Try and picture a trillion dollars. $1,000,000,000,000. Imagine seeing that number on your bank statement. Now try and picture that amount of money as physical cash. 10,000,000,000 one-hundred-dollar bills
1000 billion
It’s safe to say that Elon Musk doesn’t have thousands of pallets stacked with $100 bills in a vault the size of a giant warehouse. I have only the vaguest of ideas about how one human being can be worth a trillion dollars. Let’s face it, no human being is worth that much, but somehow this man has managed to get his name attached to that number.
I understand that it is not like he has that much money sitting in a bank account, although it would be interesting to know how much he would have scattered around the bank databases of the world. I suppose there comes a level of wealth where money in the bank is defunct.
I mean, how often would he even do his own shopping? If he did, he probably has his own Tesla credit card. Would he even need to go through the payment ritual. Shit! There’s probably a financial flim-flam where he earns money every time he makes a purchase. It would probably be explained by how much value he brings to the economy or some shit like that; but I digress.
Obviously that obscene amount of wealth exists in the mystical world of financial speculation: stock he owns in his and other businesses rise and fall based on market valuations. His wealth is based on the hypothetical value of these businesses. A huge part of Elon’s and most of the mega-rich net worth is potential prices of shares. I would guess the other large part would be property and other assets.
Money sitting in the bank earning interest is underperforming in the eyes of a corporate bigwig. The returns you get on your investment are almost always in relation to the risk: bank deposits and bonds are considered the safest, thus they provide the lowest returns. Stocks increase the gamble and the potential for profit. Real estate is a different kind of game that I’ll leave for now.
The big wins and losses are in business ventures; where fortunes are made and lost. You can become Jeff Bezos, and you could become bankrupt, or any of the countless levels in between.
“For every Bill Gates there is a Kent Evans who was just as skilled and driven but ended up on the other side of life roulette.”
― Morgan Housel, The Psychology of Money
I would add a shit load more entrepreneurs to a list with Mr Evans, who did their due diligence, worked their asses off and still wound up broke or worse.
“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life.” Captain Jean Luc Picard “Star Trek: The Next Generation”
Many others settled into middle class comfortable lifestyles. Others made millions or sold for millions and retired. These slackers don’t have what it takes to obtain ludicrous amounts of wealth. Enough? You pathetic weaklings! More! More! More!
They want it, and somehow, they keep getting it, but what the hell is it? Besides a mindboggling number, it’s just an agreed upon concept. The physical assets, such as machinery, computers and bricks and mortar structures are only a fraction of the grand total. The insane price tag has nothing tangible to hang on: technological advancement ideas and/or patents, complex software systems, secret or potential scientific breakthroughs – intellectual property.
It certainly exists, just not in a physical sense. Some will eventually become whiz bang products or medicines: personal rocket ships, weight loss nasal sprays, a bullet that can seek out and eliminate a specific person. Others, like AI, while those monstrous data centres are unmistakably real objects, the process going on inside those machines is ethereal.
Their usefulness and financial worth have real-world implications and can be given a numeric value, but in the end, it is mere conjecture. The stock prices rise and fall based on the consensus of the people buying and selling them. The next big thing or a guaranteed flop can be made reality based on the combined beliefs of stock market players.
It sounds arbitrary, yet the concept is supposed to be democratic. In a free market, instead of voting via ballot the masses vote via purchase. If something offers value, people will part with their money for it. If it sucks, it sits on the shelf.
Shit! I’ve started down too many paths with this one.
Essentially, the stock market and therefore most of these mega-rich mogul’s fortune is based on people placing bets on what will sell like hot cakes and what will fly like a lead balloon.
There’s so much more I need to write down and sift through, and I will do just that after some more mulling over. To conclude here I can only share my confusion; the influence of the billionaire is undeniable, as is their buying power. They have numbers in databases that assert this.
If you shared a trillion dollars with the 8 billion people on Earth, that would be around $125 each. That money, or numbers in an account, would quickly be spent. Would the trillionaire now be worth nothing?
I better stop before my eye starts twitching.
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