I am not at all proposing that "people with billions of dollars" somehow directly pay for "the needs of the population as a whole".

I'm considering "actual power", rather than "actual income".

Really? Because GDP vs household income graphed over the last 40 years paints a rather clear picture.

Generalize "people with billions of dollars" to all Americans - and then this logic will start to work fully.

"Until people with salaries of many dollars per hour behind them do something with that money to offset the financial hardship that they're knowingly - and gleefully - bringing to others 90% of the world that live on less than 2 dollars per day... The distinction has no practical use."

Moreover, these people do not simply lobby the government, but directly elect it, and actually have many times more money at their disposal than the rest of the world.

If I understand what you're saying it's that as rich as they are, the amount of money the ultra-wealthy own just doesn't add up to nearly enough to give everyone a quality of life that they deserve / once had?

Perhaps what's happening is that in their attempts to reach a personal all-time high in their bank accounts the ultra-wealthy are destroying value and economic systems en mass with little regard to the efficiency of their money siphoning process?

It's kind of like a drug dealer selling brain burning addictive substances to a few people on a street. Sure they're going to extract a person's life savings to date and whatever money that person can steal once they're addicted but that value pales in comparison to what that person could have made over their career, what it could have made if properly invested, the cost of law enforcement to deal with these addicts, the cost of the stuff that they destroy in their quest to get money to buy drugs, the opportunity cost of them not raising their kids to be productive members of society... like it all just snow balls all so some asshole can make a few bucks...

The ultra-wealthy are doing that shit where people burn acres of pristine forests to get some biochar -- but to the entire world.

  Isn’t it strange
  That princes and kings,
  And clowns that caper
  In sawdust rings,
  And common people
  Like you and me
  Are builders for eternity?

  Each is given a bag of tools,
  A shapeless mass,
  A book of rules;
  And each must make-
  Ere life is flown-
  A stumbling block
  Or a stepping stone.

The question is not how much they have, but how much they will have once all the replaceable jobs are replaced.

Bloomberg Billionaires Index publishes daily net worth for the top 500 globally. As of end of 2025, the top 500 totaled $11.9 trillion, with $2.2 trillion added in 2025.

Forbes Real-Time Billionaires covers the full ~3,000-person list. The 2025 annual snapshot: 3,028 billionaires with combined net worth of $16.1 trillion

Forbes 400 (US only): 2025 cutoff was $3.8 billion to make the list. Forbes publishes the aggregate annually and recent years the total net worth was over $5.4T for the 400.

Well, the top 10% richest people control 67% of the wealth, and top 1% richest have 30% of the wealth in the US. The top half has > 97% of the wealth.

It appears you are the one very confused about wealth distribution in the US. Maybe you are confusing "income" with "wealth hoarding". The hoarding is happening to a gross amount, and this is why there should be a 1% tax on fortune portions over 100 million and 2% on portions over 1 billion. That and going back to the 70% tax over incomes in the top bracket (eg > 10million / yr)

Those taxes are coming. Trumpty Dumpty and the oligarchs brought it on themselves. Maga grifters are getting f'd in the midterms. Maybe maga should have picked a few dear leaders with some integrity instead of greedy frauds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_Unite...

Edit: downpout all you want, doesn't change the facts.

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The wealthiest group in the US is the 70-95%, they have over double the wealth of "the billionaires".

But we can't talk about this because it includes a large tract of the white collar everyday man workforce.

This is why the focus is so heavy on billionaires, so heavy on increasing minimum wage, so heavy on protecting immigrants. Those are all virtuous values that also bolster the value of the 70-95%, while piling all the blame (and responsibility) on the 1%.

The wealthiest group in America is doing an excellent job at protecting (and growing) their wealth.

(for those wondering, the "back breaker" of this class is zoning laws and new housing, everyone is aware how intense NIMBYism is in the middle/upper middle class hives).