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Bad Mathkuik mafs (i.redd.it)

submitted by AmineAB1156

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[–]fm01 789 points790 points  (6 children)

Is this a rewrite of the original 1000$ per person pasta?

[–]JDirichlet 288 points289 points  (5 children)

Yes of course. Because here it's much more obviously absurd for some reason.

[–]ZapTap 142 points143 points  (4 children)

For me it's the deadpan claim that that's a life changing amount of money for "most people" that makes this one so absurd

[–][deleted] 53 points54 points  (3 children)

I mean, if you gave $5 billion to Bezos would it REALLY change his life?

It's a silly sounding statement, but it's accurate.

[–]Maximum-Cover- 15 points16 points  (2 children)

Well technically it also wouldn’t change a thing for anyone else if he gave it to everyone…

[–][deleted] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Wouldn’t it still change a lot? If everyone has at least $5B, being +/- even a few hundred million dollars compared to everyone else ceases to mean a whole lot. I also feel like our current economic system wouldn’t be able to cope with such a sudden rebalancing. Worldwide economic chaos surely counts as a change, doesn’t it?

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

True, but no one needs a billion dollars. I wouldn't cry if the man got taxed everything over 1 bil.

All of them really. Not like they're poor, they're still more rich than damn near everyone else

[–]Yzaamb 387 points388 points  (42 children)

Forgot to cancel the billions.

[–][deleted] 268 points269 points  (39 children)

Even if he didn't - when everyone is 5 billion dollars richer then no one is richer - the only thing that changes is the value of a dollar

[–]FormalPeanut 108 points109 points  (15 children)

The introduction of quintillions of dollars to the active economy would reduce the value of a dollar by a lot, but it would still bring down the relative wealth disparity, no?

[–]exceptionaluser 98 points99 points  (11 children)

Not for people with a lot of assets not tied to currency.

Generally that's the ones who are really rich.

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (10 children)

Mainly because it lets them say shit like "I don't have any money, all I have is stock!"

Because apparently if you buy things with your money it means you can't tax it anymore?

[–]metatron207 13 points14 points  (4 children)

Because apparently if you buy things with your money it means you can't tax it anymore?

It's more that, when inflation supercharges the price of commodities and real property, those already holding those goods will see the value of their holdings go up accordingly, while the people who get a few billion in cash find that the buying power of that money rapidly decreases.

Imagine you have a house that's worth $1 million, and I have $1 million in cash. If everyone on Earth gets $5 billion in cash, prices skyrocket and my $1M loses value. Your house, meanwhile, has its nominal value also skyrocket as demand increases, so you may not lose anything in real value. Same goes for stocks and anything else that has a liquid market.

[–][deleted] -1 points0 points  (3 children)

Okay, sounds like they have more money to pay their bills with then

[–]metatron207 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Yes, of course. If you're trying to make a political point, I probably agree with your conclusion. All I'm saying is that there's an economic effect that you're glossing over, if not ignoring, to get there.

[–][deleted] -1 points0 points  (1 child)

Which is?

Having assets that appreciate in value shouldn't be taxed?

Because we already do that, with houses.

[–]metatron207 2 points3 points  (0 children)

TL;DR: Like I said the first time, the economic point is that securities and real property would hold their value if quintillions of dollars were injected into the economy, and the existing cash in the economy would not hold its value.

You've got your head so far up your own ass you can't see the point anymore. The comment you originally replied to said that adding quintillions of dollars into the economy wouldn't impact people with assets like securities and large amounts of real property in a way that reduced wealth inequality. You come in saying we don't tax them enough; fine, but that isn't why having lots of securities and real property can insulate you from inflation.

You keep trying to throw punches as if everyone is arguing against your views on tax policy. In reality, some of us (maybe most) agree with the principle of taxing the rich, but that's either a tangent or you're fundamentally misunderstanding what people were talking about.

The point is that, whoever owns securities and real property, and however we tax those things, they will keep their real value when shit-tons of cash is injected into the economy, whereas existing cash does not keep its real value. We can talk about tax policy if you want (and clearly you do), but that doesn't impact the veracity of what people were saying before you interjected.

