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A billion in cash does not represent wealth in and of itself. If you lived in Germany in 1923, you could easily be a trillionaire, but that wouldn't do you any good.

What matters is how much cash you have relative to others, because that determines the actual purchasing power. So in a sense you're right in that the real problem isn't having billionaires, but that not everyone is one. But if everyone were one, there would be no reason to devalue the currency and drop the useless zeroes.

And, of course, the people who own those billions didn't make most of it. Some other people, who get paid salary or wages, did, with their labor. The guys who have the billions are those who collect economic rent from those who do the work.



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