Blain’s Morning Porridge 12th Dec 2024 – Who Wants to Be a Trillionaire?
“There must be something rotten to the very core of a society which increases wealth without diminishing misery.”
Who would possibly want to be a billionaire? Hated by the mob, a victim of evil governments holding you back with tax threats while denying your basic human rights – like a platinum gold bank account! Give me poverty anytime…
Sorry for the lack of comment y’day. It was just one of these days…. There is seldom a shortage of things to write about each morning, just a lack of time to actually put finger to keyboard. Y’day I had to do some proper actual proper work, and found something new and very interesting to fund in the coming year… which I will write about next week. Meanwhile, no Porridge tomorrow as this weekend is going to be a Christmas trip up to the Welsh Mountains to do early festivities with the in-laws. Full Porridge returns Monday, or Tuesday… depends on the roads, and next week I’ve got some cracking guest posts for your delectation.
So, this morning, you get my Friday rant a day early…
….
It’s that Time of Year! The Morning Porridge Christmas appeal! Time to think about those in society not as fortunate as ourselves, and accept that we often prejudge those less fortunate than ourselves… Don’t worry, I’m not asking for contributions or your money, just love and understanding…
In this season of joy-to-the-world, stop worrying about how to pay the tax-man next month, or if the second-hand school uniform bank will have any stock… and spare a thought about those less happy, less contented, and less well off in non-material things than ourselves. Think about those left behind by the holiday spirit, and how we can help them through this difficult time.
For some people, no amount of money can ever make them truly happy… I am, of course, thinking of the tragic lives of US Tech billionaires.
Few of us ever give much time to considering how miserable they must feel, and the pressures upon them. Earlier this week, our hearts were bursting in sympathy as Marc Andreessen, billionaire founder of Andreessen Horowitz, sadly explained to podcaster Joe Rogan why Billionaires had no choice but to turn out en-masse in favour of Donald Trump. Turns out it was these nasty Democrats again; “Operation Chokepoint 2.0” – an effort by Biden and his stooges to crush their class enemies. Andreesen explained: “This is the reason we ended up supporting Trump…. We had, like, 30 founders debanked in the last four years..”
Silly me.. I thought it was because the one thing Billionaires really, really, fear is wealth taxes on all their money. I was thinking the reason Marc and all the other tech and crypto founders supported Trump because he was going to make them even more fantabulously richer? I thought they’d bought Trump by funding him (to the tune of $285 mm plus), and getting him to keep their taxes low, make positive comments on crypto and digital currency regulation to boost wallets the govt can’t touch, while giving them influence over political appointments that will keep the loolah rolling in.
How wrong was I? I had foolishly thought the multiple collapses of crypto exchanges and events like FTX were due to the intrinsic chaos of crypto and the nature of human greed and evil, but no…. the tribulations of crypto have been all about deliberate over-regulation, biased civil and criminal lawsuits against crypto founders, and turning innocent crypto-thusiasts into the target of politically-inspired takedowns, all overseen by Janet Yellen.
Who knew? Fortunately, it’s all up there on X for you to read the gospel truth…
Heaven save us…. (US Readers.. Sarcasm Alert..)
C’mon… you have to laugh. Some of the world’s biggest supporters and investors in defi and cryptocurrencies free of government fiat distortion, who tell us repeatedly how Bitcoin is better money than money while urging us to use crypto-wallets… are upset because the local bank doesn’t know how to due-diligence the sources of their enormous wealth or manage the risks and costs of giving them a credit card? Give me a break….
Even the word Billionaire is now so passe.. The new phrase the new term for folk rich beyond the wildest imaginations of the other 99.9999997% of the world’s population is founder…. (with a capital F and sparkly diamonds. Real ones.)
All of which naturally leads us on to the latest valuations given to the private parts of Elon Musk’s impressive body of work….
Elon is very much on course to become the world’s first Trillionaire. Twitter is worth 70% more since the election. The Boring Company is worth some $7 bln. Twitter is worth more for its effectiveness in the recent election. The X-Ai component, including Grok, I guess is worth $50 bln. Space X could have sold more shares to its private investors via a tender at a $350 bln valuation yesterday. The only problem is – only some employee stock was on offer. None of the big holders of Space X want to sell the shares, so confident are they in its success.
It’s worth bearing in mind that SpaceX remains a literal rocket ship, a Starshot rather than a mere Moonshot. Its constellation asset, Starlink, probably isn’t actually profitable in any conventional sense – yet. A while back a Bloomberg article described its accounting as “more an art than a science”, and all Elon says it’s in “profitable territory”. I guess that’s a form of Adjusted EBITDA – which everyone accepts is fraud when a company fails, but financial genius until it does.
I read conflicting stories this morning, but according to one, Musk’s wealth surpassed $400 bln y’day, 2/5ths of the way towards a trillion. A feat unsurpassed in human history. In the original version of the King Midas story.. the gods first teach Midas the lesson about the foolishness of greed by turning his daughter to bullion, but them compensate him with a river flowing through his land full of alluvial gold flakes, and he becomes a good and enlightened ruler.
I am sure Space X is on track – Elon should take reassurance from the fact I’m going to fit Starlink to the boat, and I admit its a cracking good idea – except for all the stuff in space raising collision risks. I remain convinced Musk’s next trade should be to purchase Boeing. Its Market Cap is a mere $125 bln. Musk could back Space X into it – creating a new public firm I reckon would immediately trade upwards of $700bln – putting him even closer to the prize – the World’s first Global Trillionaire.
He might think that important to distinguish himself from the common heard of mere Billionaires. The Uber-Ultra Rich (as opposed to the merely ultra-high-net-worths) space is getting crowded – according to UBS there are apparently over 2700 Billionaires, collectively worth more than US$14 trillion. Total Global Wealth is estimated at around $470 trillion, meaning there is still plenty, 97% of that the ultra-wealthy don’t own – yet. Hmm… 3% of the worlds wealth is owned by just thirty-millioniths of a percent.. yep.
Sticking with the theme of love and understanding towards those less well gifted at Christmas, one has to think what Elon should do with that wealth? Give a fraction of it – $100mm – to Nigel Farage to buy the UK government? Go do some industrial scale philanthropy?
It must be tough be a billionaire. In fear of the mob coming to take what is yours – a historical feature of revolutions and human society since the year dot. If Trump’s government of Billionaires – check it here – should fail to deliver, how is the electorate likely to respond? Which may be why the first thing a new minted billionaire googles is security, and then how to secure the state…
The 1950s were so much simpler:
- Who wants to be a millionaire? I don’t.
- Have flashy flunkeys everywhere? I don’t.
- Who wants the bother of a country estate? A country estate is something I’d hate!
- Who wants to wallow in champagne? I don’t.
- Who wants a supersonic plane? I don’t.
- Who wants a private landing field too? I don’t
- Who wants uranium to spare? I don’t.
- Who wants to journey on a gigantic yacht? Do I want a yacht? Oh, how I do not!
- Who wants a fancy foreign car?
- Who wants to tire of caviar?
- Who wants a marble swimming pool too?
Give me the simple things…. (Please Santa.. a Halberg Rassy 43?)
Out of time, and back to day job.. Er no.. off to London for a proper lunch…
Bill Blain
Author of the Morning Porridge, and CEO Windshift Capital
