this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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The thought of running around with a 5 million dollar ring gives me heart palpitations.
The fact that a ring can be worth more then it would cost to provide financial independence for hunderds of people, is kinda jarring.
I know, I know, pretty rock and metal worth paper value notes.
So really that ring is pure loss.
No one owned that gem when it was just sitting in the ground. It took millions of years to create.
Some capitalism claimed it when one of his workers mined it. Calculated how much energy and labor it has costs to obtain it.
Then sold it for a massive markup compared to their own costs.
The machines have spend energy to get it (loss)
The workers spend life time and life energy to get it (loss)
Bezos his works spend their life time and energy to make him the money he now loses on this ring. (Loss)
The planet lost one of its rare gems. (Loss)
No lives are going to be saved using that rock, its not going to be used for breakthrough science, its not in a museum where we the people can admire our planet and learn from the its amazing processes. (No profit)
Instead its to decorate a hand so one person can be perceived as having value. Ironic.
depends if they got a lab created diamond, and the manufacturer /jewelry stores just gouged the price.
Do you HAVE to be so unromantic? It obviously proved his NEVER-ENDING LOVE for his wife! Does that count for NOTHING?! /s
That's literally every wedding ring regardless of value
All materials obtained just to turn it into jewellery is loss yes.
Mine is a gold alloy rather then pure and i am very fond of it. I derive pleasure from it everyday while the total loss was significantly less than the one in Bezos marriage.
We also had an engagement ring which has an industrial rock because no way where we going to waste our limited money on a real diamond.
All rings combined costs less than having a birth in a US hospital.
Both rings were still a loss to the planet, just like almost every novelty i own and many things i consume. Staying alive is a destructive action and all humans cause loss. That is normal and ok. What is not ok is not being aware/inconsiderate of it.
We should all strive to create the least amount of loss we are aware off and my older self having grown significantly then when i married would love a ring made from recycled computer metals which now often end up on a landfill.
Yes, that's the entire point of it all. If you don't want humans to send expensive signals to each other, you need to remove their incentives to do so. As long as billionaires and the institution of marriage exist, human happiness and wellbeing will forever be ground up and burned in service of demonstrating that some people are more special than everyone else
Hundreds?
That's enough for like 1.5 households to retire on. That's it. A million is not as much as it used to be.
I think you could get a good amount of people out of debt. Maybe less so in america but elsewhere for sure.
Sure. But being out of debt is different from being financially independent.
Its a start. My point was, generally, 5 million could do a lot to help people and you wouldn't see me keeping people's lives tied to my finger.
Ehh. If you divide it into 10 chunks of $500k, and each of those invest it in a middling risk thing like vanguard and get a 10% return, that's like $50k/year without doing any work. That's well above the poverty line.
Side note: Rich people sort of have basic income because of stuff like this, and that's fucked up.
The problem is that's not a sustainable withdrawal rate. Also it's 10% average before factoring in inflation, so I'm real dollars it's close to 7% on average, but some years are a negative return, where you're eating into the principle, and require a portion of the up years to make up for those.
An indefinitely sustainable withdrawal rate is closer to 3.5%.
Also the federal poverty line is horrendously out of touch.
And that's literally how retirement accounts work, so it's not really that fucked up a concept
Sure, it wouldn't be an easy live starting with $500k, but I think with strict budgeting and low costs you could stay in the black and grow your principle. And if you get any job at all on top of it, it's even easier.
Anyway, yeah, was just spit balling how much a difference the money could make.
im actually surprised he went super cheap on his wedding which was on 20mil, cheap for a billionaire that want to flaunt his welath. unless he bought that yacht before his wedding.
Well, it depends on where you are. It doesn't go as far in the US as it would in many other places
Sure... But given that we're discussing things in terms of US currency, the assumption is the US.
He'll, you could fuck off into the woods and live on next to nothing in the US, too. But the standard of living is very different
That's enough budget for a whole ass R&D project and team. Can this ring shoot lasers or steer a helicopter or something?
No, but it can checks notes impress other rich people.
I doubt they're impressed, just disdainful if you don't have one.
Keen observation