$6,472,200,000,000

The same companies most possibly destroying our planet? The horror
It’d be complicated to extract this from companies they own without destroying the companies
In that case, let's do it and destroy the companies at the same time. Two birds with one stone.
I mean, we’re talking about taking the wealth and distributing it for more constructive purposes, if it doesn’t demolish a handful of fortune 500s in the process we’ve made a mistake. Those fortunes would then be able to be used to take all the workers pointlessly generating wealth for the billionaire class and start working on socially useful ventures
- It depends, in theory Amazon should be more efficient but that only works if you close most of the brick and mortar stores and replace it with housing or something useful.
Just give the shares to the employees who do the actual work.

Well yes, but unless you dismantle things it'll probably backfire. A ton of that wealth is in owning companies, and if that ownership transfered to the state, it would need to be liquidated by selling it to... someone. Which would tank stocks, which would then tank 401ks and IRAs and a lot of other retirement funds, etc.. It would get messy and a ton of non-billionares would be impacted.

Now you can argue that you then use your newfound government cash to pay a new universal social security, and that's possible but you'd need to design all that ahead of time. Plus if your goal is to not impact people with less than a billion... well, no dice. It's hard to target just the billionaires, basically.

Still, if we could at least start the process that'd be lovely. Dismantling the whole system is more effective and way better, but my money would be on gradual socialist improvements paid via higher taxes and not a system overhaul. As it is, we're going backwards, though, so meh.

If you're in this community, it's because you believe the system should be dismantled and replaced. I understand this post may be confusing because of that, but it's more of a thought experiment.

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Thanks for listening.

The worst part is most of that money would end up right where it started.

Yeah true. El problema es el capitalismo.
You can always redo it. Family wealth counting together next time.
I agree, but don't let the subtext to this be why even try (not saying your sentiment is cynical, but people will read it this way).
A lot of good can be done by the right kind of disruption. Won't solve the system, but would allow for some economic mobility

But what if I do want to reduce the number of billionaires?

You'll have to unclog the pipes of society. I'd recommend a good plumber.

The Economics Explainers have arrived, so I'm locking this post

I think the biggest problem with these kind of calculations is that you can't just take money from someone, regardless of your opinion of them or how they obtained so much wealth.
You can, actually! The easiest way is by force, sometimes lethal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine_(penalty)
After all, that would mean that the government/whoever's in power could just as quickly take your money too. Assuming you want an equal society.
Once I have over a billion dollars, then they could and I would understand. They already take poor peoples' money all the time, and sometimes kill them, directly or indirectly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States
I'm all for the government taking all my money if it ends world hunger and saves the climate lmao
Especially if it leaves me a billionaire
Yeah, we're not going to spread this liberal reddit shit in this community under my watch. Take ten days and come back when you're ready to not empathize with billionaires and their "investments." This is not a space to discuss liberal economics.

They didn’t suggest giving everyone a million dollars, they suggested using the seized money to pay people to do work on giant social issues.
It could feed everybody - by paying farmers the normal rate for their food.
It could halt climate change - by paying people the normal rate to install renewable energy.
The number of jobs would increase, and society’s problems would be solved, all without causing hyperinflation via huge handouts.
- Do we actually understand the full impact of such a move? I'd like to hear an economists' take on this.
  edit: downvotes for curiosity. Kinda sad.
Why would we flood the streets? Invest the money in public projects, services, etc. People work them as jobs, now we have more middle class - other businesses make money selling them services - the economy grows.
For an example of this working in America look up Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal”.
we can't just flood the streets with dollars.
Where in the post was this suggested or even referenced? I see nothing indicating “just give everyone lots of money, yay!”, but I do see how the money referenced could be put to use.
Everything you think you know about economics is wrong, and you probably learned it because an oligarch tricked you.
Your comment is bizarrely off-topic.
But anyway, since we're already off topic, let's abolish currency and give everyone what they need instead of creating a system that encourages the hoarding of wealth and resources.
"ThIs Is NoT hOw MoNeY wOrKs" <-- take that arrogance to reddit
If a company cannot afford to pay employees a living wage, then that company can go fuck itself. I don't' care if it's McDonalds.
You're confounding redistributing money versus injecting money.
Gotta keep people poor so they're willing to flip burgers for you