[–]Captainsnake04Transcendental 0 points1 point  (4 children)

That’s not how the law works. They still get taxed.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Sure, on income and capital gains.

Interestingly if you look up what they pay in taxes per year, the percentages are hilariously low.

[–]Captainsnake04Transcendental 0 points1 point  (2 children)

The rates are low for other, unrelated reasons. It’s not because they have money in stock.

[–][deleted] -1 points0 points  (1 child)

Oh? Do tell

[–]Captainsnake04Transcendental 0 points1 point  (0 children)

here’s an article on how stocks are taxed. I will say I’m not an expert on this so maybe I shouldn’t be talking, but I think they just use clever money manipulation to make it look like they didn’t actually turn a profit on paper, when in reality they did turn a profit.

[–]KmlSlmk64 10 points11 points  (1 child)

I think, that this is the only positive that would actually come out of it (temporary), but then, the price of everything would go up, without the wages going up, so after a while, everyone would spend more than they gain (banks would have no products active, because everyone would return all loans probbably) causing many more people go under the poverty line (poverty line going up, but they not) and causing only whealth people get richer and poor people getting poorer. (Because everyones money would go down, so everyone would spend more on stuff, which causes only rich people getting richer)

Essentialy rich people giving poor people a lot of monry would cause more harm to the poor people than the rich.

That's my point of view.

[–]mynameisblanked 5 points6 points  (0 children)

the price of everything would go up, without the wages going up

So just as normal then. I see no downside

[–]KingYejob 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Most rich people buy non currency items, such as paintings, since it protects wealth against inflation

[–]lightbulb207 8 points9 points  (6 children)

If everyone gets +5 dollars then the dollar decreases in value by .01% the rich get a very small amount closer to the poor. The poor that have less than 50000 dollars get richer

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (5 children)

And rich people who have their money tied up in assets like stock, investments, cars and houses don't lose any of their value because their assets become more expensive.

I mean, you basically described inflation - but that doesn't help poor people in a way of getting them richer. You just can't help poor people by printing more money

[–]Koury713 4 points5 points  (4 children)

Technically inflation would help anyone with active debt, right?

Like if I have a 20k car loan, a 50k student loan and a 10k credit card debt then 100% inflation would basically halve my debt.

Obviously assumes wages match inflation but still.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Probably although there are loans with floating interest rates which probably could match inflation but I'm not a financial expert - I'm only fairly confident about the basics

[–]Cheeeeesie -2 points-1 points  (2 children)

If you have a 50k student loan, you live in a very strange country my friend.

[–]Koury713 3 points4 points  (1 child)

A quick Googling says that the average American student loan debt is 40k, with 2.6 million people owing 100k or more.

[–]Cheeeeesie -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

So america is a strange country. Nothing new.

[–]DodgerWalker 2 points3 points  (9 children)

Nah, people who were poor would be richer and those who were rich would be poorer as all but a few super wealthy people would have essentially the same amount of money. And the super wealthy people would only have up to 40x as much as ordinary people rather than a million times as much.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (8 children)

They wouldn't be richer because the prices would rise sharply offsetting any money gained.

And rich people wouldn't really feel that as most of their wealth isn't stored in money but rather in assets such as houses, cars, stock, investments - and prices of those would also rise sharply

[–]LucyFerAdvocate 0 points1 point  (7 children)

They would be richer. Say everyone gets 10 dollars.

Before: Person A has 1 dollar, person B has 9 dollars. Person B has 90% of the money

After: Person A has 11 dollars, person B has 19 dollars. Person B has 63% of the money.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (6 children)

1) The prices would still go up basically negating any money gained 2) Realistically Person B would invest their money into appreciating assets so after everyone gets their 10 dollars their assets rise in value basically negating the difference in percentages that would be there if everyone had straight cash.

I mean, reality has already verified this as that's basically how inflation - does it help the poor get actually richer?

