this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2024
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[–] DaddleDew@lemmy.world 91 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

In a video game, whatever allowed them to become billionaires would have been called an "exploit" and would have been nerfed in the next patch.

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 35 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

Our universe is abandon ware?

[–] Silentiea@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 18 hours ago

Worse, our society is

[–] Thelie@sh.itjust.works 16 points 21 hours ago

Lemmy discovers deism. ;)

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 6 points 21 hours ago

In '00s games, sure.

In '20s games, it would be part of the Pay2Win scheme and only available to players who have rich parents.

[–] Toneswirly@lemmy.world 48 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

I mean its worse than that. Youd need to work at a rate of 16,600/hr, 24 hours a day for 2,000 years to get even close to Elon Musk

[–] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 6 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

But if you got $5000 at 0.7% yearly interest rate for 2000 years, you'd get to Musk's wealth. You can only get that high with compound interest with investments, rather than earning money.

[–] ValiantDust@feddit.org 118 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This is a few years old but still a good visualisation:

https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/

Start scrolling.

[–] skittle07crusher@sh.itjust.works 4 points 17 hours ago (1 children)
[–] ValiantDust@feddit.org 6 points 15 hours ago

I love that this guy decided that GitHub is the place to share his socio-economic essay. Next to a guy who used it for his sourdough guides my favourite use of GitHub yet.

[–] Lennard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Wow. This is another level of doomscrolling. Very educational though

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[–] elrik@lemmy.world 37 points 1 day ago (5 children)

But if you made just 3% interest on your money as you deposit $1,825,000 annually, over 532 years, you'd end up having $410 trillion dollars or more than 2,000 bezos.

[–] Track_Shovel 13 points 1 day ago (9 children)

Interest is insane when you think about it

[–] Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip 2 points 17 hours ago

thats why investments are inportant for long term. the problem we face as a society is that the majority of people cant afford to make these investments, as they are living day to day with their paychecks.

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[–] skibidi@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

2000 Bezos or about 4x the GDP of the planet.

People just need to invest and stop blaming others for being broke SMH.

Invest one penny at 3% per year, who can't afford one penny? You'll have $68 billion in just one thousand years. Poverty is a choice.

[–] Red_October@lemmy.world 9 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

This shit right here is why ancient Vampire Investment Bankers are so insufferable.

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[–] foggianism@lemmy.world 6 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

yeah but 1.8 mil 532 years ago would have been valued like billions today. so you still need to be a billionaire to become that rich

[–] elrik@lemmy.world 5 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

Not really with that amount of time. Suppose you put away $1,000 a year for 532 years, at 3% you still end up with $225 billion.

The deposits are completely dwarfed by the compounding interest. If you only start with $1,000 and add nothing else but let that original $1,000 compound at 4% you'll have over $1 trillion.

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[–] lousyd@lemmy.sdf.org 18 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

I bet for a long while you'd be like, "What even are dollars?", since they hadn't been invented yet.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 9 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

Nevermind dollars. What about inflation? $5000/day in 1900 would be worth $187,000 today. That's $68M/year.

You'd need, what? 15 years to get a billion at that rate. You'd also be accusing money faster than Rockefeller.

I have to wonder where all that wealth would even be coming from.

[–] CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 8 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (1 children)

Presumably the same place real rich people get it today. Gradually inflating the currency so that even if they're not directly stealing from you the increase in their wealth comes from the lessening of value of your, mine, and everyone elses money.

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[–] BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 6 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

You'd also be accusing money faster than Rockefeller.

It was the 20 dollar bill that killed the butler, with a candelabra in the hall!

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[–] disrupted@lemmy.world 77 points 1 day ago (3 children)

kinda makes you think. billionaires should not exist.

[–] jalkasieni@sopuli.xyz 48 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Virtually everyone fails to grasp exactly how large of a number a billion is. It’s so, so much bigger than the ”very big number” people think of when they hear the word.

[–] Taalnazi@lemmy.world 27 points 1 day ago

The difference between one million and one billion is roughly one billion.

[–] beebarfbadger@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

A million seconds is a little over 11 days.

A billion seconds is a little over 31 years.

Billionaires should be required to count out their dollars individually every few days.

[–] TastyWheat@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

While having someone scream random numbers at them as they count. Fuck em!

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[–] RandomVideos@programming.dev 12 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

That why you should have invested that 969 million usd in bitcoin

/s

[–] Hobo@lemmy.world 6 points 16 hours ago

Okay but in fairness if you put like 1% of that money virtually anywhere but under your matress you'd probably be richer than Bezos now. Even at like 3% interest of a $18,250 compunded over 530 years you'd have about half of Bezos' net worth.

[–] zbyte64@awful.systems 7 points 21 hours ago

Big brain chuds: But what if you used that money to exploit the labor of others?

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