Do you know what the difference is between a millionaire and a billionaire? About a billion.
A million seconds is 11.574 days, a billion seconds is 31.7 years
I’m saving this one 👍
I always think it as the difference between a nice vacation and a whole generation.
Do you know what the difference is between a thousand and a million? About a million.
It’s almost as if there’s a pattern in how we name large numbers 🤔🤔🤔
The point is that 1 million is a big number (or a lot of money), as is 1 billion. But 1 billion is so big, it makes 1 million seem small by comparison. 1 thousand is not a big number.
Many years ago, I used to work in infosec. One of my employer’s clients was a big and famous brand well-established in the luxury sector. One day, a colleague of mine was sent to test their POS. Inside one, he found a single transaction for around 6M € from a credit card swipe. It wasn’t a payment made from a bank transfer or a check, just a single credit card swipe! At the time, I couldn’t even dream a card with such a credit allowance would exist. I had a pretty good living then, with money for the rent, daily expenses, and even some savings. Still, for an instant, I remember feeling like a poor child living in a house made of mud.
When there are so many that don’t have their needs met this is pretty disgusting
I agree. Seeing stuff like that and how, more often than not, the clients treated their employees and consultants was just bad for the soul. In such contexts, you understand why workers aren’t called people but “resources.” In the end, I got burned out and quit the job.
It’s interesting that the wealth bar of the 400 richest Americans is about 6-times as long as the author needs to say some interesting points.
I’d argue that’s another good argument for seizing their assets and making them pay for their asshole behaviour.
The owner’s deluded peasants would never allow that.
Honestly, probably the only way to save the Environment and Democracy. Too much power in the hands of the few leads to perpetual effective monarchy. It’s why the Founding Fathers were against large amounts of inherited wealth, particularly inherited wealth that creates dynasties in perpetuity.
I know people don’t like the Founding Fathers that much lately, and I see why, but conservatives really don’t understand them, and deliberately misrepresent them, because not doing so would undercut all conservative “policies”.
World’s a mess because of inequality and the concentration of almost all wealth and power into the hands of a small amount of sociopaths. I honestly think the only way to solve this permanently is to cap the amount of wealth and power any individual or family can have.
Now This is Doom Scrolling.
I’ve lost the will to live. Why do this place even exist?
i feel you, but i keep living just in case this ever changes. getting a job is unironically one of the best things i did for my mental health. helps paying for my hobbies too, still not enough to move out though. my solution is to endure and wait until i can sustain living on my own.
I don’t see the hope you see, unfortunately.
it’s hard, i lie in bed every evening unable to sleep thinking about how everything’s rigged against me. seeing no reason to live is perfectly rational.
but i don’t want to end up in a statistic no one’s going to do anything about. that’s not what i do. i have a few things that distract me from the thoughts, but it’s a constant flow of reasons why i don’t want to live here anymore.
Depression is one hell of a mental illness. unfortunately, the cure is normal living conditions. and that’s not happening anytime soon.
hang in there, and maybe you can look back on your life and say “i’m glad i stayed”.
That’d be awesome. I wish I had willpower to actually change some things in my life
you’re pretty much the only one who can do anything about it. don’t seek immediate success, make little steps. next time you get a productivity boost, go for a walk. clean up your room a little.
and most importantly, prove life wrong. giving up is not why you exist.
it’s going to be worth it. i believe in you.
I don’t like how American - centric this is but otherwise very… impressive
I recommend visiting Gapminder. For example the Dollar Street, where you can get an inside how different life around the world is, depending on income.
Also, it’s various other statistical tools like this animated graph, where you can see the billionaires running away to the right. Also interesting is the short blip of people having more wealth at around 1980 - 2010, which immediately got sucked back into “slightly right of extreme poverty mountain”.
Imagine showing this on a linear axis
Also an inflation adjusted graph would be really nice.
Because America is where most of the world’s wealth resides
Ok Google, look up richest country PPP
There are a bunch of other languages and countries here https://github.com/MKorostoff/1-pixel-wealth/blob/master/README.md
Holy shit
They are so rich that my browser crashed while I was trying to speed scrolling the page to the end
Same on my iphone lmao
Yeah, this is gonna end really well.
Spoliers! You owe it to yourself experience it first without anyone else's comments, it only takes a few minutes.
An extremely powerful infographic, well designed and well sourced. I love how after they said everything they said, they leave you to keep scrolling the last third of the 3 trillion. No more commentary, just letting the scale of it sink in.
Though, something I wish they touched on in the infographic itself is rebuking the argument of “all that money is tied up in stocks! they don’t have that much money sitting around!” There are plenty of issues with that rebuttal of course and it’s not actually a valid defense of the ultra rich, but it’s a common enough counter that I think it warrants being mentioned to cover all your bases so to speak.
That actually is directly addressed on that website https://github.com/MKorostoff/1-pixel-wealth/blob/master/THE_PAPER_BILLIONAIRE.md
Also, there’s another one on the page about prison incarceration in the US, you should check that out as well
I went to that link and it was horrible, no the site is simple it’s just when it went to Bezos … then look at all the things we could have to make things better (free healthcare, free college, etc) just sickening.
BuT hE’s A pHiLaNtRoPiSt! He HeLpS SoCiEtY…
…to maintain the status quo of undertaxing rich people and letting monopolies rule industries.
And actually he does not have any money because its just his assets and what other people think they are worth but he is actually quite poor because he immediately spends all the money he makes to invest into new ideas to make the world an even better place for everyone.
We know he can’t quickly withraw the money at a good rate bit that does not make him not rich AF.
Sucks that all the small businesses in the US just spontaneously ceased to be :(
“It has to stop” I agree. But how do I make it stop? There’s a lot of talking about what is the issue and its consequences, I say this also for climate change. But they don’t say what can we do about it
Ok tankie
A possible solution could be to limit the personal (family?) wealth, fortune, possession, etc. to for example 100 million. That should be enough to live a luxury lifestyle and give your children’s children a ‘care free life’. Everything above that amount goes to the aid of the less fortunate, public and social improvements, energy transition, solving pollution problems, etc. (worldwide). In exchange you get a certificate with: “Congratulations you won capitalism!”
P.S. When you ‘cheat’ you get 1 dollar (or equivalent) and may start over. In addition and not exclusive of all possible legal proceedings.
P.P.S. The above is just an example to illustrate that there are possibilities. But this doesn’t solve all problems of inequality or everything else that is wrong on this planet.
P.P.P.S. Too many people think the have the possibility to also collect wealth above the 100 million ( or think they are entitled to an amount above that). They will protest and vote against any such solution. (I’m not talking about those 400 Americans from the website graphic).
Reminder that the money is printed out of thin air and it’s not really that we need anyone’s stored wealth. Not even liquidating a mansion or ten from a billionaire, or from all billionaires, is going to solve our problems. Sure they are worth a lot to one person, but how much is a mansion worth to society in effect? Not much really.
The system is designed to have poor people. It must so that there is incentive to work. Otherwise we would have to force people to work. I’m not trying to justify the ways things are, I just don’t see going after stored wealth as solving the problem especially when it is not their assets we need or their made up currency.
