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Comment by rusk | Hacker News Reader

Yep but he chooses for it to be restrict this way

To be a bit facetious, that's like saying that I still possess all of the money I spent on groceries because I chose to spend it that way... at some point it's not my money anymore. I agree that Bill Gates still exerts some control over the money, but if he can't actually do anything he wants with it, then it's not wealth the same way cash, or even stock is.

At a certain point it starts to become silly to talk about wealth as the ability to buy things, rather than the ability to organize a large portion of the world's economic systems. That's specifically what his foundation can do as long as it's within a fairly broad set of parameters.

> To be a bit facetious, that's like saying that I still possess all of the money I spent on groceries because I chose to spend it that way... at some point it's not my money anymore.

I mean, you could say that groceries are part of your net worth, and immediately after purchase are roughly similar in value to the money you traded for them. Obviously people don't tend to bother counting their groceries as part of their net worth, mostly because they go bad or are consumed quickly and comprise a tiny percentage of most people's net worth.

But, in general, yes, your net worth is the value of everything you own (minus your debt). It's not at all crazy to say that, when you buy something very valuable or transfer money to a foundation which you control, your net worth is not changing much.

The point was that this is how he chooses to spend his money. For whatever reason I guess it makes him feel good. Which his cool but he has vastly more autonomy over his money than regular mortals - as do many other HNW individuals, they’re not all as kind hearted as Bill though.

> that's like saying that I still possess all of the money I spent on groceries because I chose to spend it that way... at some point it's not my money anymore.

Yes, but that point comes when you eat the groceries, not when you buy them.

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