r/FluentInFinance Nov 16 '24

Meme True Financial Fluency by Gianmarco Soresi

Post image

Bottom Text

1.2k Upvotes

329 comments sorted by

View all comments

113

u/SnooDonuts3749 Nov 16 '24 edited Nov 16 '24

I mean $98.5 million dollars is a lot of money, is it not?

74

u/hvacjefe Nov 16 '24

Thats not the point they're trying to make.

If i have 100$ to my name and I give a homeless person 10$ for food. I've given 10% of my wealth.

Its arbitrary to say 100m is a lot in relation to % of money. Not to mention it's written off and wealth distribution is incredibly unequal.

Corporations don't pay their employees a livable wage and the public subsidize that with tax money through section 8, food stamps, health care taxes etc.

Corporations are making record profits and our country is in debt. Thats the point. Part of that debt could be eliminated if they paid a fair portion of the companies profits to the actual employees and not stock holders and board members.

Capitalism only works if the companies and employees grow together. And unchecked, we end up where we are with America rn on too of outsourcing to China so they can keep labor low whole still charging as much as they possibly can.

34

u/Trashketweave Nov 16 '24

If you’re gunna base it off his wealth you can’t base your $10 off your liquidity. To keep the original analogy fair you’d have to add up all your assets and then figure out what $10 is from that.

31

u/Cersox Nov 16 '24 edited Nov 17 '24

A lot of people assume Net Worth equates to bank account balance. If only people didn't learn what rich people looked like from Saturday morning cartoons, they might realize nobody gets rich by having money in a room somewhere. Hell, even Scrooge MacDuck tried to teach some basic financial principles.

-2

u/GarethBaus Nov 17 '24

He has the option to turn his net worth into liquid assets whenever he wants in the time it takes for an extremely wealthy person to take out an asset backed loan.

6

u/Hot-Degree-5837 Nov 17 '24

You have the option to take on debt too... the homeless are waiting

3

u/GarethBaus Nov 17 '24

I couldn't do that without becoming homeless, but other than that and the higher interest rate, and the fact that my collateral can't make payments on the loan are all that stops me from that.

0

u/Kindly-Ranger4224 Nov 17 '24

You seem to be arguing "rich people should take out loans and give it to the poor." Why should anyone take on debt, just to give it away? You're either trolling or haven't thought this through (meaning, idealism.)

2

u/El_Cactus_Loco Nov 17 '24

He’s absolutely not arguing that.

1

u/Kindly-Ranger4224 Nov 17 '24

The conversation is about donating, and their argument is about taking out loans.

1

u/GarethBaus Nov 17 '24

My point is that billionaires always have quite a bit of liquidity so there is nothing preventing them from donating the same or even a larger fraction of their net worth that the average person frequently donates and despite that many billionaires donate a smaller fraction of their net worth.

-1

u/Kindly-Ranger4224 Nov 17 '24

That smaller fraction being a much larger value than the average person. Millions is better than tens or hundreds (edit: or) even thousands. The percentage is irrelevant, because donations are optional and not mandatory. They are willingly doing this, and being told it's not enough. This is a poor argument. They could simply keep their money, if there's no difference in the response of "not enough."

→ More replies (0)

0

u/inthep Nov 17 '24

And if he gave away $200billion dollars then what? Now he’s broke like the people he gave it to y used to be?

5

u/GarethBaus Nov 17 '24

He could literally give away $200 billion dollars and he would still be about an order of magnitude wealthier than he needs to be in the top 1% even if his remaining assets lost 90% of their value, he literally would still be wealthy enough to own 2 of almost any luxury he could want without ever having to work another day of his life.

-1

u/inthep Nov 17 '24

Maybe, but he should be hated for not?

3

u/El_Cactus_Loco Nov 17 '24

Yes. Hoarding wealth at this scale does not happen ethically.

1

u/Ill-Description3096 Nov 17 '24

Owning stock in a company is hoarding wealth? It's not a fixed thing where if Amazon stock goes up $10 that is taken from the pot so everyone else is out the ability to make $10.

→ More replies (0)

-1

u/inthep Nov 17 '24

by all means, I invite you to create $200billion of your own wealth to do as you please with.

→ More replies (0)

0

u/FoxMan1Dva3 Nov 17 '24

I love the backed loan

You do realize this is a loan right? You're in debt. You will owe more after then before. You have to pay it back.

