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Companies and Billionaires

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Re: Companies and Billionaires

#81

Post by jahnu »

kens wrote: post #49

I think most people don't realize just how much money the richest people have. People generally think of normal(ish) distributions like height, where if you're 10% taller or shorter than average, you're a tall or short person, and 40% taller makes you the tallest person in the world. In comparison, wealth has a very, very long tail, making it hard to visualize. Here's what I've come up with to visualize wealth. Suppo…

One way I think about it is I ask myself how long would it take to spend in an average adult life?

To spend $1m in 60 years you have to spend $45 a day every day for the rest of your life.

To spend $1bn in 60 years you have to spend more than $45,000 a day, every day.

Those are figures I can kind of work with.

Re: Companies and Billionaires

#83

Post by Ntrails »

rezashirazian wrote: post #28
eevilspock wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perception? It IS power. The power to influence politicians and elections. The power to influence how we educate our youth (e.g. Bill Gates and Common Core). The power to dominate everything. It thoroughly undermines democracy, unless we want to redefine democracy as 1$ = 1 vote.

I've been finding myself quoting Game Of Thrones more than usual lately but: “Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.” These billionaire are powerful only because we have collectively decided to put such high value on the product of their companies and investments. It all stems from perception.

> “Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.”

Follow it through. People believe what they are told, to a certain extent, so Power resides where people are told it does. Who tells them where it resides? Those who can afford to shout about it a lot.

Thusly a billionaire is powerful because they have the ability to make people believe it by projecting that position through "propaganda", and this doesn't go away. Money buys people listening to you. By the quote, that is essentially power, and so money is power.

Re: Companies and Billionaires

#84

Post by kintamanimatt »

gambiting wrote: post #71
Loic wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do not need to go the private banking way to have such level of service. I am living in Germany at the moment, I have an account in a Sparkasse (A savings bank). As I needed to buy a car, I informed my account manager that I would buy one, gave her the bank account information of the car dealer and told her that if everything is in order, I would call and ask her to perform an "instant" money transfer. Just went…

Well, I'm sure a bank has enough cash on its own accounts to pay for a car instantly. My parents had a problem few years ago when they were buying a warehouse for big $$$, and the bank literally asked them to wait a couple days until they could gather that much money to actually pay out the loan. Now imagine that times hundred - I guess it's not a simple operation.

Were they doing it in cash? I can understand it if the warehouse was literally being bought in hard currency, but otherwise it seems a little strange!

Re: Companies and Billionaires

#85

Post by gambiting »

kintamanimatt wrote: post #84
gambiting wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm sure a bank has enough cash on its own accounts to pay for a car instantly. My parents had a problem few years ago when they were buying a warehouse for big $$$, and the bank literally asked them to wait a couple days until they could gather that much money to actually pay out the loan. Now imagine that times hundred - I guess it's not a simple operation.

Were they doing it in cash? I can understand it if the warehouse was literally being bought in hard currency, but otherwise it seems a little strange!

No, they were taking a loan from a small local bank and the bank literally didn't have enough money sitting in the account to pay out all of it instantly - they had to ask their other branches to make the transfer to their account first, before they could make the transfer to the account of the seller.

Re: Companies and Billionaires

#87

Post by chirau »

gambiting wrote: post #85
kintamanimatt wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were they doing it in cash? I can understand it if the warehouse was literally being bought in hard currency, but otherwise it seems a little strange!

No, they were taking a loan from a small local bank and the bank literally didn't have enough money sitting in the account to pay out all of it instantly - they had to ask their other branches to make the transfer to their account first, before they could make the transfer to the account of the seller.

How much money are we talking about here? It sounds like a lot of money if a bank had to call other banks.

Re: Companies and Billionaires

#88

Post by jschulenklopper »

jahnu wrote: post #81
kens wrote: post #49

I think most people don't realize just how much money the richest people have. People generally think of normal(ish) distributions like height, where if you're 10% taller or shorter than average, you're a tall or short person, and 40% taller makes you the tallest person in the world. In comparison, wealth has a very, very long tail, making it hard to visualize. Here's what I've come up with to visualize wealth. Suppo…

One way I think about it is I ask myself how long would it take to spend in an average adult life? To spend $1m in 60 years you have to spend $45 a day every day for the rest of your life. To spend $1bn in 60 years you have to spend more than $45,000 a day, every day. Those are figures I can kind of work with.

That's almost like Brewster's Millions, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088850/.

Re: Companies and Billionaires

#89

Post by harryh »

jedberg wrote: post #47
harryh wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you just die with more assets which will incur higher estate taxes. The estate tax rate is higher than the long term capital gains rate. Estate taxes are paid before creditors.

Yeah but you're dead so you don't care. :)

Well if your goal was to optimize your taxes to pass on as much as you could to your heirs you failed at your goal.

Re: Companies and Billionaires

#90

Post by gambiting »

chirau wrote: post #87
gambiting wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they were taking a loan from a small local bank and the bank literally didn't have enough money sitting in the account to pay out all of it instantly - they had to ask their other branches to make the transfer to their account first, before they could make the transfer to the account of the seller.

How much money are we talking about here? It sounds like a lot of money if a bank had to call other banks.

Few million - but it was a small bank. Obviously BoA has that kind of money available at any moment, but that bank didn't. But I imagine even BoA would need a bit of notice if you wanted to pay $250M for a jet.
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