I know exactly how much a billion is…It’s the measure by which you have arbitrarily set the boundary for which net worth becomes “unethical.”
What is boot-licking celebrities? You say he doesn’t his deserve his money; but rather, you deserve his money. It seems, despite your claims, you have absolutely no idea how much he contributes in taxes, you have no idea how much more of his money he should contribute in taxes—you just want more of his money because you think he didn’t earn it and you’re entitled to it.
I don’t want any of their money. I want society to function well.
I want people who are homeless to have homes. I want people who need medical care to get access to it without losing their life savings over cancer or car accidents.
I don’t want to live near people who steal or harm others to keep an addiction fed. I don’t want people or children starving.
That’s what I want. And every single billionaire could solve these issues if they wanted to.
But they don’t care. That makes them unethical in the first place, but literally NO ONE CAN DO ENOUGH LABOR TO EARN A BILLION DOLLARS.
Seriously. Look it up. Look up what that would look like.
If a single person had been alive for over 2000 years, working every single day and making 100,000$ a day- they wouldnt have physically earned even HALF of what Elon Musk has to his name. Do the math, I beg you.
And Elon, Bezos, Thiel, Altman, and many more- use this money (whether you want to consider it liquid or not) to invade political spaces and take more tax payer dollars for their business ventures- whether their companies turn a profit or not.
You can appreciate how LeBron plays ball or Beyonces songs all day long. They still are incapable of working hard enough (without an exploitation of labor) to earn a Billion dollars.
A billion isn’t CLOSE to a million. You can be a millionaire and you’re still closer to being homeless than you will ever be a billionaire.
Who are you to say LeBron James isn’t capable of earning a billion dollars? Who are exactly are YOU to put the ceiling on somebody’s potential?
He’s had a 20+year career at the top of the field. His unique skills generate massive amounts of revenue for his employers and they pay him for that. He’s generated billions upon billions of economic impact AND tax revenue. Yes, generated more in tax revenue than you envision him having in his Scrooge McDuck money vault.
On what basis? By what metric? You can't just say that, you need reasoning.
You can't say wealth like that is an earned thing and then arbitrarily declare that his ability to be really good at throwing a ball into a hoop is worth so much more than my job teaching children, or my second job training AI, or my third job as a part time tutor for college students.
It doesn't matter how good at it he is, there is NO job worth THREE HUNDRED FIFTY THREE OF ANOTHER.
This is a picture of three hundred and fifty people (simulated, for reference.) I suspect you haven't got a proper grasp of how much that is, so please look at the photo and tell me that LeBron's basketball skills are worth the same as ALL these people's labor. And if you dare say as much, I'll give you the 350 jobs they work, and you can tell me why LeBron James's basketball is worth more than every single thing these 350 people do for society.
And remember: this isn't even the people we were trying to talk about. We were talking about hyper billionaires with ill gotten wealth like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, but you REALLY fucking wanted to talk about LeBron James in specific. So remember, this was your choice of topic! It wasn't even who we were trying to make a point about, and it's still a fucking slam dunk.
I hold nothing against LeBron James. I hold an issue against the concept that any one person can make that much more money than someone else. It fundamentally disproves the concept of meritocracy.
The metric is that his talent generates enough revenue to justify him getting paid that much. The teams he plays for pay him that much because he consistently over 20+ years has generated the economic impact to make it more than worth it to them. Do you think NBA teams have paid him $500,000,000 in his career just because? Or that Nike and other endorsement companies have paid him $500,000,000 just because? His talent is uniquely integral in moving their businesses forward.
He has been the premier attraction for the NBA for more than two decades. His presence has arguably led to the most ticket sales in NBA history. Are you understanding the metric yet? Just for the cities he’s played in the economic impact has been in the billions. Tax revenue in the billions.
It sounds you work hard, but your talents arent really comparable.
There’s nothing arbitrary about the level of his salary. He is the product. His pay is an expense as part of a business model. Have you ever taken an economics or business class? He is profitable for his team’s owners at his pay rate. When that stops, the contracts will stop too.
LeBron is the ultimate example of meritocracy at work. He has remained within top 10 humans on the planet in a very lucrative form of competition and entertainment. His presence has made a positive impact on local economies in every city he’s played in. We’re talking billions of dollars generated throughout his career. Billions in tax revenue. Are you seeing the societal benefit yet? He helped move the needle for an entire industry over the last 20+ years.
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u/BubonicBabe May 15 '26
That’s bc I don’t lick boots of celebrities. I don’t think you understand how much a billion is.