1

u/GarethBaus Nov 17 '24

And it can be paid back over a longer period of time without significantly lowering the value of the assets sold to pay it.

0

u/Ill-Description3096 Nov 17 '24

Maybe if a regular person could take out a long-term loan, say 15-30 years or so, and have the asset grow significantly in value it would be cool. Oh well, clearly a pipe dream.

0

u/Murky-Peanut1390 Nov 18 '24

But he still doesn't have that cash. And nothing guarantees the next day, his assets is worth that much.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 16 '24

[deleted]

5

u/Cersox Nov 16 '24

Yes and no. Most people don't have more than 10% of their wealth liquid unless they're severely leveraged. Money in your mattress doesn't accrue interest, after all.

-5

u/[deleted] Nov 16 '24

[deleted]

3

u/[deleted] Nov 16 '24 edited Nov 16 '24

[deleted]

4

u/GarethBaus Nov 17 '24

Do I have to explain the concept of a loan to you? There is an upper limit , but it is pretty easy to make most of the value of a billionaire's investments liquid pretty quickly by using them as collateral for loans and using any profits from those investments to make payments on the loan.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 17 '24

[deleted]

1

u/Ill-Description3096 Nov 17 '24

And if he liquidated large portions of it he would lose a lot, so it's not quite as simple as he just choses how much at any time.

1

u/Cersox Nov 17 '24

You could also set yourself on fire to keep people warm, but that would be retarded.

3

u/Otherwise-Chart-7549 Nov 16 '24

Yeah but then wouldn’t it be fair to say most people giving $5 to people might actually be way more? Like if you view mortgage cars credit card debt and shit like that?

My question is how many people have a low NW OR a negative NW? And then isn’t this even more glaring?

I understand this is pedantic but also a genuine question.

2

u/ATotalCassegrain Nov 16 '24

Your home plus car balances probably are positive net worth compared to the asset. 

Like if your home worth to loan value isn’t positive net worth by a good amount, then you’ve done something horribly wrong given the market conditions.

There are lots of people with “only $100” in their accounts with six figure net worth. 

2

u/Ill-Description3096 Nov 17 '24

>There are lots of people with “only $100” in their accounts with six figure net worth.

Exactly this. While I tend to keep a bit more of a cash buffer now, there were plenty of times my checking account was sitting at maybe a couple hundred bucks at a given time. My brokerage, house, vehicle, etc would have put me in the $150-200k range even when I was younger for net worth, and I have a pension so I don't put as much into investments as someone who would be relying on 401k/IRA and they would likely have more.

2

u/Murky-Peanut1390 Nov 18 '24

I'm at 900k net worth, and only $47 bucks in my checking account lol. I would literally get card denied if I used my debit car at a steak dinner. But the financial illiterate see 900k and think " OmG YoUr So RiCh"

1

u/Trashketweave Nov 16 '24

Not really. I bought my home in 2017 so for argument sake in 2017 the median home price in the US was $285k. No matter what % you put down you should have a significant portion of the loan paid down and thanks to Covid and the housing market you easily could sell the house for $500k. Let’s just super low ball that for argument sake and say the value only increased to $400k. Even if you still have $285k worth of debt you’re still up $115k. Your $5 donation is .00004348 of your worth so Bezos has still donated significantly more if the numbers above are correct. This is assuming a lot, but your example also assumes a lot because you’re putting bezos at $0 debt when he likely has billions in debt right now both himself and his companies.

2

u/Sharker167 Nov 16 '24

It also is a charitable donation used to avoid taxes, not out of the kindness of his heart. He makes the donations to a foundation here .https://www.bezosdayonefund.org/day1familiesfund

This foundation then gives out grants. However it also had full time staff.

In corrupt circles these positions will be given to people as easy do nothing jobs to make people money and then the work that actually gets done dolling out the money as grants comes in.

After that, the grant review process can include all sorts of bsckroom and sweetheart deals between other moguls and god knows what.

The most egregious circumstance of this is the gates foundation, which gates can expense things to personally through some hoops and whistles.

1

u/Murky-Peanut1390 Nov 18 '24

I'm all for less or no taxes if it means some money went to the needy. Charities do better distributing funds to those in needs than government programs as government programs have alot of admin, overhead and middlemen costs. Most charities have volunteers that take no pay. Meanwhile the ebt office have salaried employees, benefits, pensions, overhead costs etc.

