Bret Devereaux

It would be virtually impossible for even spending in the billions to impact the actual life quality of the richest men on earth, so you effectively have to assume they are just *that* ideologically committed to their personal wealth and the power it brings.https://twitter.com/NatStClair/status/1240293174762860544 …

So, while it is absolutely true that Bezos should step up, like most billionaires, he doesn't have his cash liquid. The largest portion of his wealth is in Amazon stock, which sure, he could sell - but the value it provides to him is control over Amazon itself.

Of course it is the case that he doesn't have nearly $110 billion in liquid. Am I supposed to believe that what liquid he *can* readily access is negligible? Bloomberg was prepared to spend into the billions on a vanity presidential campaign and has half Bezos's net worth.

That I don't know. My guess, reasoning from the admittedly smaller fortunes I know something about, is that what he has in cash at any given moment is actually probably 'small' (millions, not billions) and he functions on cash-flow, rather than reserves.

Bloomberg had months to get ready for his stupid vanity campaign and had the time to liquefy assets in an orderly economy (rather than the current firesale). But I admit, I'm speculating here.

But it often seems like folks don't realize that the scale of interventions we are talking here would blow way past even Bezos levels of wealth, fast. Amazon's operating expenses, for instance, are 80bn per *quarter*

The plan, for instance, to give every 'American adult' 1k - assuming that just means adult citizens (whereas it should probably also at least cover perm. residents) would cost $200bn. Potentially *per month* if we kept doing it.