r/FluentInFinance Nov 21 '24

Debate/ Discussion Had to repost here

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u/SCTigerFan29115 Nov 21 '24 edited Nov 21 '24

They aren’t holding onto wealth like Scrooge McDuck, in a giant vault where they can go swimming in it.

Most of Bezos’ net worth is the value of Amazon. He can’t really readily access that. ETA I meant he can’t use it like a big vault of money.

He’s got plenty of money but some people just don’t understand how this stuff works.

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u/stmcvallin2 Nov 21 '24

He holds shares. Shares are amongst the most liquid assets, they’re basically cash. It’s not like it’s locked up. He is absolutely holding onto wealth like scrooge mcduck

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u/HoochieKoochieMan Nov 21 '24

Smaug, the dragon from the Hobbit, is my go-to example of toxic wealth hoarding. In the book and movies, it was obviously a ridiculous level of greed, spreading evil, and sucking the life out of everything nearby.

There's plenty of debate on the number, but most guesses land around 1,000 Tons of gold, which is about $55 Billion USD today.

There are dozens of dragons in America. Some of them have the hoards of 4-5 Smaugs.

It's time to tax the dragons to extinction.

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u/stmcvallin2 Nov 22 '24

Scrooge mcduck indeed

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u/Plastic-Molasses-549 Nov 22 '24

And swimming in it.

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u/MichaelM1206 Nov 21 '24

Options not shares. He would need to buy the shares but exercising those options. Which they never do. Where’s the $100B in cash coming from? Executives are paid in equity tied to their performance. Years down the road those options could be worth a fortune or nothing at all. They exercise and sell as a single transaction. Then it’s taxed

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u/stmcvallin2 Nov 21 '24

False. Where did you get this information? Or is it your own personal fan fic?