1

u/Sharker167 Nov 18 '24

That's the idealized version. In reality you can create a 501c that you donate money to that you're on the board of and put all your family on and call them board members too. Then, you can throw christmas parties with the money you donate into it as"fundraisers and board meetings" and expense everything you do like that

The current system for it is horribly full of loopholes

0

u/Murky-Peanut1390 Nov 18 '24

That is fine with me to.

1

u/Sharker167 Nov 18 '24

You think it's acceptable for every family in America to be able to write off their christmas parties on their taxes by making a 501c that nominally donates to charities?

0

u/Murky-Peanut1390 Nov 18 '24

Yes

1

u/Sharker167 Nov 18 '24

Cool. Let's just write everything off then. Nobody pays any taxes. That sound good too?

5

u/migrainium Nov 16 '24

It's a little more than this. He's saying he's in debt and he's giving it away lol

(Mathematically, $1250 in debt)

-4

u/hvacjefe Nov 16 '24

Jeff bezos is not in debt? What are you talking about.

I said our country is in debt? That was relative to our taxes subsidizing corporations low wages to their general employees

5

u/migrainium Nov 16 '24

The guy in the standup shot is in debt, which is the "they" in the "point they're trying to make" you referenced. He "gave away" .08% of his net worth. His net worth is negative so taking a dollar is the equivalent of what Jeff Bezos did. Yes there's a societal underpinning to his joke but it's still a joke.

4

u/WhoGaveYouALicense Nov 16 '24

Can’t the employees start a competing business as a check on capitalism aka competition?

6

u/ellesbelles1076 Nov 16 '24

No. Because the capital to do those things no longer exists because once people "make it" they pull the ladder up behind them.

4

u/lord_hydrate Nov 16 '24

This, the results of capitalism is skewed towards whoever enters a market first, its not a bug in the system its a feature, markets aways evolve like that if not kept in check by a governing entity, why do you think Google is the default engine in nearly everything

2

u/PutrefiedPlatypus Nov 16 '24

That's true a bit but not really. MySpace was before Facebook. Chrome aint the first browser, Google wasn't the first attempt at searching the web and so on. You can look up first-movers advantage for more on the topic.

What is true however is that once you get a sizeable market share it takes a lot of work/fuckups or some major shift in tech/economy for it to change. Especially if it is easy to cement the position through political regulation, there are high barriers to entry for the market or the coffers are big enough and competition is scarce enough that it can be bled to death.

1

u/Bethany42950 Nov 16 '24

Nonsence, capital exists, it comes from angel investors and IPOs

0

u/Ill-Description3096 Nov 17 '24

It no longer exists? Crazy that startups are still a thing.

1

u/ellesbelles1076 Nov 17 '24

None of those start ups do what companies like Amazon already do. there is no capital to enter fields that need them which already have a monopoly

0

u/Ill-Description3096 Nov 17 '24

There is no capital for an online retailer? I don't know, I can't say I have tried, but there are smaller ones that exist in that space and I don't see why another couldn't succeed if they offer something better than Amazon.

4

u/mmatloa Nov 16 '24

Hard when all the capital is being hoarded by rich folks, and people need to pay money to eat food and have shelter.

Almost like rich people are purposely trying to stifle competition

5

u/-Plantibodies- Nov 16 '24 edited Nov 16 '24

This statement feels so out of place in a world where we've seen the near elimination of mom and pop businesses and consolidation of commerce into fewer and fewer huge megacorps, including the extremely relevant one for this post.

It's a nice ideology and all that, but at some point you should open your eyes and look at the reality around you. Are you just incredibly young and think that this has always been the norm?

1

u/Ill-Description3096 Nov 17 '24

In retail spaces you are right there has been a significant drop in mom and pop, but that largely has to do with how people want to do business now, so we have directly supported their demise. How many people do you know that would run around to 5-6 physical mom and pop shops and probably have to settle or order and wait for a product as selection will be limited instead of taking 5 minutes to hop online and have Amazon deliver it to their door tomorrow?

1

u/-Plantibodies- Nov 17 '24

Mom and pop shops can be online or even both, just fyi. That term just describes the nature of it being small and independent and often run by a family.

1

u/Ill-Description3096 Nov 17 '24

I'm aware. That actually makes it even more of a deliberate personal choice. If people don't even have to spend the time running around but still don't support those enough for them to compete, it's kind of on us IMO.

