Hacker News Reader

If I have the equivalent of $100B in shares and keep them for a very long time, the $100B exchanged hands about 0 times. Therefore, the vast majority of the wealth did not move one bit (literally).

I don't know how you imagine that billionaires use their money but I think we have very different ideas.

View on HN

JFC do you not know how the modern banking system works? Do you understand how market caps are calculated??? (surely not, why am I even asking).

Do you not know how the fucking STOCK MARKET works? Why are you having this discussion about things waaaay over your head?

The only "money" that is not moving is the company cash they store in a vault somewhere. If Amazon has 40 million dollars in the bank, it is exchanging hand MANY times. It's being loaned out by the bank. This is fucking basic stuff that's embarrassing for people not to know.

Now onto stocks.

Let me explain really really simply: If I start a company and someone invests 10 million in the company, i'm. using that to hire some engineers and buy some servers, etc. The money is exchanging hands. My 'wealth' is now a billion dollars because I only gave up 1% of the company for that ten million. What money am I hoarding? That billion is literally created from nothing, there was no 'billion' before I took that investment. Do you understand something that basic?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com