Pavlos Maros
Well-Known Member
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Sometimes when people post up a great hypothetical question it makes my brain go into hyperactivity mode. So I start to play with the thoughts so here is another hypothetical to follow on in a small way from Waterfalls post.
If you spent £10,000 a day it would take you 9 months (274 days) to spend one million.
If you did the same for one billion it would take you 274 years.
Now if all people had at their disposal 10 million each just so they could live comfortably, 10 million is the optimum amount for a comfortable life, so it is more than enough.
From birth until say death at 80, withdrawing approximately £100,000 annually, and earning 4% interest, you'd still leave behind around £100 million, thanks to compounding growth over such a long time.
To put this in even starker perspective: £10 million invested conservatively could generate £400,000 per year in passive income - four times what a comfortable lifestyle requires. This means the excess wealth beyond £10 million is purely accumulation for accumulation's sake. The fact that many billionaires have hundreds or even thousands of times this amount while others struggle to eat is a moral failure of our economic system.
The brutal reality is that no individual needs or can reasonably use wealth beyond this level. Every pound beyond £10 million represents resources that could lift others out of poverty, fund medical research, or solve pressing global challenges. The choice to hoard wealth beyond any conceivable need, while millions suffer in poverty, reveals a profound moral bankruptcy.
Anybody who has excess of 10 million is a greedy cruel and callous person not worthy of any praise whatsoever. I personally have nothing but disdain for anybody like that. Their legacy will be one of choosing personal excess over human welfare.
How can we, as a society, rectify this moral dilemma that allows such extreme wealth hoarding to continue while millions suffer in poverty?
An addendum:
One concrete step would be to radically reform our tax systems - not just tweaking rates but fundamentally restructuring how we tax wealth. Currently, most tax systems focus heavily on income while allowing accumulated wealth to grow virtually untouched through various loopholes and preferential treatment of capital gains.
We could implement a progressive wealth tax that kicks in at that £10 million threshold we identified. This wouldn't be about punitive confiscation, but rather recognizing that wealth beyond this level is essentially surplus to any reasonable individual need. The revenue could fund universal basic services, education, and healthcare - effectively recycling extreme wealth back into society for common benefit.
But tax reform alone isn't enough - we need to address the cultural narratives that celebrate billionaires as aspirational figures rather than symptoms of systemic failure. As long as extreme wealth accumulation is seen as a laudable achievement rather than a moral failing, meaningful change will be difficult. We need to shift the conversation from 'how to get rich' to 'how to create a society where everyone has enough.'"
If you spent £10,000 a day it would take you 9 months (274 days) to spend one million.
If you did the same for one billion it would take you 274 years.
Now if all people had at their disposal 10 million each just so they could live comfortably, 10 million is the optimum amount for a comfortable life, so it is more than enough.
From birth until say death at 80, withdrawing approximately £100,000 annually, and earning 4% interest, you'd still leave behind around £100 million, thanks to compounding growth over such a long time.
To put this in even starker perspective: £10 million invested conservatively could generate £400,000 per year in passive income - four times what a comfortable lifestyle requires. This means the excess wealth beyond £10 million is purely accumulation for accumulation's sake. The fact that many billionaires have hundreds or even thousands of times this amount while others struggle to eat is a moral failure of our economic system.
The brutal reality is that no individual needs or can reasonably use wealth beyond this level. Every pound beyond £10 million represents resources that could lift others out of poverty, fund medical research, or solve pressing global challenges. The choice to hoard wealth beyond any conceivable need, while millions suffer in poverty, reveals a profound moral bankruptcy.
Anybody who has excess of 10 million is a greedy cruel and callous person not worthy of any praise whatsoever. I personally have nothing but disdain for anybody like that. Their legacy will be one of choosing personal excess over human welfare.
How can we, as a society, rectify this moral dilemma that allows such extreme wealth hoarding to continue while millions suffer in poverty?
An addendum:
One concrete step would be to radically reform our tax systems - not just tweaking rates but fundamentally restructuring how we tax wealth. Currently, most tax systems focus heavily on income while allowing accumulated wealth to grow virtually untouched through various loopholes and preferential treatment of capital gains.
We could implement a progressive wealth tax that kicks in at that £10 million threshold we identified. This wouldn't be about punitive confiscation, but rather recognizing that wealth beyond this level is essentially surplus to any reasonable individual need. The revenue could fund universal basic services, education, and healthcare - effectively recycling extreme wealth back into society for common benefit.
But tax reform alone isn't enough - we need to address the cultural narratives that celebrate billionaires as aspirational figures rather than symptoms of systemic failure. As long as extreme wealth accumulation is seen as a laudable achievement rather than a moral failing, meaningful change will be difficult. We need to shift the conversation from 'how to get rich' to 'how to create a society where everyone has enough.'"
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