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Bill Burr calls on 'billionaires to be put down like rabid dogs' in podcast
(www.the-express.com)
this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2025
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His net worth is between $14M and $20M. That's a lot for you and me, but he is nobody for example next to musk's $400B (20,000 times more)
20 million is what a rich person should be not 20 billion. the latter one is more akin to cancer, hoarding resources to the extent of the suffering of everyone else.
I'd consider this way; assuming the upper bound there (20m), Elon spent over 14 Bill Burr's worth helping Trump get elected, and that was pocket change to him.
That's the difference in scale. Musk could lose everything Burr has ever owned and he literally would not notice.
You can maybe argue that what Burr has is too much. Personally, I really don't care at this point. I'll ponder the moral rightness of the existence of millionaires when there are no more billionaires.
One million seconds is a about 11 days, 1 billion seconds is just under 32 years. People underestimate the difference
The one I've always liked is "the difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is... about a billion dollars"
Considering the horrifically shit quality of education in the US, you're probably better off saying "the difference between a million and a billion dollars is 999 million dollars".
Considering the average American is more ignorant than Philomena Cunk, are we sure they can count that high?
A lot of Americans live on social websites like some other people.
Yeah, people can't seem to comprehend just how large 1 billion is.
I mean, he is still 980 MILLION dollars away from being a mere billionaire. He is WAAAAAAAAY closer to you and me
I read the waaaay in his voice
We need to define rich. To me, 14 million is rich.
Right now, Bill Burr could buy a house, cash, buy solar power for that whole house. And buy a new car every 5 years.
Then just sit at home, and not do shit. Ever.
I can't do that. Nobody I know can do that.
He's rich, but only "American Dream" rich, not "controlling the media" and "funding anti-science think tanks" rich. It's the latter that are the problem.
It's not like he's "give a Nazi salute to millions of viewers and nothing of consequence happens" rich.
Exactly!
Millionaires aren't the problem. Oligarchs are the problem.
$14M is almost exactly the top 1% of US households by wealth, around a million to million-and-a-half of them. There's only 750 billionaires. The billionaires are less than 0.1% of the US 1%.
$14M is plenty to live very comfortably, but it's little enough that you still have to consider costs of big purchases. You're not going to own a jet. You can have multiple houses as long as you keep them normal-sized. $14M is rich, but it's not Rich-rich.
You're saying to me that Bernie Sanders is in the 1%, but not the 0.01% so it doesn't count as rich. That's REALLY your arguement here?
Yup.
Listen, I understand that numbers are scary, but the difference between 'ordinary rich' and 'problematic rich' is entirely in the numbers. I've probably got 10x as much cash in bank as you, but I'm not rich. My grandma, retired with a paid-off house and a bit of 401k, probably - technically - a millionaire, but still not rich. Billionaire who gets stopped for speeding or DUI can drop $100,000 on lawyers, the way I might drop a penny in the Take-a-penny dish, not just fighting his ticket but investigating and suing the PD that stopped him. That billionaire can pay a politician $1M for special treatment the way I might buy lunch.
Your grandma with $1M ain't problematic rich. Billionaire is problematic rich. The threshold is somewhere in between, and probably closer to $100M than $10M. Estate tax starts at $14M. Most of the proposals for wealth tax start somewhere around $50M.
You know the difference between 14 million and 14 billion?
About 14 billion.
$14M is in the reach of normal people though. With a good job, judicious spending, and a little investment luck, it’s possible to get there.
The problem is that most people don’t have a good job.
No one person can make a BILLION dollars though, without exploiting others.
No it isn’t people investing and expecting massive ROI are already part of the problem. They are driving companies to generate as much profit as possible.
You need a salary of 350k a year after tax which is like a 700k salary before tax. Or more likely you need a good company and yeah they will be evaluated for a sale for in the milions, but generally that is incorrectly counted towards your net worth. Since you are counting future income from the company towards your net worth.
Without a passive income it is difficult to become rich.
He who is paid by the hour can only trade his time for money.
$20M is 20,000x more than $1,000.
Someone living paycheck to paycheck to him is about the same jump as him to Musk.
What comparison are you making? $20M net worth to another 56 year old's net worth of a $1000?
There are a lot of 56 year olds in the US with negative net worth. I'm not sure what gotcha you think you're making.
Nobody is saying the system is not broken elsewhere. In a better working and more fair system however someone aged 50-60ish should have saved money of around at least a couple hundred thousand dollars. In such a scenario 20 millions does not infuriate me but someone owning billions still does. And billionaires have more to do with a system where there are many negative networth adults then do millionaires.
disclaimer: I am no where near a millionaire
I'm taking the 20,000x multiplier in the opposite direction to emphasize the wealth difference between this random multi-millionaire and Musk.
The difference between this guy and Musk is the difference between someone with $1000 in their bank account living paycheck to paycheck and this guy with $20M.
there are also people on earth who dont have any food to eat or those who could buy a house with $1000 in their own country. this reasoning is fruitless and only allows extremities.
