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Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

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Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#121
post #103

Would it be possible for a guy like Jeff to sell all his stock and convert his wealth to, let’s say, gold? The motivation for my question is my doubt that the different sources of wealth are comparable. So this ranking is hypothetical. Wouldn’t the stock price drop if someone was to sell so many shares?

Actually, very large blocks of stock are often worth more than a simple (number of shares) * (most recent trading price per share) formula suggests because of the control premium [FN1].

As further proof, corporate-level transactions like mergers and acquisitions typically see prices exceed recent public trading prices.

It's true that selling a large block of stock without influencing price can be difficult, but that's actually a relatively 'solved' problem in modern finance - banks regularly enter into complex transactions with clients that need to liquidate large blocks of stock and are worried about the impact on share price.

So in a sense, his wealth is "all on paper" and somewhat abstract. But especially for a company like Amazon, it's certainly not predictably less value than a back-of-the-envelope calculation would suggest.

For large sums, you always run into expense and abstraction problems: real estate is highly iliquid, gold is expensive to transport and store plus subject to market volatility itself, banks sometimes charge fees for exceptionally large cash accounts... sovereign debt and high-quality short-term corporate debt are often used for holding huge sums of cash-like wealth.

Basically, it's risk and abstractions and hand waiving all the way down.

[FN1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_premium

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#122
post #103

Would it be possible for a guy like Jeff to sell all his stock and convert his wealth to, let’s say, gold? The motivation for my question is my doubt that the different sources of wealth are comparable. So this ranking is hypothetical. Wouldn’t the stock price drop if someone was to sell so many shares?

He could, but it would be at some healthy discount to the current price.

Normally what people like Bezos do when they want to cash out is take out a big loan using the stock as collateral. That way they don't flood the market with shares.

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#124
post #84

Everytime I see these types of articles I wonder if we're still in feudalism. Should we really be celebrating that a single individual is worth more than hundreds of millions of people[1]? I dunno, it seems dystopian , like we're enslaved to the system. [1] https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/...

Okay, but think of it this way. Bill Gates is worth 90 Billion, sure fine.

What is the entire United States worth? GDP is 18 Trillion, expenditures are 4 trillion. So if you do something (admittedly kind of dumb), like take the GDP, subtract expenditures, let's pretend the earnings are 14 trillion?

Valuing the US at 10x earnings, that would put it at a valuation of 140 trillion dollars. This is horribly incorrect, but I think it still makes a very important point.

The richest person's entire net worth is orders of magnitude less than the yearly GDP of a moderately sized country.

The key thing in monarchial feudalism is that a single person is the state (Imagine a person worth 'only' 14 trillion dollars, he's got his own airforce, navy, army).

Jeff/Bill/Warren et al. aren't on that scale of wealth yet, and it seems that it would be difficult for them to get there without state intervention.

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#125
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Did this person work more or does he have more merit than 100.000.000s of people? It's absurd.

"Merit" could refer to many things, but yes, I think he directly/indirectly added more utility to people's lives than 100,000s of other people.

I don't think money is a good proxy for "adding utility to people's lives". It's a good proxy for "good at playing the money game". A nurse won't be paid $1B if she saves a CEO's life, and he is able to go and make his company billions as a result. A clever business person might, if she saves the CEO in some other aspect, as she can setup a provision first.

That being said, I don't think money has much to do with merit, either. It's just the output of a function that you are either good at optimizing or not.

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#126
post #103

Would it be possible for a guy like Jeff to sell all his stock and convert his wealth to, let’s say, gold? The motivation for my question is my doubt that the different sources of wealth are comparable. So this ranking is hypothetical. Wouldn’t the stock price drop if someone was to sell so many shares?

[deleted]

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#127
post #124
post #84

Everytime I see these types of articles I wonder if we're still in feudalism. Should we really be celebrating that a single individual is worth more than hundreds of millions of people[1]? I dunno, it seems dystopian , like we're enslaved to the system. [1] https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/...

Okay, but think of it this way. Bill Gates is worth 90 Billion, sure fine. What is the entire United States worth? GDP is 18 Trillion, expenditures are 4 trillion. So if you do something (admittedly kind of dumb), like take the GDP, subtract expenditures, let's pretend the earnings are 14 trillion? Valuing the US at 10x earnings, that would put it at a valuation of 140 trillion dollars. This is horribly incorrect, bu…

"The richest person's entire net worth is orders of magnitude less than the yearly GDP of a moderately sized country."

Economically speaking, the US is not a "moderately sized country". It is the richest country in the world.

There are several moderately sized countries with lower GDP than Bill Gates net worth.

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#128
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe they should.

When you're embezzling money the last thing you want is to reveal enough information about your stash to show up on these lists. Saddam Hussein obviously had tons of liquid assets but the totality of them was never truly known. It was all squirreled away, and likely stolen by the caretakers when his regime imploded and the threat of retribution was removed. How much did Pablo Esbobar have at his peak? We can only gue…

in the /r/conspiracy realm - it is widely believed that the reason for Gaddafi's execution was to go after the billions he had - and to take him down. The idea is that the Benghazi fiasco was let loose by the state dept so that HRC could loot Libya... its not provable - but the fact is that Gaddafi was one of the worlds richest ppl - and the rumor is that HRC and cabal stole all his loot.

He was worth a reportable 70 billion.... and unknown amount off-books...

He was murdered for his money. And anyone who says that is not true is fucking clueless about what the fuck is actually happening in this world at that level.

http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/573aeac75632a39...

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#129
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a little hyperbolic. In feudalism the balance of power is enforced by violence, whereas Jeff Bezos got rich because you gave him money in exchange for products. Like, "Hey, here's this cool electronic device called the Amazon Echo for $50." is a markedly different from "Farm here or I'll decapitate you." The fact that you harbor a resentment as if the former is anything like the latter is slightly terr…

The negatives need not be so similar for the two to occupy the same space of vast property ownership concerns - namely that a single person has what many consider to be a troubling amount of wealth and power. EDIT: sentence structure change

Sorry, why is it concerning? It seems concerning to me but only if you choose not to really engage with what it means.

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#130
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The results of Seattle area companies beg to differ. I live in Seattle and I find that if I walk outdoors during the day at least once per day, I'm fine.

What does mental health of people living there have to do with the success of a few companies? There are successful companies that eat their workers alive, employee happiness isn't related with their success in a lot of cases.

Tech companies can only produce what their employees output. If people were so miserable in Seattle there's no way that any company based there would thrive enough to be a top company in the world.
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