Someone recently asked me three questions, each laced with assumptions that demand closer scrutiny:
- What do you believe billionaires do with all their money?
- How many people do they employ just to keep track of it?
- Why do people with “their hands out” hate billionaires?
These kinds of questions are more revealing of a worldview than they are of actual curiosity. Here’s my answer.
What Do I Think Billionaires Do With Their Money?
Let’s be clear: I don’t believe what billionaires do with their money, I know. They hoard it. Not in a cartoonish Scrooge McDuck-style money bin, but in more sophisticated, inaccessible forms: real estate portfolios, private equity, shell companies, offshore tax havens, and diversified stock holdings that grow faster than the economy itself.
We don’t see billionaires “spending” their wealth in any meaningful sense that stimulates the economy at scale. They’re not out buying groceries at your local store or funding your local hospital. They’re not reinvesting into the communities that made their businesses possible. They’re playing Monopoly on a global scale, owning assets, leveraging debt, avoiding taxes, and watching their net worth balloon.
If billionaires were truly the engines of economic prosperity, we wouldn’t have roads and bridges collapsing. We wouldn’t have nurses working two jobs, teachers buying supplies out of pocket, or GoFundMe serving as the de facto healthcare provider for millions. The only thing billionaires are driving is inequality.
How Many People Do They Employ?
This is a rhetorical trick, a red herring dressed up as economic analysis. Billionaires don’t personally employ people. Companies do. And those companies exist for one reason: to generate profits, not to provide charity.
Let’s use Amazon as an example. Jeff Bezos didn’t build Amazon by personally hiring warehouse workers out of the kindness of his heart. Those workers were hired to generate revenue, and when revenue doesn’t meet billionaire expectations, they’re the first ones on the chopping block. Meanwhile, stock buybacks continue, executive bonuses skyrocket, and automation ramps up.
If Bezos disappeared tomorrow, Amazon would still run. But if every warehouse worker, driver, and support staff member vanished, the company would implode in hours. The laborers are the lifeblood. The billionaire is the extraction valve.
So let’s stop pretending these jobs are gifts. They’re transactions, and usually exploitative ones.
Why Do People Hate Billionaires?
Let’s address the dog whistle in that last question: “Why do people with their hands out hate billionaires?”
First, nobody’s asking billionaires to personally write them a check. That’s not what this is about. People are demanding that billionaires pay back into the system that made their wealth possible. They use public roads. Their companies benefit from publicly educated workforces. They ride on the infrastructure built by taxpayers, yet spend millions to avoid paying taxes themselves.
And when someone dares to ask for billionaires to help repair the schools their workers’ children attend, or to fund universal healthcare so nobody dies over a $30 insulin dose, they’re labeled as jealous? Give me a break.
This isn’t about envy. It’s about equity. Nobody earns a billion dollars. You extract it. You exploit it. You inherit systems built on exploitation and then use your wealth to reshape the rules in your favor.
No Heroes, Just Hoarders
You can say whatever you want about George Soros, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, or even Taylor Swift. I don’t believe in “good billionaires”. Because the very existence of billionaires means the system is broken.
There should be zero billionaires on this planet, not because people shouldn’t be successful, but because success should never require the suffering of others. It should never come at the cost of crumbling schools, shuttered clinics, or starving families.
We don’t need billionaires. Billionaires need us. They need workers, roads, code, consumers, and government bailouts. And if they’re unwilling to give back into the very system that gives them everything, what good are they?
It’s not “punishing success.” It’s about building a world where success for one doesn’t mean ruin for millions. And if you can’t see that, then congratulations: you’ve been bought, for free.