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Comment by shuckles | Hacker News Reader

Is it really the case that Jeff Bezos is consuming a million times more finite resources than someone whose net worth is $100k? It seems to me like what you buy with virtually infinite money is status like hanging out or sleeping with celebrities, a seat in important rooms, and assets. There is only so much additional jet fuel and human labor a multi-billionaire can consume.

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It is a fair point if the focus is on billionaires (Bezos, Zuck,...). The proportion of resources they consume is well below their wealth. They may even contribute positively to society through charitable causes.

The real issue is that tech/startup founders and workers who, while less rich, accumulate more wealth at scale compare to the rest of society. And given their number, I'm afraid this will have a real impact by greatly increasing inequality. That would be ok if the other part of the population would also be able to live better. But I do not think it will be the case.

Btw: I am a tech founder.

SpaceX, etc. That's what you do with billions to spend.

I think there’s an interesting and fair argument to make that one negative consequence of billionaires is entire otherwise unproductive economic sectors that exist for no reason other than their vanity (mega yachts, Swiss boarding schools, high fashion, doomsday bunkers). That is a different argument than one about resource hoarding though — a Louis bag doesn’t take much in the way of resources, just a single python in the worst case!

>one negative consequence of billionaires is entire otherwise unproductive economic sectors that exist for no reason other than their vanity

This isn't just relegated to billionaires. Depending on how you define "consumption", up to 70% of the U.S. economy is consumer driven. Now I wouldn't call all this "unproductive" but it's probably selectively unfair to claim only the uber-rich are spending money on items they don't need.

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