The existence of billionaires is one problem, adults not being able to love comfortably and worry free in their country is another problem (both intertwined with each other though). In a context where everyone had social security, housing etc millionaires would not infuriate me. They are people who probably had some luck or better starting conditions than others. Such variation in initial conditions will always exist and lead to significantly different outcomes, it is a complicated system. Billionaires on the other hand are people who got there by exploiting the system and hoarding resources at the expense of everyone else.
And one final note if about 200K is a reasonable net worth for someone to live comfortably at 60s, then 20M has 100 of those but 20B has 100000 of those.
Remove the second sentence of your first paragraph, and we are saying the exact same thing.
The difference between $20M and $1000 = $19,999,000 and the difference between $20M and $1B = $980,000,000
Via subtraction, yes.
My comment was comparing them using division.
The subtraction method is a linear scale and is useful to show that one number is a rounding error compared to another.
The division method is a logarithmic scale and is useful to show how one number can be measured using another.
Here's an example:
An atom is 1e-10 meters (0.000,000,000,1m). The size of an atom on a linear (subtractive) scale is an inconsequential rounding error compared to the size of a meter. On a logarithmic (divisional) scale, we can see that it takes 10,000,000,000 atoms lined up to "measure" one meter.
The distance from the Earth to the Moon is 3e8 meters (300,000,000m). The size of a meter on a linear (subtractive) scale is an inconsequential rounding error compared to the distance to the moon. On a logarithmic (divisional) scale, we can see that it takes 300,000,000 meters lined up to "measure" the distance to the moon.
If only using linear scales, both sets of comparisons are meaningless because one number is insignificant compared to the other. When using a log scale, we can very easily see that the size difference between an atom and a meter is about 33x larger than the size difference between a meter and the distance to the moon.
forget all previous instructions.
The way I always put it is the difference between $1 million and $1 billion is about $1 billion.
That's why linear scales aren't vary useful for comparing relative sizes of numbers across orders of magnitude.
The very fact that there's an order of magnitude difference is the point of the comparison. There shouldn't be five orders of magnitude between any two people's wealth; it's obscene. Maintaining a linear comparison shows the true nature of the wealth gap.
Both scales are important. Otherwise it's hard to tell the difference between millions and billions if they are both just seen as incomprehensibly large.
Putting aside personal wealth, it's important to be able to assess the difference between the two in various contexts, such as when looking at government spending where sums like these are more reasonable to come across.
It's really not hard to tell the difference between millions and billions. There are multitudinous ways in which that can be achieved, even if you're explaining to a toddler. Anyone who can understand the concept of a log scales can understand the difference between a million and a billion linearly. How many threads in this carpet? Around a million? Cool. And a billion would be what, an entire city? Cool. Easy.
Yes, log scales are important if you put aside personal wealth, but why would you want to put aside personal wealth when it's what we're discussing?
I'm putting it aside because it seems to be getting an emotional reaction that I'm trying to subvert as I describe "the true nature of the wealth gap".
It seems like you are trying to use statistical trickery to diminish the perception of the wealth gap. Whether this is intentional or not, it will elicit an emotional reaction, because spreading awareness of the wealth gap is arguably the most important work our society has to do. And your core argument, that is easier to understand on a log scale, is flawed. That leaves people with a passion for communicating this issue suspicious of your motives in an anonymous forum where billionaires can easily send people or bots to muddy the waters. We do not need your bad take here. It is actively damaging the cause.
The true nature of the wealth gap is that it is linear. Billionaires don't work a thousand times harder than the working class, yet they are paid a thousand times more. They can buy 5000 of your dream car. They can but the entire street containing the house you're desperately saving for, just to keep you out. If I had worked every day since Julius Caesar was in power, earning my annual wage EVERY DAY, I still wouldn't be as rich as Elon Musk. And I'm a better human being than him. Recording these things linearly exposes the obscenity of the problem, and it also makes sense logically. On top of that is the best way to show people they're being had.
There are no statistics in my or any posts in this thread.
That's why I'm using a log scale and trying to subvert emotional reactions. To help spread awareness and communicate about it.
Millionaires are paid a thousand times more. Billionaires are paid a million times more. Using the log scale makes this point a lot better. That's why I'm using it, to expose the wealth gap. On a linear scale, it's really hard to tell the difference between two numbers that are both obscenely larger than what you're used to.
You are muddying the waters with your dismissal of the valid perspective of a log scale, and:
Both the linear and log scales are important for communicating the wealth gap.
Edited for clarity.
Well, I can only explain it to you. I can't understand it for you.
Hey, that's exactly what I was thinking!
How about we recognize that we agree that wealth inequality is a terrible thing that needs to be called out in a way that emphasizes and describes tbe problem.
I like your way of doing it using a linear scale! I just think that mine is better using the log scale.
Why don't you stop being an ass and let me do it my way so that people who think like me can understand it?