Yeah except probably not. Its not like billionaires have a savings account with $1,000,000,000 sitting there collecting 5% interest (much less sitting collecting even less interest in a checking account...)
They have a net worth based on tons of diverse (non-liquid) assets like securities, company ownership stakes, real estate, art, etc. To say nothing of their holdings in trusts and shell companies abroad, or whatever the latest tax avoidance strategies are.
He definitely thinks that, everything is zero sum for him.
Merkel had to explain eleven times to him that he can't make trade agreements with Germany, only the whole EU. He probably couldn't grasp the concept of mutual gain through cooperation.
Rather than get mad that Taylor has an obscene amount of money, let's enjoy the joke on Donnie for not having as much as he pretended. Let's try to be happy about that, sheesh. He's being displayed as the fool he is and I'm gonna enjoy it.
I mean I agree, though I also see the benefit of pushing the super wealthy who are more on our side to do more good. Like it or not, money go burr. I'd like to keep as much of that working for us as possible.
The rest on the other hand, those purely doing it for the high score and fuck you written in cursive: Those can go play on their private landing strip as a plane comes in.
I mean, there is definitely the hurdle of getting in contact with the bank, explaining to them what checks were, waiting for them to figure things out & explaining to me how that isn't a thing anyone, etc.
Seriously tho, none of my banks offer checks, and I don't know about any that do. Probably a US thing for paychecks from historically significant employers.
Edit: US, India, France (bcs they had/have no transactions fees), and Australia still use checks, the latter two plan to phase them out by 2030. A lot of EU countries just don't offer support anymore & cannot cash existing checks (neither at commercial or central banks).
Checks are increasingly a US centric thing. They're almost non existent in Canada, certainly on the personal front, and in Europe the last holdout is France. All they've said is that they're not phasing out checks before 2030, but they 100% are planning on getting rid of them. They're just archaic and far too easy to commit fraud with.
I think in the US they cracked down on check fraud really hard for a while and people are basically too scared to do it now. In places where it does happen (usually rural poor areas) some (especioaly smaller) places will just not accept checks or have signs up about how check fraud is a federal crime and that they will take you to court for it. Not saying it's the best solution, just trying to provide some background.
I mean with the IBAN system, checks are pretty much obsolete in Europe anyways. It's so easy to send and receive money there, directly through your bank's app, that third-party payment apps like paypal, venmo, cashapp, zelle etc. are practically non-existent if they even work there at all (which gives me some ideas as to why we don't have a similar North American system)
US credit cards still don't use a PIN. The rest of the world uses Chip&Pin or nfc contactless. The US uses magnetic strip very often, chip and no pin, and now contactless. The verification if asked, is not a PIN, it's the billing zip code (5 digit postal code of the US). Usually just petrol pumps ask.
It's also why I strongly advise any foreigner visiting Murica to learn the default zip for their card. If you use an international card (any non American card in America) it will still ask you for your zip code and if it fails, no petrol for you. And in the US you must pay BEFORE you pump so you could quite literally be stranded because of their archaic banking system.
Many European cards use 00000 or 12345. I've seen some Asian cards that use the last 5 digits of the card. Even if you have an American card if you aren't the standard boring American household that never moves, it can be a pain. The card may have its billing address (and therefore zip) set to a place you've never been. But you have to remember it.
To add to your list. You could still get checks in Canada as of a couple years ago, but virtually no one does that outside of some seniors who refuse to move on.
Let's say that whole idea is true: her dad bought her entire first contract and a warehouse of CDs to get her first album up to [checks notes] 19 in the charts.
Then what? So what? Genuinely curious what a generous startup payment has to do with her future success? How does that differ from parents saving money for their kids college tuition so they can go on to a successful career after? She certainly had a privileges growing up in an upper-middle class with a complete, supporting family that relocated to the heart of her original music's location, but how does that take away from the juggernaut of a career after that? Do you belittle great doctors if their parents funded medical school instead of fearing the debt and never starting? Do you think of an engineer any lesser if they drove 10 hours and dormed at MIT for their schooling instead of sticking with the local community college? This just comes across as being jealous her parents had some money and that she has proven to have talent. It's not like she invested $1bil of daddy's money to make it into $10mil by never turning profit and only keeping 10m by not paying any of the contractors.