[–]LucyFerAdvocate -1 points0 points  (5 children)

  1. The prices would be triple in this case. That's irrelevant. Person A used to be able to buy 10% of things but can now buy 36% of things. I.e. They're over three times richer. Similarly, person B is poorer despite getting more money. To put it another way, after accounting for prices tripling, person A has $3.6 and person B has $6.3

  2. Again, this is irrelevant. Yes person B might be able to invest and return the situation to the status quo. But everyone getting money did make them poorer

  3. That's not how inflation works at all, it affects you in proportion to how much money you have. It does help the poor get richer but through an entirely different mechanism (forcing the rich to spend money rather then hording it)

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (4 children)

The prices would be triple in this case. That's irrelevant. Person A used to be able to buy 10% of things but can now buy 36% of things. I.e. They're over three times richer. Similarly, person B is poorer despite getting more money. To put it another way, after accounting for prices tripling, person A has $3.6 and person B has $6.3

I'm not sure it would stop at tripling the price as the $10 gained by everyone is essentially worthless - because everyone has it, it's not scarce. It's not just that the money supply tripled so prices triple - these $10 become a new baseline. In real life it might not be immediate making it kinda beneficial in short term but in the long term it's gonna just increase prices.

Again, this is irrelevant. Yes person B might be able to invest and return the situation to the status quo. But everyone getting money did make them poorer

Only momentarily if at all.

This very much feels like the gif with chocolate being cut and rearranged so that you end up with a piece of chocolate than when you started with - I know there's a trick even if I'm not able to point it out specifically.

That's not how inflation works at all, it affects you in proportion to how much money you have.

Because of prices that rise due to pumping money into money supply. Like for example adding $20 into the system tripling the money supply

It does help the poor get richer but through an entirely different mechanism (forcing the rich to spend money rather then hording it)

More accurately it keeps the money flowing in the economy which prevents stagnation and its negative effects on economy. But generally it makes poor people richer than if economy crashed and burned.

[–]LucyFerAdvocate 1 point2 points  (3 children)

  1. There was $10 in the system before everyone got $10, now there is $30. Therefore prices will triple. There's no such thing as "a new baseline", only inflation.

  2. There is no additional purchasing power in the system. But the purchasing power has been redistributed, from the rich person to the poor person. Its basically a really weird method of taxation.

  3. Well that's one possible cause of it. But money pumped into the system usually isn't evenly distributed so you don't really see this effect. It would be what you'd see under a substantial UBI - the rich would lose purchasing power and the poor would gain it.

  4. No it makes them richer flat out. Although it's generally not the dominant force in an economy.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

There was $10 in the system before everyone got $10, now there is $30. Therefore prices will triple. There's no such thing as "a new baseline", only inflation.

Yeah, but inflation isn't just determined by a tidy mathematical formula buying power = existing value/money supply - economy combines math and psychology and like I said - if person B was selling sandwiches for a dollar and person A would have to buy them to survive (let's make person A $1 richer and person B $1 poorer in this example as it'll make for easier math) and then both would get $10 person B would have to adjust the price not to lose on transaction, however knowing that person A could afford up to $12, I doubt person B wouldn't make the price higher than $3 - after all he's already got $10, he's is a couple of sandwiches ahead, he will manage without making that sale

There is no additional purchasing power in the system. But the purchasing power has been redistributed, from the rich person to the poor person. Its basically a really weird method of taxation.

If now US government declared that every citizen will receive $720 octillion - making the difference between rich and poor miniscule - do you think it would change anything about the actual wealth distribution? Or will it just tank the value of dollar and won't meaningfully help anything?

Well that's one possible cause of it. But money pumped into the system usually isn't evenly distributed so you don't really see this effect. It would be what you'd see under a substantial UBI - the rich would lose purchasing power and the poor would gain it.

Where I live the current government "bought" their votes with a program that gives 500 for every child in you have - which is probably the closest thing to UBI ever implemented - and it didn't do much good to the economy and while initially poor families who wanted it the most did feel some relief in the long run it started to even out when inflation caught up

No it makes them richer flat out. Although it's generally not the dominant force in an economy.

Inflation causes each monetary unit to lose its value and poor people are usually the ones who have most of their savings in money and not assets. How is inflation making them flat out richer?

[–]aure__entuluva 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Wait. Hold on a second. Are you telling me it's a bad idea to solve your problems by creatoing money out of thin air?? Shit. Someone better call the fed.

