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The founder of Craigslist has given away half a billion dollars

independent.co.uk

81–90 of 341 posts

Re: The founder of Craigslist has given away half a billion dollars

#82
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As they should. Money boils down to a finite resource, and a class of people have been flaunting their theft of the working class since the famous balcony champagne image taken during Occupy Wallstreet. That singular image should be the poster of this Epstein era.

> Money boils down to a finite resource Musk more amply demonstrated how wealth is created.

Yeah, start by having enough to buy more influence with the right people, so they don't realize your assets are nowhere near a correct valuation.

Re: The founder of Craigslist has given away half a billion dollars

#83
post #38

Is Craigslist still the go-to classifieds site in some places? Around here it’s (very sadly IMO) been almost completely replaced by Facebook Marketplace, to the extent that people make Facebook accounts just to use Marketplace.

I only sell on Facebook marketplace because being able to see someone’s profile means a lot less time spent selling the item.

Re: The founder of Craigslist has given away half a billion dollars

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That's a very naive, but common, viewpoint of wealth. "Worth" 1.3 billion does not mean "has 1.3 billion lying around in liquid cash". Net worth is tied up usually in many bank accounts across multiple banks, securities, real estate, trusts, etc. And that's all excluding capital tied up in corporations/orgs. Freeing up and giving away half of a billion dollar net worth is a difficult and time consuming thing, one whi…

Well when you say it like that, he’s basically just one of us!

Re: The founder of Craigslist has given away half a billion dollars

#85
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

median household income is not higher in missisippi vs germany, especially not true if you adjust for the value of healthcare, education, and social benefits including time off work.

There are, of course, many ways to measure this, some of which are slightly higher for Germany and some for Mississippi. Many are in the same ballpark, which is pretty crazy to think about. Many of these statistics take into account the taxpayer-funded programs you mentioned. Broadly speaking, the median Mississippian is about as rich as the median German, with the tradeoff being that the Mississippian has greater ac…

Why is the median considered "poor"? The true poor in Mississippi are way worse off than those in Germany. If you neglect everything it takes to live a good life like public capital, education, healthcare, time off with family, a retirement, total years on this earth and ignore the insane inequality in Mississippi then sure the median numbers are not that far off.

Re: The founder of Craigslist has given away half a billion dollars

#86
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also one of the major things the destroyed newspapers. I'm not saying that's bad, just pointing out it happened.

[flagged]

It wasn’t a monopoly.

There were tons of ways to advertise selling your used car (e.g. most towns did and still do have a high traffic spot where people will go park the car with a for sale sign, or - more directly in competition with local papers - were car classifieds publications distributed for free. These cost more than newspapers to place an ad and tended to target the enthusiast market).

Besides that, newspapers competed with each other. In the heyday of print, it was pretty rare - almost unheard of - that there weren’t multiple publishers in any market, even small towns. Kind of the anti definition of monopoly. Hell, the US constitution literally encodes the right for anyone to publish a newspaper. Even now, most markets have several options for buying print classifieds.

An “expensive” offering from a variety of vendors that happens to be effective is not a monopoly, it’s just businesses pricing at value not cost.

The $50 was what many people, apparently, were happy to pay to have their ad distributed daily for a few weeks, on paper, delivered to the homes of thousands of people. Look up the cost of a full size ad in a print publication, and classifieds look like a pretty good deal.

Re: The founder of Craigslist has given away half a billion dollars

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Money boils down to a finite resource Musk more amply demonstrated how wealth is created.

Yeah, start by having enough to buy more influence with the right people, so they don't realize your assets are nowhere near a correct valuation.

[dead]

Re: The founder of Craigslist has given away half a billion dollars

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is both absolutely gorgeous and luxurious, yet still at less than $6 million, pretty modest for someone capable of giving away half a billion.

[flagged]

It is empirically not easy.

Re: The founder of Craigslist has given away half a billion dollars

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That's a very naive, but common, viewpoint of wealth. "Worth" 1.3 billion does not mean "has 1.3 billion lying around in liquid cash". Net worth is tied up usually in many bank accounts across multiple banks, securities, real estate, trusts, etc. And that's all excluding capital tied up in corporations/orgs. Freeing up and giving away half of a billion dollar net worth is a difficult and time consuming thing, one whi…

I guess that’s why more billionaires don’t give money away, it’s just too hard.
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