Virtually everyone fails to grasp exactly how large of a number a billion is. It’s so, so much bigger than the ”very big number” people think of when they hear the word.
I wonder if world class mathematicians have a much better grasp of it — and yet fail to use their expertise to point out the absurdity of the current wealth inequality
Or do even they, world class mathematicians, not really ‘grasp’ it in this wildly important and urgent sense.
The point, obviously, is that talking about billionaires as if they have billions of dollars in cash, and drawing a direct comparison between their net worth and attaining an amount of cash, linearly, over a stretch of time, is, obviously, disingenuous and deliberately misleading.
Wealth is often measured in currency. That’s why they are not called houseionaires or equityionaires and the like. For simplicity’s sake, the combined value of their assets is then often reduced to a single translation into, for example, dollars. One countable sum signifying net worth. Glad you could learn something today.
100% and, more so, thats not just a billion in cash, of course. Thats a billion dollars worth of stuff that makes you money, that can be sold off for at least a billion, most likely far more.
When people read these valuations, they often think to themselves “surely they can’t be worth that much” and they’re right. It will always be much, much more. Other than Trump, wealth valuations are always very, very conservative, due to the nature of how they do it, and thats before we get to the fact that they’re only estimating their wealth on the assets that are publicly disclosed.
kinda makes you think. billionaires should not exist.
Virtually everyone fails to grasp exactly how large of a number a billion is. It’s so, so much bigger than the ”very big number” people think of when they hear the word.
I wonder if world class mathematicians have a much better grasp of it — and yet fail to use their expertise to point out the absurdity of the current wealth inequality
Or do even they, world class mathematicians, not really ‘grasp’ it in this wildly important and urgent sense.
The difference between one million and one billion is roughly one billion.
A million seconds is a little over 11 days.
A billion seconds is a little over 31 years.
Billionaires should be required to count out their dollars individually every few days.
Net worth is not an amount of cash.
Obviously. Your point?
The point, obviously, is that talking about billionaires as if they have billions of dollars in cash, and drawing a direct comparison between their net worth and attaining an amount of cash, linearly, over a stretch of time, is, obviously, disingenuous and deliberately misleading.
Obviously.
Wealth is often measured in currency. That’s why they are not called houseionaires or equityionaires and the like. For simplicity’s sake, the combined value of their assets is then often reduced to a single translation into, for example, dollars. One countable sum signifying net worth. Glad you could learn something today.
More people fail to grasp that net worth is a valuation, a price tag, not an amount of actual money.
100% and, more so, thats not just a billion in cash, of course. Thats a billion dollars worth of stuff that makes you money, that can be sold off for at least a billion, most likely far more.
When people read these valuations, they often think to themselves “surely they can’t be worth that much” and they’re right. It will always be much, much more. Other than Trump, wealth valuations are always very, very conservative, due to the nature of how they do it, and thats before we get to the fact that they’re only estimating their wealth on the assets that are publicly disclosed.
Why’s that?