Technology

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[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 35 points 4 months ago (20 children)

Stop.

This “billionaires don’t have any real money” is ignorant.

The investments have value, the value is leverage and loans, those are power and money. Yes, it can fluctuate due to market value, but nonetheless that’s what billionaires are worth.

It’s real money.

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[+] bedwyr@piefed.ca -9 points 4 months ago (19 children)

It is theoretical money, and it vanishes at a downturn.

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[–] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 12 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Go try and get an interest free loan from the bank.
Go "earn" a billion dollars in stock and try again.

I guarantee you'll have real money the second time. Sure they don't sit on cash but billionaires absolutely tap into that stock as equity and use it like cash. Many vehicles for doing so are well documented

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[+] bedwyr@piefed.ca -6 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Yes I am aware of how they extract money from their stock holdings as propublica showed us.

My point, Elon couldn't recognize a trillion dollars. He probably couldn't realize a hundred billion in actual cash. The more he realizes, the more his holdings decline in value. And he downturn is coming, although he will get bailed out I'm sure.

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[–] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 19 points 4 months ago (2 children)

My point is you're arguing irrelevant semantics. They're out buying $500 million dollar superyachts. That's close enough to enough of their net worth being real money to make the distinction irrelevant.

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[–] bedwyr@piefed.ca -5 points 4 months ago (1 child)

500 million is a fraction of their stated wealth, it's not semantics to recognize that they are one downturn away from seeing their wealth evaporate, and possible margin calls against that money they did realize tax free by borrowing against their stock.

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[–] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 9 points 4 months ago

Sure, the yacht is only 500 million, that also doesn't include the 75 meter support yacht he often has sailing with it. Now add in his 4 private jets (roughly $250 million total), his three mansions on an almost private island off of Miami (roughly $240 million total), his roughly $40 million into his Washington DC house, his 30,000 acre ranch, his properties in Beverly Hills and Manhattan, and more I'm probably forgetting about (I know he owns more ranch land than just that 30k acre property, it's just the most well known since it now hosts his space company). Not even counting clothes (which Bezos is known to have a pricey watch collection despite wearing a "reserved" choice usually), food, and other expenses which definitely add up. That's a solid billion right there in real things he's bought.

Sure they can't tap the full "value" of their net worth, but the more they have, the more they can tap. And it's a disgusting amount. And they absolutely treat it as cash equivalent.

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[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 8 points 4 months ago (1 child)

And your physical dollars lose value with inflation. Money isn't real. Buying power is. He has a trillion dollars worth of buying power. It doesn't matter if it's in dollars, gold, cows, or stock, as long as he can effectively use that power to make purchases.

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[–] trolololol@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

Senators. It's in senators. Best investment you can get.

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[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago* (8 children)

Yes, it can fluctuate due to market value,

I literally stated that possibility.

What are you saying? Are you trying to make some financial hot take? Are you trying to still imply it’s not worth real money? Won’t anyone think of the poor trillionaire who is now only simultaneously worth/not worth hundreds of billions? The path you’re going down leads to “is any money real money?” and adds nothing to the conversation.

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[–] bedwyr@piefed.ca -5 points 4 months ago (7 children)

That their money is not "real" at all as you suggest was my point. It will go up in smoke.

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[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago (6 children)

Understanding this level of finance is not hard and I don’t understand what you’re trying to prove or your resistance to it.

What a billionaire is doing is no different (as a radical simplification to make it easy to understand) than a normal person taking a home equity loan. Your argument is that “the home isn’t real” and that’s the same as saying “SpaceX isn’t real”. The home’s value can fluctuate thanks to the real estate market, or whether or not the owner does a good job maintaining and upgrading the home. SpaceX can suffer market fluctuations and be well managed or suffer bad decisions. The money leveraged on the values of these investments is real.

As far as what you just said I can tell that you haven’t thought one step further than making the statement, I am pointing out how the money is real. We’re done here, you plainly want to be right rather than learn how the system works.

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[–] bedwyr@piefed.ca -4 points 4 months ago* (5 children)

The intrinisc values of his companies, and others, are a fraction of their current market value.

When you borrow against it, when the price falls back to intrinsic value, in Musk's case 1/100th or so of Tesla's current valuation, they get margin calls.

My point is not hard to understand and undeniably true. Owning theoretical money you can't realize in full is not the same as owning assets that can be realized. Musk is not trillionaire, never was.

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[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

I’m not playing financial Schrodinger’s Box with you.

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[–] bedwyr@piefed.ca -2 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Is that the vag of some chick you know? Doesn't seem to be applicable here.

My point is undeniably true, no matter how many half wits vote with you.

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[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 1 point 4 months ago (2 children)

Ah, good job. Now you’ve swung to insults. That’ll win ya. Guess you need everything explained to you. Your argument is attempting to force a point against what society has deemed what monetary worth is.

You’re not gonna win that argument, but feel free to bang your head on the keyboard uselessly while you attempt to bend the world to your will.

Not only that, but you have moved the goalposts from “billionaires are still worth money even if it isn’t all in cash” to “they can’t possibly cash it all out so it doesn‘t count.“ A real strawman that has no bearing on how wealth works. So your “truth” is irrelevant.

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[–] bedwyr@piefed.ca -1 points 4 months ago (1 child)

That was a joke not an insult, that you tried to play the victim there shows your nature, not worth talking to, now piss off. I won't respond further.

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[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 1 point 4 months ago

Ok dude.

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[–] RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago (2 children)

All money is theoretical money.

The larger the amount the more theoretical it is, but even the crisp $5 bill in your pocket is just the promise of violence if somebody doesn't have enough $$$ to pay their housing costs at the end of the month or their taxes at the end of the year.

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[–] bedwyr@piefed.ca -2 points 4 months ago (1 child)

Actual money is not theoretical money as such, don't conflate the theoretical nature of money with the subject at hand. Kind of discredits you that you made that argument.

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