No such thing as an ethical Billionaire. Should not exist.
I can say this while also recognizing my own immense privilege as someone who has high net worth for their age and expects to be a multimillionaire before retirement age.
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I get all my wine at the wholesale price, so usually 1/3 cheaper than the store sells them for. Do I use this as an excuse to buy more expensive wine? Yes…
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My friends with access to and knowledge of wine like you have access/knowledge (either discount through work or discount through knowing winery people etc) all have hundreds of bottles on hand at any given time.
IKEA expedit/kallax are the most common storage methods around here, in basement rooms outfitted as dry cellars, in case you were wondering that piece
too 
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Wine: 10-15
Mead: 12 (part of the aging program)
Whisk(e)y: ~60
Beer: ~600
+11 5 gallon kegs, 7 on tap
Oh, and obviously a few cases worth of tequila, vodka, a bottle of absinth, liqeuers and brandy.
It’s only a problem if you run out.
(Seriously though, I drink like maaayybeee twice a month. I’m never getting through this stuff. I need friends who will drink this with / for me)
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I know, I think part of why I have so much is 1.) I can only have ~1 glass with some meds I’m on, 2.) husband works night shift so wine time for me is getting ready for work time for him, 3.) there’s this pandemic thing so I’m not having any people over. Maybe I’ll have an epic party when things are safer.
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I’m totally on your side about the amount of wine you have. It’s a collection!
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So, real question…what about the top of the top 1% versus the bottom of the top 1%? People in the top 1% (I’ve learned) seem to make that distinction a lot, feeling like they are technically part of the top 1% but only barely, or less so than those ultra high earning billionaires like Bezos. Ditto for people in the top 5%, which is (I think) a household income of $250k+.
I guess my question in all this is
at what point does it stop making sense to look upward at the decisions of other people, and how much is too much? And is it disingenuous to have feelings that inequity is bad but still be among the absolute richest people in the world? I include myself in this btw, I don’t have answers I’m just interested.
Like, is it morally ok for someone to have a net worth of $2 million? Why is that ok? Or not ok? Does it change if they have high expenses due to an immutable characteristic? What if they have high expenses due to choosing to have a large family? Or high expenses due to lavish lifestyle? Are those reasons morally different or does only the amount spent matter? Is it morally worse to be someone who makes $30 million a year and gives almost nothing to charity versus someone who makes $150k and gives almost nothing to charity? Or are those actors morally equivalent?
Is it ok to have $25 million? $50 million? $99.9 million but not a billion? Where is the line and who determines it? What could the collective power of high earners (but not 1%ers) be if we all donated a certain percentage of our incomes? Like if everyone who made between $80k and $250k donated a minimum of 10% gross income…how much would that be?
That’s just random stuff I always wonder but am afraid to say in these conversations IRL.
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I love this conversation and you’re right that almost everyone can justify whatever level of wealth they have at a particular time. Hassan Minaj has a YouTube video where he asks the audience if there’s a level of wealth that makes you evil/does something wonky to your soul, but when someone in the audience says 1 million dollars he’s SO QUICK to push back. With the reasonable point that the stage/show he’s on costs a million dollars to produce but still. I will try to find it and post it.
I did come up with my “too much money” threshold
It’s $15 million which is admittedly arbitrary but that’s what I feel. My grandfather has more money than this.
I feel like I should add that I LOVE talking about this and Mr Darling hates it.
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That’s such a great example! I’m glad you like talking about this because I do too 
I’m relieved you take it the way I intended it!
Summary
It’s hard not to think about how many people would find the amount of wealth I have right now (net worth around $250k, fwiw) to be obscene. I definitely have friends who would consider me wildly rich based just on my net worth alone, and when you take into account that I’m young and will eventually be a millionaire (and probably a multi-millionaire eventually)… it’s pretty crazy.
I think the concept of security is really fascinating too, and also seems to be an ever moving goal post. Like, I didn’t feel super secure when I had only $50k net worth. I did feel an increase in security when I first established an emergency fund of $5k though…and at that point that was my entire net worth. I don’t feel indefinitely financially secure now, at many times that amount. I think I will feel secure at a little over a million, but you only have to peruse MMM for a bit to find plenty of people hitting $1.5 million and worrying about retirement. What if an expensive health issue happens? What if family or friends need help? What if medicaid goes away?
I guess I can see how someone could continue doing this all the way to the top, especially when I consider the expenses of someone who is a billionaire or multi-millionaire. If your expenses and earnings gradually grow…what it takes for you to feel secure grows. Like, I agree that $15 million is a shitload of money. I don’t think I’ll ever be worth that amount! But if you have three kids and they each go to private school (because they need smaller classes!) for $40k each a year, and your mortgage is $20k a month (it’s a HCOL area!), and summer camp (enrichment!) is $15k per kid, and groceries are $2k a month (health is important)…like, I see how suddenly that $15 million could feel insecure.