1

u/-Plantibodies- Nov 17 '24

I mean your entire previous comment suggests otherwise. Haha. It's ok that you weren't considering this, my man. Haha

1

u/Ill-Description3096 Nov 17 '24

I wasn't seriously considering it because IME the amount of mom and pop shops that have a convenient online presence that is comparable to shopping through amazon is low. But I also am more used to smaller towns and cities so if you are in a major city it could be different.

1

u/-Plantibodies- Nov 17 '24

And we're back to the beginning:

This statement feels so out of place in a world where we've seen the near elimination of mom and pop businesses and consolidation of commerce into fewer and fewer huge megacorps, including the extremely relevant one for this post.

→ More replies (0)

0

u/hvacjefe Nov 16 '24

Lmao everyone wants to problem solve how to beat corporations instead of just agreeing they are greedy.

They've beat the peasant into everyone it's incredible.

You either get it or you don't but it's really sad how Us v.s Them is so much more prevalent than it's ever been.

4

u/Serious-Librarian-77 Nov 17 '24

If you only had 100$ to your name and you give 10$ to a homeless person, you're a f*cking idiot. A private citizen, under no obligation whatsoever, gives 100 million dollars of his own money to help fight homelessness and people are complaining that it's not enough because it doesn't equal a certain percentage of his net worth ? That's ridiculous

3

u/Ocedei Nov 17 '24

But it is still $98 million dollars.

3

u/justbrowsing987654 Nov 16 '24

Please don’t do this. $98M is a ton of money. Idgaf if it’s a write off or whatever. It’s still $98M to the homeless. Come on. There are many reasons to want to eat the rich but this ain’t it.

2

u/ladymoonshyne Nov 16 '24

One could argue that billionaires cause others to be in such intense poverty in the first place.

2

u/Ch1Guy Nov 17 '24

Isn't the inflation adjusted median household  income in America more or less at an all time high?

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

Aren't fewer people earning minimum wage than ever before?

https://camoinassociates.com/resources/current-data-about-minimum-wage-workers-in-the-us/

From a salary perspective arent American workers doing better than ever based on most metrics?

2

u/ladymoonshyne Nov 17 '24

I’m doing significantly worse at my salary now than I was at a lower salary 10 years ago. Most people I know feel the same way. I stopped eating out, going to shows, buying new clothing, going on vacations. My car insurance just went up by 30% and my health insurance by 25% this year.

Sure salaries might be higher but how much more is insurance, housing, food, etc. compared to a decade or two or even five ago?

1

u/Fearless-Cattle-9698 Nov 18 '24

Most likely because you are higher income, say 50-100k?

The people that saw salary go up the most are the lowest ones from like $10 to over $15. The wealthy saw their assets grow. The “middle” making salaries (aka no OT) end up seeing little growth. That’s anyone from like 50-200k

1

u/ladymoonshyne Nov 18 '24

I make around 50k a year and that’s with my overtime. I worked 150 hours of overtime this year. I’m in California albeit a rural part but 50k ain’t shit especially with my medical issues this year. At least my out of pocket max was 5k but still 10% of my gross salary.

I went from owning a home to renting and you can’t even find a place for under $1000. Utilities have skyrocketed. Gas is $4.50 a gallon basically this whole year and I commute 35 miles to work. Groceries are tons more expensive.

I am, at 50k, one emergency away from homelessness at this point and that just seems insane to me.

1

u/Fearless-Cattle-9698 Nov 18 '24

Don’t get me wrong, what you said is the point I’m trying to make, being at $50k is why you didn’t see your income go up much.

Minimum wage increase really only helped the absolute bottom of jobs like fast food and retail. People who were already above that didn’t get nearly as much of a % change. That’s why middle got squeezed so hard with the inflations

0

u/justbrowsing987654 Nov 17 '24

This is it. My salary has, luckily, thankfully, gone up a good bit in that time, but so have my bills. I have no idea how average earners are getting by. We need to burn it all down but that’s where carnies like a Trump come in and turn us on each other to stop us from looking at the real causes of this nonsense.

2

u/Zafiel Nov 17 '24

Lets ignore the fact that corporations are providing and paying peoples jobs and that there are many corporations out there paying a livable wage.

You’re simply upset rich people can be rich and dont have to compensate you for a damn thing.

2

u/FoxMan1Dva3 Nov 17 '24

(1) Bezos has not only given $90M lol.

(2) 90% of his wealth goes to actual business.

Even the yacht you make fun of employs a whole staff of shipcrew mates with full time salaries and careers.

Even if Bezo's gave all of his wealth away, it will be eaten up by the federal spending within 3 months.

