Beleaguered Billionaires

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you're in the market to feel sorry for somebody today,
I got one transgendered youth. Oh, immigrants, No women's reproductive rights,
not even close. The most downtrodden attacked collection among us
these days billionaires, tiny global minority of just two thousand,
downright be leaguered, under attack by the media, by elected officials.

(00:24):
Seems everybody is there, anybody on their side? Well, first,
how do you get to be one? Three ways? You
can steal it, you can inherit it, or work really hard.
Most of the founding billionaires in this country fall into
that category, even the ones we know. Buffett earned his.
Walter Scott's first home was an apartment above a bar.

(00:46):
Joe Ricketts borrowed twelve thousand dollars to buy a securities
brokerage firm that later became td amer Trade. Ron Carson
started his career selling insurance through the phone book Tom
and Ron de Pete of Lincoln sold used farm equipment
through classified ads. That company became sand Hills Global. Nine

(01:06):
of the top ten wealthiest people in the world living
today are self made. But it seems being a billionaire
is no fun anymore. Everybody hates you, envies you, tries
to take what you have and give it to people
who didn't earn it and largely don't deserve it. What
in the name of the Gilded Age is going on? First,

(01:27):
we need to clarify a few facts about money. Wealth
is really about value, which is not objective because value
rests in each person's individual interest. For example, if you're
in the middle of the desert and you need water,
that five hundred million in Berkshire Hathaway stock isn't worth
nearly as much as a full canteen. Now apply it

(01:50):
to real math. Most all of a billionaire's wealth is
tied up in a business or many businesses, like Buffett's
Berkshire Hathaway. Jeff Bezos owns fifty five million shares of
Amazon stock worth two hundred and thirty nine billion in
a life or death situation, if he needed half of
that in cash, he couldn't come up with it, and

(02:11):
if he tried, it would collapse the market price. So
the only way the rich can stay rich that way
is to never convert their equity into cash. And if
it's not in cash, how do they use it? Well,
they can borrow against it or sell little pieces at
a time. That's it. Conversely, for the lower ninety nine
percent of us, most of our wealth is liquid retirement

(02:33):
funds a home. We could get to it a lot
faster than Bill Gates can get to his. And speaking
of companies, who really benefits the folks at the top
are the worker bees. The media decries how the CEO
of Walmart has paid eleven hundred times more than the
median worker. But remember Walmart has two point five million employees.

(02:56):
If the company has revenues of five hundred and fifty billion,
five hundred and twenty four billion goes to them. The
Walton family of Bentonville, Arkansas founded the company and has
a massive amount of stock, but thanks to competition, they
see less than three percent of the annual economic activity.
Ninety seven percent goes to the workers in the form

(03:18):
of salary benefits and retirement contributions. Every company is disciplined
to the marketplace by competition. There's almost nothing for sale
on Amazon that you can't buy somewhere else. There are
other smartphone manufacturers besides Apple, other streaming services beside Netflix,
a lot more electric vehicles than just Tesla. The success

(03:40):
of these firms is not a result of their market power,
but of their spectacular success in satisfying consumer wants. Consider
the contrast between billionaires and politicians such as Elizabeth Warren,
Bernie Sanders, Mandami, the Kami, champions of the wealth tax,
redistribution of wealth. How much better that is your life

(04:01):
thanks to them? But Berkshire's companies, from Geico to Dairy
Queen to Nebraska Furniture Mart have delivered for you that
scholarship your kid just god probably funded by a rich person.
The hospital, the library, art museum, the zoo. They don't
happen unless those with a lot give it away. Ultimately,
the B class has been of immense value. Without the

(04:24):
risk takers, we would not be living in a world
where poverty and hunger continues to collapse, and some countries
have gotten so wealthy that people with broadband internet and
smartphones are classified as impoverished. May billionaires live long and
prosper and God willing, May their tribe increase