Hilarious. They were right to do the comparison, but got it oh so wrong.
replyI was recently trying to understand Elon Musk's wealth, and come up with similar comparison: For example, he could make millionaire's of every single person in Seattle, and still have hundreds billions of dollars of wealth left over. Truly mind boggling.
Elon doesn't have a pile of cash, and it wouldn't be possible to convert his assets into cash either (without an incredible discount). This is true for most billionaires. In fact this very fallacy is part of what I'm alluding to with "we need to educate better".
replySo while fun thought experiments are excellent selling points, they aren't actually grounded in reality.
Yeah, but you're not required to transfer cash in order to transfer wealth, are you? Stocks are plenty transferable. Sure, the value would likely drop, but what's 20% to 40%, when you have a trillion to start.
replyHe could totally go into debt for e.g. 80% or his accumulated wealth, designate said wealth as collateral and get a really good deal in terms of interest.
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