I don't even like her music. I don't care for country and none of her pop follows the melody tones I like except one, single song. I just don't get what people try to say when they bring up her dad giving her startup money as a teenager. What, that it gave her a leg up? Nobody just gets lucky
I'm not American and don't give a shit about American pop music. All of it is the product of nepotism and I hope that it all gets deleted. Death to America.
Sir, It is a meme community and I do not give a shit about your impassioned and long ass defense of nepotism. What I don't care about is your thoughts that you sent to me unprompted. I also never wrote that I don't care about anything so not sure why you put that in quotes as if that is a direct quote of mine. I don't give a shit about American pop music, this is a direct quote and this is why I made a joke about Daddy buying her success. Death to America.
Do you realize how many talented artists are out there that never see the light of day of success just because they do not have the capital, connections, or luck to break through? I don't think most people are saying she doesn't have any talent at all. What people are saying is she owes her initial success to the money and connections her dad has. And it's not even the common stroke of luck that other successful artists get. She was even way ahead. And having that initial success can make or break an artist's career. Talent can then carry you moving forward.
Nobody is saying she's a hack who was only successful because of daddy's money. They're saying she got a very good headstart and hit the ground running. It's primarily directed at people who claim she got there on talent alone. It's like saying Bezos or Musk built their empire from scratch, while forgetting they had the benefit of having huge initial capital from their parents.
Btw, getting to #19 on mainstream charts is not trivial.
Absolutely nobody is 100% self-made. There is always some level of luck…whether it’s being born to the right family or being in the right places at the right times (and only then even having the option of making the right decisions), and whether your a billionaire or upper-middle class.
The problem is, most people in UMC and higher completely forget about any element of luck that come with their success. Some might attribute a small amount to it, and some may be fully aware of it, but most shrug it off and attribute all of their successes to their own actions and abilities.
Even artists who put in a shit ton of blood sweat and tears and came from humble beginnings. Look at Beyonce. Working class parents saved up and put her in Montessori school, and her career started when her dance instructor happened to catch her humming the end of a tune with perfect pitch.
Gotta be thousands of highly talented girls from working class families that enroll in a private school (most lower-grade private day school families I’d known are solid middle-class). But only one became Beyoncé.
so while I'd prefer no or fewer billionaires, I'd really prefer rich people who treated their entire ecosystems well over the current hellscape.
oh and TAX THE RICH. If they can stay billionaires by building new industries and competing for great workers by negotiating in good faith with union labor, that's fine.
Trader joe, SpaceX/Tesla Amazon and a bunch of other fucks are trying to destroy the entire NRLB, because they hate unions and think they can get away with it. FUCK THEM.
There are no good billionaires. Nobody can possible "earn" a billion dollars in one life time, that's impossible. If you're a billionaire, you are one because you stole wealth from those people below you, by paying them improperly, or screwing them. If Taylor is a billionaire it means she hasn't paid her people enough, and that she's charging too much for her work.
Provide one proof that she doesn't pay her people enough. Also, people can choose to give her money if they like. It's not like she's a monopoly making a lifesaving medicine and people have no choice but to give her money.
That's not a proof. She is not a company that has to pay their employees miserably to make profits. She makes music and has fans that willingly give her money through concerts, merch, etc. In contrast, here is an article about how she gave huge bonuses to her tour truck drivers.
I just don't know how anyone with that much money can look at the world and not throw most of it at making others lives better.
I can't imagine hoarding that much money because I'd be using it to buy poor people houses, build decent schools, solve hunger crisises, etc. Its an absurd amount of money that nobody needs to keep all to themselves, and it could go towards making the world a better place. There is a lack of empathy amongst the billionaires.