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The Brush Up's avatar

Yes, no… maybe

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J.K. Lund's avatar

Maybe?

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GarChils's avatar

Love this work you do…to compare apples to apples…or rather records to mp3s

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David Concidine's avatar

Bernie sez envy justifies plunder. Just another thief.

Bernie should be put on an island with no billionaires or their knowledge produced products. Maybe like Napoleon's last island. Then he could experience his billionaire-less utopia...if he could survive!

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J.K. Lund's avatar

Gale, there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about a yawning wealth gap, but as is noted in this article, we need proper context.

Elon Musk doesn’t “have” his wealth in a bank or cash, it is mostly tied up in equity.

His wealth is a function of the value of the companies he started/runs. Who determines the value of those companies? We do!

If we don’t think their products/services have value, we don’t need to buy them. He is rich because those companies are creating value.

More importantly, the total number of dollars one has matters less than what one can do with those dollars.

On paper, the wealth gap is growing but measured in terms of what we can do with those dollars, we are becoming more equal.

You may like my essay on this, recently revised: https://www.lianeon.org/p/a-world-of-billionaires

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