[–]Tiny_Dinky_Daffy_69 3 points4 points  (1 child)

If you have loans, like students loans of mortgages, you can pay them and being richer that before, even if the price of the dollar changed.

[–]ControlledShutdown 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It basically smooth out almost all inequalities, as most debts are trivial to pay back, and most savings are worthless

People who are holding valuable assets, though.. are going to keep being the 1%

[–]Crayonalyst 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not if they implement price controls ?

Except then no one would go to work anymore, and we would run out of things real fast. But maybe we'd realize that we don't really need money to keep the world going.

[–]seriousnotshirley 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This gets me thinking about Alchemy, like, what was the end game there? If you can turn tin into gold you make gold as valuable as tin rather than making tin as valuable as gold.

So what would they do? If someone figured it out they can't make a lot of gold, everyone would know they figured it out and soon they'd all figure out how to do it. I think if I figured it out I'd get the entire guild of alchemists together, let them know I figured it out and tell them I'd share the secret but they'd all have to promise only to make a tiny bit of gold. The other thing we'd have to do is create an entirely new profession that people would accept somehow has to do with making money but which people would accept is too complex for the average person to understand.

Anyway, anyone notice that between 1780 and 1800 the practice of alchemy almost entirely died out and in 1801 the London exchange opened? We've been making billions out of millions for years and no one seems to notice and the rich get richer

(H/T John Finnemore)

[–]AccomplishedAnchovy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well no musk would be poorer

[–]JevareWhole 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Don't cancel the billions!
Cancel "cancel culture"

[–]hwc000000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Similar to a trig mistake. If the opposite side from theta is 6 feet and adjacent side is 3 feet, then the tangent of theta is 6 feet/3 feet = 2 feet.

[–]ThinResearch4483 64 points65 points  (0 children)

"most peoples lives would be changed if they received a $5 billion check" is my favorite part

[–][deleted] 170 points171 points  (10 children)

This is obviously a joke

[–]snuggie_ 48 points49 points  (1 child)

I do believe this is a joke, but there are definitely plenty of people who would take this seriously

[–]yottalogical 4 points5 points  (0 children)

For context, it appears to be a parody of a serious tweet about the Bloomberg campaign. It lines up almost word for word.

[–]TheTrueBidoofIrrational 40 points41 points  (5 children)

Believe people like that really exists

[–][deleted] 30 points31 points  (3 children)

I realize there was a real post in this style a long time ago, but this math is so absurd that it's obviously parody

[–]suricatasuricata 5 points6 points  (2 children)

Yeah, this interview on CNBC was based on a tweet from one of the last American elections.

[–]aure__entuluva 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Wait. I thought they were making fun of the tweet at first but then her response at the end has me second guessing.

[–]suricatasuricata 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nah, my understanding was that they were treating the tweet as a valid claim. IIRC all three of em got made fun of when this came out.

[–]Foot0fGod -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I'm sure they do, but they're way, way smaller than the amount of people that believe a rational thing that is being intentionally mocked by this

[–]a_lost_sparkTranscendental -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

And he posted it on a meme subreddit, what’s the problem?

[–]Monarch252001 39 points40 points  (0 children)

Meth

[–]PoketSof 26 points27 points  (1 child)

Inflation be like:

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Dunno. Probably. If it was something like 1000 dollar then not much infation I think? No one created money so not much inflation. Dunno

[–]JonathanTheMighty 8 points9 points  (0 children)

"The ability to speak does not make you intelligent" - Qui-Gon Jinn

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Stand Up Maths did a video on this topic.

[–]dasmashhit 11 points12 points  (0 children)

My man could've flexed and given 5$ to every single person on the planet... but instead of celestial dew he chose to be a Ranni simp and go to the moon

[–]Feeling_Coffee_6077 8 points9 points  (1 child)

$5.5. Just $5.5. No billion

[–]TonightOk2889 6 points7 points  (2 children)

Lets think logically (i know that math is bad) even if everyone get ******* amount of money their status will remain unchanged

[–]YellowBunnyRedditComplex 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Assuming money is a significant factor in status, it would at least initially bring everyone's status closer together non-linearly.