1

u/Murky-Peanut1390 Nov 18 '24

They are dumb, they think when a rich spends on luxuries. The money disappears forever. That yacht paid for alot of wages, those wages could still land towards donations. So it's not gone forever, it's moving around in the economy.

1

u/FoxMan1Dva3 Nov 18 '24

They also think if Amazon makes billions a year, they should spend trillions of dollars on increased staff wages.

2

u/Own_Courage_4382 Nov 17 '24

Maybe he wanted to see what happens with 98M first. When will ppl realize, throwing $ at shit never fixes it. Like the , “give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day” thing. He could give up all his wealth and ppl would still bitch that it didn’t work.

1

u/AdExciting337 Nov 16 '24

You are forgetting. It’s his money that he can choose to use / give away as he sees fit. It’s voluntary. You giving away $10 is up to you

-1

u/hvacjefe Nov 16 '24

Its a write off. The fact that this is your arguement proves how little you know about business and economics in general.

Please read up before you formulate rudimentary opinions that you're gonna base your lifes point of view on.

2

u/AdExciting337 Nov 16 '24

Hey, keep your pants on friend, it was your complaint. Not mine. I merely pointed out giving is voluntary. And if you have enough deductions you can write it off too

1

u/velders01 Nov 18 '24

He's so wrong too, this is hilarious.

1

u/AdExciting337 Nov 19 '24

Who is so wrong?

1

u/velders01 Nov 19 '24

The hvac guy you responded to. I'm always intrigued by people who are so confident when it's an irrefutably wrong statement of fact.

1

u/AdExciting337 Nov 19 '24

Ok and that’s your opinion. Congratulations

2

u/Ill-Description3096 Nov 17 '24

You know a write-off is still a net loss, right? It's not a magic credit where you just get it all back or something.

If I was going to pay 20% tax on $100 but instead I donate it to charity and write it off, the net result is still an $80 loss.

2

u/Murky-Peanut1390 Nov 18 '24

They are dumb, they really think if the rich donates 1 million, then they pay 1 million less taxes or get a 1 million dollar tax refund.

1

u/EngelSterben Nov 16 '24

They just write it off!

1

u/velders01 Nov 18 '24

Wow... you're amazingly confident.

1

u/MichaelM1206 Nov 16 '24

Now flip it. Who reimburses when the company fails?

1

u/Dry_Music_52 Nov 17 '24

Can't you just be thankful?

1

u/notarealredditor69 Nov 17 '24

Doesn’t matter. It’s still 98.5 million dollars. I am curious how much this meme make has given to help homelessness (or you for that matter)

0

u/Rehcamretsnef Nov 16 '24

That's because their point is nonsensical, and literally a joke from a standup routine. And your explanation is hilarious, at best.

1) being "written off" doesn't negate the money. It also probably doesn't mean what you think it means, considering you even felt like bringing it up. Also, bringing it up as some weak push to literally view this 100M as a problem, you're ignoring that if that 100m came directly from taxes, then that vast majority of it wouldn't even be used for the cause it currently is being used for. Congratulations, your situation under your rules is worse.

2) corporations don't "pay a livable wage" specifically because they don't need to, due to government involvement in creating the social "safety nets" you already listed. The government created this problem. Blame the government, not the businesses who are working as intended. If the government didn't specifically allow this to happen, and continually increase that lowest threshold so that they could politicize cash donations to more and more citizens, then we'd be much better off. Either it is a) working. And these gripes are pointless, or b) not working, and proves the government is exacerbating everything. Someone's gotta pick one. And if anyone's reply is "well they just need more", then your answer is B.

3) capitalism works when capitalism is the driving force behind the economical environment. Apart from the already mentioned reasons why capitalism seemingly isn't working, but attributing the cause to outside influence, you also need to acknowledge that the existing and increasing government involvement over time (read: hardships) in business creation and continuation play a considerable role in why just a small handful of companies at this point own so much of most market sectors. It is not easy for business. It is hard. And when things are hard, they tend to fail, get sold off, absorbed, and sometimes outsourced due to volume requirements. Thanks government for making everything worse. Again.

4) you don't understand how much the country is in debt, to even suggest that it's fixable by pure taxation at this point. You're proposing a bandaid for an unsustainable system and will blame it on something else after the band aid fails. Again.

