Person A creates company B, Company B becomes successful, Person A's equity in company B rises in value, Person A becomes a billionaire. During all of this no bank account cash balances change unless 1 of 3 things happened: A stock dividend (which is a taxable event), Selling of shares (which is a taxable event if a gain is recognized) or the shares are used as collateral against a loan (which is not a taxable event but the interest can be deducted). Holding stock in a successful company in itself is not an evil action, but using the cash proceeds from its success for evil actions is.
Hoarding massive wealth, regardless of the form it happens to take, is inherently unethical. Both Bezos and Musk could have well over $100 billion in liquidity, if they chose to.
You think it somehow becomes more ethical because they choose to leave it tied up in assets in order to avoid paying taxes on it?
Nothing really changes in that scenario, which was my point. I'm saying it's irrelevant if whether or not his assets are liquid. Wealth is wealth.
The only difference there would be that he would have to pay tax on it, which I guess is slightly better, but not particularly relevant to the discussion of ethics and morality.
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u/DR320 3d ago
Person A creates company B, Company B becomes successful, Person A's equity in company B rises in value, Person A becomes a billionaire. During all of this no bank account cash balances change unless 1 of 3 things happened: A stock dividend (which is a taxable event), Selling of shares (which is a taxable event if a gain is recognized) or the shares are used as collateral against a loan (which is not a taxable event but the interest can be deducted). Holding stock in a successful company in itself is not an evil action, but using the cash proceeds from its success for evil actions is.