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Wealth
I’m very reluctant to ever say X amount of wealth is obscene for a couple reasons. One being that any line is pretty arbitrary. A second is that I’m very reluctant to ever judge anyone, though I do think you could easily argue there’s a moral difference between someone who achieved their wealth through exploitation versus wealth creation, and also what the person does with that wealth.
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Here’s the flip side @AllHat
Summary
How do you feel about millionaires who leverage the income rules versus networth rules to be on medicaid or get ACA subsidies thus preserving their wealth? This bothers me. I have insurance as a retiree benefit (I pay a heftier portion than s current employee), so I don’t have to make this decision. But, it uses resources intended for poor people. Yeah, I know we all paid taxes for this, but still.
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This is why Mr Darling hates my (fairly arbitrary) line in the sand. He wants to see everyone in good light whereas I am very happy to judge people.
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Summary
I was kind of pissed when my friend with a trust fund was on Medicaid. But then I got put onto Medicaid when I was unemployed (I was trying to sign up for an exchange plan) because in states where Medicaid’s been expanded there aren’t asset limits. Which I think is a good policy decision. So if people are actually gaming the system by doing math or hiding income I think that’s unethical, but if they simply don’t have income right now even though they have lots of assets… that’s the rules of the program and I’m good with it? Obviously it’s complicated because I benefited from it too, but Mr Darling got Lyme while we were on it and it was so much less stressful than it could have been.
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Summary
I think this in particular gets complicated since insurance is SO tied to employment here. So even if you have assets, trying to self fund decent insurance is HARD, even just as an availability issue in a lot of places.
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@darlingpants That video was fascinating! Also in the article the writer says, " It’s fun watching Minhaj manage the guy who thinks, like Dr. Evil, that a million dollars is still fuck you money". Like…it’s implied that the (presumably lower earning) guy who thinks a million dollars is a lot, is just wrong.
@druidessie Interesting take, that makes sense to me! I feel similarly, I think, at this moment, haha.
@Gdogg Oooof, so…I’m a little afraid to answer that here. I’ll just say it is not a decision I would ever make. I would not be comfortable accepting it while having hundreds of thousands (or millions) in the bank, unless I were over 65 or in a position where not accepting it could lead to me being homeless (due to medical costs and inability to work, I mean). To me, it’s the same as why I wouldn’t go to a food bank. There is nothing wrong with needing to use a food bank, and people who work at food banks will not question anyone. I could go get a box every week…but I don’t.
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i think we should have a maximum wealth level for individuals, and it should be about 1000x the median household income. so now, that would be like $50 million. and when you die, each kid gets $5 million max and the rest goes to supporting society.
i dont see any need for any one person to have more than that, and i dont believe that any one person’s right to make and hoard as many resources as they want supersedes the right of people to eat and have clean water to drink and have a safe place to rest their head at night.
of course this relies on having a much more egalitarian society and a much less corrupt government so … baby steps. elizabeth warren’s wealth tax is a good place to start imo.
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This is really interesting! Is this number from a certain school of thought or philosophy? I’d love to read more about it.
Also, question on the $5 million per kid idea. What if the needs of each kid are unequal? If one kid has an IQ of 120 and another has an IQ of 70 they have very unequal future earning ability and expenses. The IQ 70 kid will almost certainly require really expensive services. Should they still receive the same $5 million max?
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Right, and that’s how you get all those articles being like “$500k a year just doesn’t go very far in NYC!!!” when there are plenty of households making poverty line or lower work (as well as you can make that work at least) in the same metro area. And like, the articles are right that you can spend $500k very quickly but it’s just SO different levels of spending decisions.
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lol no i just made it up because it feels right to me. there might be some other folks who believe the same but i dont know of any outside my immediate circle.
the scenario you bring up is an interesting one. in a society that could agree on a maximum wealth level i would think that we’d have widely available high quality social services as well, so that surviving one’s disabilities wouldn’t require great wealth. without that in place, there would have to be some other mechanism to serve the same function.
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Wealth taxes have a really hard time in the knowledge economy though, because of how IP taxation can get really fucked up. Joshua Kennon has a good piece about that.
I’m also incredibly wary of any form of property confiscation/eat the rich/etc rhetoric because historically once this begins begins it does an incredible amount of evil no matter how good the initial intent (see last 150 years of Roman Republic, particularly Sulla’s proscriptions and Saturninus’ reign of terror; French Revolution; basically all of the major Communist Revolutions, especially Cultural Revolution and the Khmer Rouge).
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