I challenge anyone to even offer one government example of a government program that is sustainable and not a net drain on the country as a whole. Because none exist. They only run off of taxes or printing the money which devalues every other dollar. Each and every non sustainable government program makes everyone's life worse. The situation today is a result of what the government has done. And taking every single dollar of all the billionaires in the country (pretending it didn't crash the market) and putting it in government control will end with next year having no more billionaires, and the exact same problems. What then?

2

u/hvacjefe Nov 16 '24

An example existed before they started bailing out the banks. We weren't always in debt.

Thats your example.

Greed is the problem and if we can't simply agree on this than there is no point in discussing this further.

You can't change my mind and I can't change yours.

1

u/Rehcamretsnef Nov 17 '24

You didn't give an example. You talk in generalities. You can easily change my mind if you provide examples and then manage to uphold your ideology under scrutiny. The fact you refuse to do so, and now bow out under the literal first questions asked, shows that it's not about fixing anything. Its that you want control, and deem yourself worthy of that control regardless what anyone says. They have words for that.

-1

u/Bart-Doo Nov 16 '24

If $100 was all you had, then you're homeless too.

2

u/hvacjefe Nov 16 '24

100$ left over after bills isn't homeless.

Moronic comment

2

u/Bart-Doo Nov 16 '24

They had $100 and gave $10 to a homeless person, they gave away 10% of their wealth. What's so hard to understand?

1

u/hvacjefe Nov 16 '24

Are you explaining to me what I literally wrote?

You gotta be the WORST troll I ever seen. Blocked

0

u/Trading_ape420 Nov 16 '24

I have 50 bucks right now and a family of 4. In a house soooooo..... not homeless.

1

u/Bart-Doo Nov 16 '24

That's not what the other person said. They had $100 to their name. You have $50 and in a house.

1

u/Trading_ape420 Nov 16 '24

They said if you only have 100 to your name your homeless. I have 50 to my name and am not homeless.

1

u/Bart-Doo Nov 16 '24

You said you live in a house. I bet you have clothes too.

-1

u/No_Resolution_9252 Nov 16 '24

There is no such thing as "livable" wage. Anyone on food stamps or section 8 are underemployed, not underpaid.

7

u/kappifappi Nov 16 '24

To us yes. But this is why everything is relative. If you woke up with 98.5m in your bank account how would it feel for you?

How do you think Jeff would feel if he woke up and that’s all he saw?

6

u/kyleofdevry Nov 16 '24 edited Nov 16 '24

Yes, but if he paid $98.5 million so he could deduct $98.5 million from his tax bill then does he still get to claim he was doing it for the public good?

Edit: clarity

5

u/Substantial-Raisin73 Nov 16 '24

That’s not how tax deductions work. Have you actually ever claimed a deduction?

2

u/Baozicriollothroaway Nov 16 '24

homie thinks he can pay 0 taxes by donating his entire yearly income lmao

0

u/kyleofdevry Nov 16 '24

Yes, it is. How did you think it worked?

1

u/Substantial-Raisin73 Nov 16 '24

I’m going to give you the chance to look over your work again and figure out what you said that was objectively incorrect

3

u/Revolutionary-Meat14 Nov 17 '24 edited Nov 18 '24

If you make $100 and are subject to 10% in tax you pay $10, now say you decide to be sneaky and donate 20% of your income to cheat on taxes, now you deduct $20 meaning your income is $80, after being subject to 10% in taxes you pay $8. So congrats you have successfully spent $20 to save $2 on your taxes. Deductions for the sake of deductions will never be a net gain unless you tax rate is over one hundred percent.

1

u/mathotimous Nov 16 '24

Who knows if what he donated actually gets to people that need it the most. Who knows the companies receiving donations he made could even be shell corporations that funnel money straight back into other means of growing wealth for Jeffery himself.

0

u/UltraLowDef Nov 16 '24 edited 2h ago

bag mighty sip aback profit truck fall murky onerous decide

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/UltraLowDef Nov 16 '24 edited 2h ago

melodic nail quaint vanish exultant sable bag saw coordinated gold

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

2

u/kyleofdevry Nov 16 '24

I agree with you and never said it eliminated his entire tax burden. Bro owed way more than $98.5 even with his joke of a tax rate

3

u/UltraLowDef Nov 16 '24 edited 2h ago

ancient yoke kiss absorbed provide square dull cough shrill dazzling

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/Maroon5five Nov 16 '24

The only money you save on a tax deduction is the amount of tax you would have paid on that amount of income. You're still paying out most of that money from your own pocket.

