If you lined up $1.4B of shrimp, they would go all the way around the earth. (Assuming $12 is for 6 shrimp and that each shrimp is 2.5" long, $1.4B buys 27,620 miles of shrimp. Earth's equatorial circumference is 24,901 miles.)

NY Times Pitchbot@nytpitchbot.bsky.social · last mo.

Republican president Donald Trump has made $1.4 billion from his cryptocurrency business since returning to the White House. But Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh had the funds to pay $12 for Culver's shrimp. Shame on both parties.

When I want to treat myself, I sometimes make a nice steak for dinner. Ribeye is about $20/lb at the store. If I'm hungry, I could eat a half pound. With a billion dollars, I could eat 1/2 lb of ribeye for 3 meals a day for 91,000 years. The cave paintings at Lascaux are at most 22,000 yrs old.

"Tax the ultra wealthy and use the money to fund better public services" sounds like a pretty moderate position to me. We've got our nose pressed against the glass of an Overton window shifted so far right that Mamdani is mistaken for a radical. Time to open it up and gets some fresh air in here.

Mark Zaid, Esq@markzaidesq.bsky.social · last mo.

We are witnessing MAGA equivalent of destruction of Democratic Party through election of progressive Socialists. If you think this ends well for country, I believe you're sadly mistaken. Extremism on one side simply fuels opposite growth on other side. We need moderates.

Having a million dollars is a success. Having a billion dollars is an illness.

That there exist tiers of wealth beyond which it is literally impossible to ever make enough bad financial decisions to impoverish yourself no matter how puddingbrained you are is something we either have to eliminate or else make that the case for all people at all income levels.

With a billion $1 bills, you could buy an Airbus A380, the largest passenger airliner in the world, and the leftover money would still be too heavy to transport on the plane.

Since the wealthy and powerful are in the news dismissing the concept of #affordability, it seems like a good time to re-up this

One Billion Dollars@billion-dollars.bsky.social · last yr.

Proportionally, a brand new Toyota Camry costs a billionaire as much as a Big Mac costs the median American.

One thing a billion dollars cannot buy is genuine public respect, and this fact completely breaks people like Elon.

I think part of What's Going On with billionaires is that the daily friction of interacting with normal people is part of what anchors people to the real world, and once you have enough money to buy your way out of the friction you can knock down a load-bearing column propping up your sanity.

Everyone knows eggs are unusually expensive right now, but $1.5B still buys a dozen for each person in the US

Proportionally, a brand new Toyota Camry costs a billionaire as much as a Big Mac costs the median American.

Suppose you had to spend a dollar every SECOND. The week's groceries? A drop in the bucket for you. Save up for a month and buy a jet, maybe, and several houses after a year. Out of stuff to buy? Too bad- you gotta keep spending for 31 YEARS. Congrats- you've spent a billion dollars.