultra wealthy don’t have a set yearly income in the same way we all do.

[-] Olgratin_Magmatoe@slrpnk.net 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I'm sure explaining the shell game the rich play is really comforting and helpful for the starving masses. /s

[-] forrgott@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 1 month ago

Umm, what? That's exactly how it works.

That's not what you were told, sure. Maybe time to shed some of that naivete, though.

[-] blitzen@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I don’t mean it as acceptance of the massive wealth disparity, about which I agree fully.

I meant that “per hour” implies a wage paid by somebody/ some company, and the uber wealthy don’t really collect a wage.

It’s fair enough to say that a person’s wealth went up *x *last year, or y the year before that. But whatever the increase (or decrease) in net worth was, it’s not dependent on the number of hours they worked in the same way it does with a wage.

[-] Appleseuss@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

I get it, you have no concept of economics and refuse to learn.

[-] jago@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

That’s just not how wealth works.

Would you expand on that, in the context of previous replies that point out that this is meant as a simplified analogy of the value of one's own time?

How does wealth work? This is not a loaded question.

[-] blitzen@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 month ago

I think my point isn’t being well taken, or perhaps I phrased it incorrectly. I certainly agree with the sentiment that wealth disparity is maybe the biggest problem we face.

The vast vast vast majority of the wealth of the uber wealthy come from the assets they own. If they can be said to “make” money over the course of the year, it’s as a result of those assets increasing in value and not directly tied to the “work” they put in.

My problem with these comparisons are two-fold. One, they usually conflate an individuals net worth with income. If Elon has 365 billion dollars, he doesn’t “make” 1 billion per day. Two, phrasing it as “making” “per hour” implies their income is tied to the hours they work, and that’s just not true. It puts value on their labor I think isn’t justified.

[-] moriquende@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

it's a good approximate. the reason their wealth score increases is because there is more wealth in the world being generated to go around. Disproportionately, it's landing on their already obscene pile, instead of being fairly distributed. And fairly doesn't necessarily mean everyone gets the same, but everyone actually profits from it.

[-] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago

If I said: “Same

They must be lying by a factor of 10, no! A factor of 100! Orders of magnitude!”

Ah now in this case it don’t matter much, number is still beyond our ability to intensely grok it

Epic profits should get taxpayers off the hook every time. That’s a wildly leftist and a wildly MAGA take!

this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2025
1037 points (100.0% liked)

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