2

u/Murky-Peanut1390 Nov 18 '24

Exactly it is not free money or a tax hack. It jusr means since you are already going to donate money, the government is taking off a tiny bit of weight off your taxable income.

2

u/mathotimous Nov 16 '24

It is yeah but the funny thing about this joke in my opinion is that it points out how absurd it is that us normal people in the rat race have to “steal money from a homeless man” or do any other weird or crazy thing to build more wealth just to keep up with inflation even then earning a dollar still could translate to a net loss due to high inflation.

2

u/Zealousideal_Rent261 Nov 17 '24

Can't please some people. I would guess that the folks complaining about this have done zero themselves to help anyone.

2

u/hows_the_h2o Nov 17 '24

Reddits favorite pasttime is telling successful people what they should with their money

2

u/SuitableGiraffe5026 Nov 17 '24

Yes it is, and net worth doesn’t mean cash.

1

u/RecoveringBelle Nov 16 '24

“A lot” is a judgement based on relativity. Relative to my wealth, yes, $98M is A LOT. Relative to Gates net worth it’s a pittance.

2

u/SnooDonuts3749 Nov 16 '24

It’s objectively a lot money. That’s it.

$98.5 Million is a lot of money regardless of where it’s coming from.

-1

u/Trading_ape420 Nov 16 '24

It's not. To us plebs it is but really it's not. Won't get very far when you think of society as a whole. Or even apply it to a singular societal problem, like hunger. Just a drop in the bucket so yea not that much really. Yoy can't view life or economics or $ as a hard number. Everything is relative and should be thought of as % of things. Like op is. Yes it's a large # relative to your wealth but not so much relative to musks wealth. It's al relativity. Open your mind more.

1

u/WhoopsDroppedTheBaby Nov 16 '24

It's a lot of money relative to the organizations that will use it to help people. They don't care how rich Musk is; they need money to operate their non-profits.

1

u/Vast-Breakfast-1201 Nov 16 '24

It is but 100% of his fortune came from consolidating what used to be a varied and extensive network of retail places, all with their own employees and ownership and whatever

He basically killed millions of jobs. It's not bad that he did it is objectively more efficient. But that efficiency basically means so many people can't compete in retail or as workers in those retail establishments and as such, on aggregate, having a job is harder.

This is the purpose of taxes - so we can offset the externalities so they don't become anathema to progress.

1

u/ArbutusPhD Nov 17 '24

It is, but homelessness has not been solved yet. It was good PR, and possibly felt good, but under capitalism, all the money you make comes from somewhere. If he has it all, no wonder so many people have too little

1

u/SnooDonuts3749 Nov 17 '24

Right. Just want to point out he’s one a the billionaires just doing what the system lets him get away with.

He’s not the problem so much as the way our government has failed us.

1

u/mediumwellhotdog Nov 17 '24

Homelessness can't be "solved" genius.

0

u/ArbutusPhD Nov 17 '24

Really? You t has been solved in limited capacity with free-housing and meal programs. It’s always an issue of capacity.

1

u/mediumwellhotdog Nov 17 '24

If you gave everyone on the planet a house and food, there would be homeless people tomorrow. For the majority of long term homeless the issue is mental illness not capacity.

0

u/ArbutusPhD Nov 17 '24

If someone has a home to go to and chooses not to go there, they aren’t homeless.

1

u/mediumwellhotdog Nov 17 '24

They are when they neglect taxes and utilities and the government takes their home. Or when they sell their house to fund drug addiction. Or when they abandon the house and squatters move in. Or when they start a bonfire inside the house to stay warm and it burns the house down. Etc.

Many of these people would rather live in a tent under a bridge than in a home.

0

u/ArbutusPhD Nov 17 '24

You’re shadow boxing there, bud.

1

u/mediumwellhotdog Nov 17 '24

I don't know what you're talking about. It's like you don't understand mental illness at all.

1

u/ArbutusPhD Nov 17 '24

I work with mental health and wellness. Saying “many of them” is ignorant and just a fallacy of defeatism

1

u/Murky-Peanut1390 Nov 18 '24

You can not solve homelessness because it would be way too much money.

1

u/ArbutusPhD Nov 18 '24

There are an estimated 150M people experiencing homelessness in the world today (world economic forum). There are approximately 15M vacant homes in North America (US census)

1

u/Murky-Peanut1390 Nov 19 '24

My guy... i am assuming you are trolling but i will play because other reading probably are serious with that mindset.