[–]TonightOk2889 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well if you think from the perspective of demand and supply, inflation would sky rocket and the situation would be same as what happened in Germany after WW1

[–]Malpraxiss 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Wonder why people still post these on here?

At this point, stuff like this are just done for meme/troll purposes. It's like the ahego clothing stuff. No one actually wears them seriously and only for meme purposes.

[–]gargar070402 1 point2 points  (0 children)

…isn’t this literally a meme sub? Is this sub not where a meme should go?

[–]T-series_is_gay_fam 8 points9 points  (2 children)

HOW DOES THIS KEEPS HAPPENING???

[–]JDirichlet 29 points30 points  (0 children)

It doesn't this is a joke on the original one.

[–]CrashBandioof420 1 point2 points  (0 children)

People keep forgetting that millions and billions cancel out durring division

[–]superalt72 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This joke is getting unfunny

[–]kaiser_cabbage 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yea I am happy with my $5

[–]faraday_fever 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's his own money bro he can do whatever he likes with it except ofcourse defy freaking maths

[–]lucasHipolito 0 points1 point  (0 children)

People are crazy about telling people what to do with their own money nowadays right?

The worst part is not even knowing how basic math works

[–]alephcomputer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

this is why he bought twitter bro

[–]Jet4K-14 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wait what the fuck?

[–]ProfessorReaper -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I mean, giving everyone 5 dollars is still better than buying twitter for 40 billion

[–]JumpManDOGE -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Wait… there’s actually people who believe 44 billion divided by 8 billion is 5 billion ?????????🤣

It’s $5.90 each person. 8billion X $5 is = $40 billion

[–]Geeb16 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That’s not how math works. 8 billion * 5 billion does not equal 40 billion.

[–]SSCharles -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Also money is not resources, so doing that would just create inflation.

The only thing you can do with money is make people do things.

If you destroy a water well in a village that only has two then you create inflation, because everything becomes less efficient and people can adquiere less stuff. Same if you pay someone to walk in circles or do anything useless. In this case you are basically giving the same authority to everybody, people that don't have experience creating value and instead are always thinking how to take it from somebody above. People would consume and nothing would be improved. If everybody is special nobody is special.

[–]20mattay05 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Even if that were true, wouldn't that also cause massive inflation?

[–]Hefty_Impression381 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Inflation goes brr.

[–]Low-Corner-2282 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is this the same guy that does the math that feed kids for .30¢/ day ?

[–]Cladser 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is that you Richie Sunak?

[–]afarrar11 0 points1 point  (0 children)

GLOBAL POP: 9 [8 POOR HUMANS AND ELON]

[–]artemistica 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interestingly enough $5.50 would be useful to a large percentage of the world population, just not in any 1st world countries.

[–]nlb53 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Where my figh-fitty

[–]KuarK48 0 points1 point  (0 children)

2 plus 2 is 4 minus 1 that's 3 quick mafs

[–]ILVShenanigans 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hail the great mathematician of this era. Even COVID could not break him. We all libe under his shadow and in the dark when we feel alone and feel like no-one is listening, we call him a stupid MoFu.

[–]AnAnnoyingGuy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh yeah, I’d like to receive 5 dollars thank you

[–]Otherwise_Agency696 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If he gave away every dollar he had he could give everyone in the world about 27 dollars each. Super life changing

[–]SaltyVirginAsshole 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah yes, who doesn't have 40 quintillion dollars laying around

[–]DragonSlayer505 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lmao get it right

[–]DragonSlayer505 0 points1 point  (0 children)

“Most” peoples lives lmao

“Yeh nah this ain’t do shit for me” throws it on the ground

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow. That’s reaaaaallll bad.

[–]Previous-Ad-1954 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think the economy would just break. If he did that

[–]QT_Redditor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you look at it in his eyes, what’s 5 billion gonna do for anyone .

[–]Neither-Sandwich4277 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If he did that then the inflation will go through the roof

[–]MahaSura_3619 0 points1 point  (0 children)

MAFS!

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What a mistake, probably meant 50 billion

[–]Kapil300 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Could give everyone $5 with $4B to spare. Hey I'll take $5!

[–]lacoder 0 points1 point  (0 children)

$44 billion / 8 billion =! billion. It does equal $5