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Javaman

(66,026 posts)
Tue Jun 23, 2026, 08:36 AM 9 hrs ago

I just heard an amazing stat about wealth...

if you have 1 dollar you are closer in wealth to the 2nd richest person in the world than the 2nd richest person in the world is to musks wealth.

just how fucked up is that?

there is no world where that kind of wealth needs to exists.

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ret5hd

(22,701 posts)
3. One trillion dollars...
Tue Jun 23, 2026, 09:23 AM
9 hrs ago

a hundred dollar bill is .0043” thick

a stack of $100 bills that equals $1T is about:
67,866 miles high
and he is still not satisfied
it is an illness

on edit:
for reference, the circumference of Earth is about 24,900 miles

Wednesdays

(23,435 posts)
12. Using your figures,
Tue Jun 23, 2026, 12:05 PM
6 hrs ago

...the stack of bills would be 678.66 miles high. 1 trillion / $100 * .0043 inches / 12 inches / 5280 feet = 678.66 miles.

Still considerable, but not as gigantic as the original post.

On edit: a tower of SINGLE dollar bills would be more than 67,000 miles high.

Doodley

(12,142 posts)
4. The richest person in the world took away childhood cancer research and overseas aid keeping millions alive.
Tue Jun 23, 2026, 10:07 AM
8 hrs ago

That should be his legacy.

Mblaze

(1,120 posts)
6. If you earn a dollar per second,
Tue Jun 23, 2026, 11:02 AM
7 hrs ago

It takes 12 days to get a million..
It takes 32 years to get a billion..
It takes 32,000 years to gain Musk's trillion.

Pinback

(13,712 posts)
8. Wow. This puts it in perspective
Tue Jun 23, 2026, 11:24 AM
7 hrs ago

Somehow I find this easier to comprehend than bar graphs or analogies with stacks of hundred-dollar bills.

Fil1957

(963 posts)
7. I don't think trillonaires or mutli billionaires and maybe even centi millionaires should even exist in this world.
Tue Jun 23, 2026, 11:05 AM
7 hrs ago

Money is power, and it's not healthy for society to concentrate so much of it in so few people.

However, it wouldn't be so bad if more of these morbidly rich folks felt some obligation to civil society. Instead too many of them seem hell bent on causing harm. And the worst of the worst of that group happens to the the richest and most powerful.

This whole thing really sucks.

CrispyQ

(41,184 posts)
9. This graphic accompanied an article by Carl Sagan on exponents, many, many years ago when we still had Sunday papers.
Tue Jun 23, 2026, 11:25 AM
7 hrs ago

GiqueCee

(5,041 posts)
10. If he actually did some good...
Tue Jun 23, 2026, 11:33 AM
6 hrs ago

... with that wealth, it would be one thing, but let us not forget Musk's repeated statements condemning empathy as the worst thing in the world. He'd burn half his fortune before he'd help someone with it, because he's a piece of psychotic Nazi racist shit on his best day.
For a bit of perspective, consider this: it would take you 31,700 YEARS to count to a trillion if you were to count one number every single second without ever stopping to sleep, eat, or rest. It would take only 31.7 years to count to a billion under the same conditions. Whoever made these calculations had WAY too much time on their hands!

edhopper

(37,689 posts)
11. This is in terms of dollar difference
Tue Jun 23, 2026, 11:44 AM
6 hrs ago

Larry Page (Google) has around $250 Billion. Which is $750 Billion behind Musk.
But in terms of percent that is 1/4 of Musk's wealth compared to 1/250,000,000,000

Also, and this bears repeated, Musk's wealth is based on stocks in incredibly overpriced companies.

Compare, Google has a PE of 26, Amazon (Bezos) has a PE of 30

Tesla has a PE of 350 and SpaceX is over 1000. These are not sustainable for companies that make little or no profit.

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