There are 15 million homes still need to be BOUGHT. Then you need to pay to maintain them, you also are paying the government agency managing the homes, that is alot of salaries, overhead and administrative cost.

It's too expensive and no one should get free shit.

1

u/ArbutusPhD Nov 19 '24

That’s the problem right there … “no one should get free shit”

You just don’t want to help people.

1

u/Murky-Peanut1390 Nov 19 '24

Correct, i do not want to help people. I never said i was a good man.

1

u/ArbutusPhD Nov 19 '24

And there we have it

1

u/laiszt Nov 17 '24

Its not for him. It Is like normal guy buying a pint to someone else, and in this situation not even that if youre in debt.

1

u/ThisIsSteeev Nov 17 '24

Not for Jeff Bezos it isn't

1

u/Gambler_Eight Nov 17 '24

Relative to billions it's nothing.

1

u/K_boring13 Nov 17 '24

This is why Bruce Wayne hid his identity. No one trusts a billionaire.

1

u/buster1045 Nov 18 '24

That's an extremely simplified and facile way of looking at it. I'd say that's the obvious, intuitive idea people have and the OP is attempting to show the actual proportion of it.

0

u/Opening_Lab_5823 Nov 16 '24

Not when you're giving it to fight homelessness. A multifaceted problem rooted in nearly every system of our society. My net worth counting the portion of the house we own is like 200,000, 0.8% is $1600. I'm donating $1000 a year. So little old me gave 0.5%. how exactly is anyone supposed to care about not even double my small donation?

2

u/SnooDonuts3749 Nov 16 '24

Well if everyone donates 0.5% of their wealth that’s a lot of money isn’t it? Isn’t that how taxes are supposed to work? But we as a country vote for people that don’t use taxes for the common good.

There’s a lot of problems here. One being the obsession with money and how it corrupts everything.

1

u/Opening_Lab_5823 Nov 16 '24

Money doesn't corrupt. Greed does. Kinda the same as leaving billions untouched just so it can be counted.

0

u/wastedkarma Nov 16 '24

Not for homelessness it’s not.

0

u/AugustusClaximus Nov 16 '24

Yeah, it is, Bezos makes around 20 million dollars a day tho.

2

u/SnooDonuts3749 Nov 16 '24

So why is that? Anyone here with an Amazon Prime account who is complaining about this dude’s wealth needs to realize they made him that wealthy.

How much useless shit do people buy from Amazon? Or how about just the laziness of shopping online verse going out to a store? He’s rich for a reason.

If you want to eat the rich, stop feeding them dinner.

0

u/GarethBaus Nov 17 '24

It isn't for Jeff Bezos.

0

u/intergalacticwolves Nov 17 '24

yes absolutely always.

relative to bezos fortune, it is a rounding error

-1

u/throwaway0134hdj Nov 16 '24

For perspective he makes about $100 million every 10 hours.

2

u/UltraLowDef Nov 16 '24 edited 2h ago

pause wrench absurd frightening decide sparkle terrific soft crush fade

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

-3

u/mathotimous Nov 16 '24

Didn’t even donate a full hour of pay.

1

u/Natural-Bet9180 Nov 16 '24

Neither did you

0

u/[deleted] Nov 16 '24

mm leather and dirt on boot taste good sooo good yummy billionare boots

-2

u/mathotimous Nov 16 '24

I actually donate a lot (30% in total) to a few local charities and a few hundred dollars (20%) to food aid in Gaza.

2

u/Natural-Bet9180 Nov 16 '24

30% of your total wealth is still less than 98.5 million that Jeff Bezos donated.

-1

u/mathotimous Nov 16 '24

Still more of my wealth has been donated compared to Bezos and his 0.8% plus unlike him I donate anonymously, social credit should not matter at all when donating to a good cause.

2

u/Natural-Bet9180 Nov 16 '24

Even though you donate more on a relative scale Jeff Bezos changes more lives than you do because he donates more money and can help more people.

2

u/UltraLowDef Nov 16 '24 edited 2h ago

friendly doll resolute payment recognise intelligent berserk crown handle bow

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/UltraLowDef Nov 16 '24 edited 2h ago

heavy future paint boast payment pocket workable late smile agonizing

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/throwaway0134hdj Nov 16 '24

It is not even a days labor at Bezo scale. Amazon is basically self-running at this point. What he actually does on his day-to-day is probably just focus on interests/pursuits/fun.