• Shifty Eyes
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    419 days ago

    Its all losses on paper, unrealized losses.

    I could see them all coming out ahead in some other way, tax minimization, write downs/write offs, other financial methods not accessible to normal people that don’t have a fleet of accounts and tax lawyers on retainer. And they’ll all be ready to profit massively during and after any future crash.

    The cynic in me says that they all have a bunch of call/put options, algorithmic high frequency trading and dark pools at the ready, or other bets that’ll make them massively rich and any upcoming stock market crash is calculated and planned by influencing a bought president. Maybe that’s giving them too much credit but the people that advise these billionaires and the president are definitely ready to profit off of whatever is coming.

    • Altima NEO
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      9 days ago

      Also the bit that everyone’s leaving out, since election day, all these guys had huge boosts to their stocks. All the current losses basically corrected whatever gains they got since November.

      Basically, they aren’t hurting yet.

      • @[email protected]
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        118 days ago

        Basically, they aren’t hurting yet.

        Exactly. You could reduce their wealth by a factor of 1000, and they would still have more than 90% of people. They will never be genuinely hurt by losses. Not like 99% of people would be.

        The chart shouldn’t make anyone happy. The true horror of it should be realized; in reality it’s an accounting of how much they’re “spending” money to make money. They will continue to make more. The scales here are unfathomable to most people.

        It’s borderline misinformation to not include their total wealth for context.

        • @[email protected]
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          58 days ago

          It is misinformation. It was probably designed to make us think we’ve won and to relax our gaurd

    • @[email protected]
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      119 days ago

      I don’t know. I were filthy rich, I for one probably wouldn’t mind a small (and quite likely temporary) hit on my net worth if it means I get to buy promising upstarts and some of my competitors for small change because they’re now grossly underfunded/undervalued thanks to the crash.

      But then again, I’m a cynic, and probably just projecting here.

      • @[email protected]
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        98 days ago

        Really? Because if I had even a fraction of their wealth, I would stop working and just enjoy my life because I already had far more money than I could ever need. I would fund passion projects, and give away money to causes that I believe are important.

        These are not normal people. It’s never enough for them.

        • @[email protected]
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          68 days ago

          All cynicism aside, so would I, probably. What good is immense wealth if you don’t use it as a means to gain happiness?
          As much as it pains me to say this as a decades-long passionate M$ hater, Bill Gates is doing something right there.

          But you’re right about one thing of course …

          These are not normal people. It’s never enough for them.

          • @[email protected]
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            8 days ago

            IMHO Melinda changed Gates’s view on the world. As much as her desktop idea was nightmare fuel, they did create a foundation, had some kids together, and that let Gates grow as a person away from Ballmer’s “Developers, Developers, Developers!” culture.

        • @[email protected]
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          17 days ago

          I think they are people with an endless greed that feeds into itself. With their money, they can generate millions in passive income just by having investments. The system rewards their behavior

          An analogy that pops into my head is when you have people that are high rank in a multiplayer game, create a new account so that they can be paired with people who are just starting out. The system feels like it’s just letting smurf accounts demolish everyone.

          That analogy maybe isn’t perfect, though, because it implies the ultra wealthy are more skilled when it’s really just a resource allocation issue.

    • @[email protected]
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      68 days ago

      That’s the neat part. You don’t give them credit. Their lawyers and hedge funds do this for them and are rewarded the more fraudulent they can get

  • @[email protected]
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    238 days ago

    I was writing that it’s not a bad price to pay to establish a feudal system where you’re part of the oligarchy, but honestly, what do they need more than they already have? The current system gave them everything they could ever wish to obtain.

    • @[email protected]
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      278 days ago

      what do they need more than they already have?

      These people have an illness. They wouldn’t be billionaires if they didn’t have an all-consuming desire to obtain and hoard wealth and power at all costs.

    • @[email protected]
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      8 days ago

      They still have people that can say no to them, their workers can quit, they need to deal with consumers boycotting their products.

      Globally, China is rapidly catching up to and surpassing Americans in more and more industries, and they need to protect their status.

      Nothing is enough for them.

      • @[email protected]
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        98 days ago

        Nothing is enough for them.

        This is what it comes down to. They will never be satisfied. There is no end…

        • @[email protected]
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          68 days ago

          We could oblige and give them an end and the nothing that would finally satisfy them :)

          Legal disclaimer: I mean butts

  • dustycups
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    8 days ago

    “He only had one dick and one stomach”
    Ben Elton

    These losses mean nothing to these people.

  • @[email protected]
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    98 days ago

    OK but since January 17. What about before? Because i know Musk doubled his money when Trump got elected.

    • @[email protected]
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      38 days ago

      Yes, Tesla stocks are merely back to pre-election levels. Looks like they will keep dropping though.

        • @[email protected]
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          28 days ago

          They just climbed today. Maybe Musk (via proxies) is buying while cheap because he has insider info that a subsidy is about to be handed to Tesla.

          I suspect that is the point of the yoyo tariffs: insider trading.

  • @[email protected]
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    57 days ago

    Their monetary losses are insubstantial compared to the gains in power they will receive from further weakening the influence and power of the average person.

  • @[email protected]
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    8 days ago

    Do you reckon that some people voted for Trump just because they knew he was so incompetent that he would inadvertently fuck shit up for everyone, friends included - and that there are enough disillusioned people in the US fed up of any semblance of the status quo (progressive or otherwise) who just wanted to watch the world burn as much as they’re suffering?

    A vote of pure spite and nihilism

  • @[email protected]
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    18 days ago

    I’m sure that a man as fond of Nazi dogwhistles as Musk will appreciate the fact that, given that a B looks like an 8, his losses are almost a Nazi codeword.

  • @[email protected]
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    17 days ago

    Hey thanks for posting this! My trivia guy asked this at the bar last night and I remembered the whole graphic so we won a gift card!