"The average American household spent $87,432 in 2021." That number seems awfully high to me? That's more than I am seeing the average household makes in 2023.
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What Does One Billion Dollars Look Like?
71–80 of 107 posts
Re: What Does One Billion Dollars Look Like?
#72What will really make it sink in is looking at what the highest paid athlete you know of earns in a year and estimate what their earnings are while they’re just there sitting in the couch, having a meal ($25k accumulates during an average meal) or taking a crap ($2500) - they earn about $200k in their sleep, for example. Then realize they would need to earn that much for 800 years to have as much money as Jeff Bezos.
There's a comparison between Michael Jordan, at his prime, and Bill Gates
Re: What Does One Billion Dollars Look Like?
#73Reminds me of this gem: https://eattherichtextformat.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
Re: What Does One Billion Dollars Look Like?
#74What will really make it sink in is looking at what the highest paid athlete you know of earns in a year and estimate what their earnings are while they’re just there sitting in the couch, having a meal ($25k accumulates during an average meal) or taking a crap ($2500) - they earn about $200k in their sleep, for example. Then realize they would need to earn that much for 800 years to have as much money as Jeff Bezos.
There's a comparison between Michael Jordan, at his prime, and Bill Gates https://www.spiegl.org/humor/jordan_gates.html
Oh that’s the one I was thinking about! Thanks!!
Re: What Does One Billion Dollars Look Like?
#75What will really make it sink in is looking at what the highest paid athlete you know of earns in a year and estimate what their earnings are while they’re just there sitting in the couch, having a meal ($25k accumulates during an average meal) or taking a crap ($2500) - they earn about $200k in their sleep, for example. Then realize they would need to earn that much for 800 years to have as much money as Jeff Bezos.
I was sure your numbers were wrong but if we assume $200,000 in your sleep means $600,000 a day, that’s $219,000,000 per year. Bezos has an estimated 220,000,000,000 dollars as of May 2025. $220,000,000,000 per year / $219,000,000 per year = 1004.6 years. Wild.
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Re: What Does One Billion Dollars Look Like?
#76$1 billion dollars looks like $20-$35 million dollars a year of indefinite spending, inflation adjusting, depending on the exact form of the billion dollars and the tax rates involved. So, spending 100% of the after tax income of like 75 (well paid!) staff engineers at a big tech company in CA, but without having any job.
I always thought one of the biggest problems with modern education is not spending enough time teaching people about interest rates/return on investment. If everyone just understood what you're pointing out here--just really "got it"--I feel like the world would be in a much better place. It's not dire (I don't think?), and I know we've come a very long way, but, man, it could be so much better.
> If everyone just understood what you're pointing out here--just really "got it"--I feel like the world would be in a much better place. It's not dire (I don't think?),
Maybe, but it also is predicated on a market like today's market, where the average American saves approximately zero dollars and has to work until social security.
If everyone saved a lot, you'd get a different situation. Probably a better situation, but it'd definitely be different.
Re: What Does One Billion Dollars Look Like?
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always thought one of the biggest problems with modern education is not spending enough time teaching people about interest rates/return on investment. If everyone just understood what you're pointing out here--just really "got it"--I feel like the world would be in a much better place. It's not dire (I don't think?), and I know we've come a very long way, but, man, it could be so much better.
Maybe. A lot of these calculations are usually based on historical averages for the US stock market. For the economy to keep moving, they need people to spend their money. Eventually it may all even out, where people spend so much once they hit a certain point in their life/portfolio, that it allows for everyone else to be saving and investing everything in the first few decades of life. But a transition period where…
> . If we are seeing slowing growth, or even population decline, can we expect the markets to contract right a long with the population. What will that mean for everyone’s retirement accounts?
Shit, the bigger scarier one is housing and ss. A huge percentage of people's retirement is either directly in housing (i.e. their house is their only asset), or indirectly in housing via their (mbs or other mortgage related bond products). If population declines housing prices may crater, and if population declines ss payouts may also crater. Gonna be a rough period of time (decades?).
Re: What Does One Billion Dollars Look Like?
#78$1 billion dollars looks like $20-$35 million dollars a year of indefinite spending, inflation adjusting, depending on the exact form of the billion dollars and the tax rates involved. So, spending 100% of the after tax income of like 75 (well paid!) staff engineers at a big tech company in CA, but without having any job.
I always thought one of the biggest problems with modern education is not spending enough time teaching people about interest rates/return on investment. If everyone just understood what you're pointing out here--just really "got it"--I feel like the world would be in a much better place. It's not dire (I don't think?), and I know we've come a very long way, but, man, it could be so much better.
It seems like that in every country. If you think about it, if you are rich, it doesn't really make sense to want other people to know about compounding. They might not signup for this insurance, or credit card, or spend the money onto the latest gadgets.
Re: What Does One Billion Dollars Look Like?
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obviously he isn't working 130 billion times harder, but he may be some combination of 130 billion times as much (privileged upbringing × strategically focused × economically impactful × smarter × harder working × luckier × n other relevant factors) than the typical American, that I can seriously consider. I also figure he, like Elon Musk, pays orders of magnitude more than his fair share, if we consider the definiti…
> I also figure he, like Elon Musk, pays orders of magnitude more than his fair share, if we consider the definition for "fair share" to mean everyone pays the same amount of direct cash transfer into the system and gets the same amount of direct cash receipt out of the system. I appreciate the clarity, but this is a bizarre definition of fair share. Do you really believe that everyone gets the same amount of usage f…
>Do you really believe that everyone gets the same amount of usage from, and contributes to the same amount of wear and tear on, municipal and infrastructural resources?
No, I do not believe that, but it's worth noting that taxing income has no direct relationship to usage-based taxation of public resources. There are people who pay millions in income taxes while making negligible use of roads, and there are net tax recipients who contribute no net taxes at all driving 40-ton 18-wheelers inflicting vastly more damage to roadways than 99% of people. If we want to tax externality costs, we should tax externality costs, not income.
>Do you believe that industrialists do not ravage the earth and society while chasing profits?
Regarding externality costs: see above. Income and externality costs are not the same, nor are they necessarily closely correlated.
Re: What Does One Billion Dollars Look Like?
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obviously he isn't working 130 billion times harder, but he may be some combination of 130 billion times as much (privileged upbringing × strategically focused × economically impactful × smarter × harder working × luckier × n other relevant factors) than the typical American, that I can seriously consider. I also figure he, like Elon Musk, pays orders of magnitude more than his fair share, if we consider the definiti…
> I also figure he, like Elon Musk, pays orders of magnitude more than his fair share, if we consider the definition for "fair share" to mean everyone pays the same amount of direct cash transfer into the system and gets the same amount of direct cash receipt out of the system. Pays to whom? Verifying this claim seems to require a definition of "the system." If you literally mean all money expenditure, then almost ce…
>Pays to whom? Verifying this claim seems to require a definition of "the system."
Taxes paid to governments. "The system" being governments - federal, state, county, city/locality.
Cash receipts out of the system would include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment, WIC/SNAP, cell phone vouchers, housing vouchers, transportation vouchers, SSI/SSDI, and even all tax credits (including indirect tax credits, like Elon Musk receiving a tiny percentage of total Tesla profits, which are themselves a non-100% percentage of vehicles sold, which are themselves purchased overwhelmingly with customer money that does not come from tax credits, of the percentage of cars sold that are even eligible for tax credits).
And yes, I do count those slivers of indirect EV tax credits as receipts for Musk, however significantly those dollars are diluted before they reach Musk, and count them against his contributions (which include the highest individual income tax bill ever paid by anyone in history).