How can you be concerned about something like government spending when rich fat cats like Jeff Bezos get to have $159 billion while the rest of us starve?

If anything, we need the government to confiscate their wealth and spread it around.

- Actually, ... - Ah...

- ... that might be a little bit short-sighted, Bob. - How so?

Well, first of all, to take the example of Jeff Bezos, that 159 billion he has isn't liquid wealth.

Not liquid wealth?

You mean, like, he can't dive into his safe and swim in it?

No, liquid wealth is the amount of cash you have, whereas your net worth is the value of everything you own, including assets.

So, if you have a house which is worth $100,000, own a business which is worth $50,000, and have a quarter in your pocket,

your liquid wealth is 25 cents, and your net worth is $150,000 and 25 cents.

Oh.

Jeff Bezos is doing incredibly well, but it's not as if he has $159 billion in the bank.

He owns shares in a company which are worth about that much.

So, in order to seize his wealth, you would basically have to sell off Amazon.

But selling all of his shares at once would lead to a massive devaluing of the company, and all of the stock would be worth less.

So, you'd end up bankrupting him only to get a fraction of his initial wealth.

It would also result in massive layoffs, and, in all likelihood, kill the company along with all of the value it's adding to the economy.

I don't care; being a billionaire is a crime!

They only make their money by exploiting others!

Can't you see?

We could fix our economy if we rounded them up and confiscated their wealth!

Well, there are about 550 billionaires in the US.

If we lived in a magical world where we could liquidate all of their assets without devaluing any of them or throwing the economy off of its very delicate balance,

we would shut down, virtually, all of the most profitable companies in America, and the world for that matter, for a one-time lump sum of $2.5 trillion.

$2.5 trillion? Woohoo!

Imagine what we could do with that!

Run the federal government for under 8 months.

Man! The government really has to get spending under control, huh?

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