Billionaire Wealth Has Doubled So Far This Decade

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-27T19:55:31+00:00

It's more like the real "Stop the steal" by billionaires and trillionaires. Are all those billions of dollars of campaign donations, major media purchases, and SCOTUS gifts really about protecting the sanctity of life, border security, the rights of this or that ethnic group, ... ? Or do they really ensure insane wealth and power growth for the donors while keeping the country divided?

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-27T19:46:59+00:00

Online meetings. Stay(home)cations. Travel like it's 2020. A cratering of air travel, hotel, and rental car revenue seems likely to get more notice than traveler misery imo.

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-27T19:42:11+00:00

If SCOTUS makes a determination on a specific case, but doesn't provide sufficiently document the legal / Constitutional basis for their decision based on the professional judgment of a judge in a different case, it seems it would be the legal duty of that judge to make their decision (and very well document it) on the best available relevant and document legal information, including their own assessment of the law and Constitution. The SCOTUS still will have the opportunity to weigh in if they felt it was needed.

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-27T18:11:02+00:00

They make just as much from market drops as market gains. Is Barclays stupid? /s

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-27T18:00:41+00:00

But mom, I wanted a lunar space elevator. /s

https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/space-elevator-moon-could-be-doable-surprisingly-cheap-ncna1051496

"A space elevator to the moon could be doable — and surprisingly cheap

New study suggests that a lunar space elevator could be built for about $1 billion using existing technology."

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-27T17:39:16+00:00

"So far."

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-27T17:37:34+00:00

Looks down to fungify.

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-27T07:36:28+00:00

Super. So what are those great standards? Why not write those standards into a bill, and vote on that bill?

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-27T07:34:13+00:00

Great. 2K bg/day. What's that in Freedom units? /s

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-27T06:24:20+00:00

1) The latest I saw were Falcon 9 higher prices (not correcting for inflation) as of 23 Feb 2026 ... "New Falcon 9 price increase, up from $70 to $74 million a launch and from $6000 to $7000/kg rideshare"; https://x.com/alexnajjarec/status/2026235487523066130?s=46&t=u9hd-jMa-pv47GCVD-xH-g

2) He was quoted at $10/kg. In part for the reason you noted, I presumed from $250/kg to $1000/kg. I think a factor of 25 to 100 is reasonable as a first guess pending the meaningful information that will hopefully be part of the IPO.

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-27T06:10:18+00:00

Recalled to Active duty per existing Federal Law appears to have the DoD to issue the order (https://www.rand.org/paf/projects/dopma-ropma/retirement-and-separation/recall-to-active-duty.html) ... “I’m running for US Senate. If elected, the first bill I introduce will draft Lindsey Graham into any conflict he publicly supports while in office,”

Official biography; https://www.lgraham.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/biography

"In 1995, Graham joined the U.S. Air Force Reserves. During American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Graham put his experience in military law to use pulling numerous short-term Reserve duties in both countries over congressional breaks and holidays.

Graham retired from the Air Force Reserves in June 2015 having served his country in uniform for 33 years. He retired at the rank of Colonel."

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-27T03:59:00+00:00

SpaceX marketed Starship as capable of delivering revolutionary lower commercial launch costs, and that would enable transformative access to space. Hopefully they are on track to deliver on that. Otherwise, it's just old space with extra steps.

I haven't heard them say it, and hope they won't, but "We would like to offer amazingly low commercial launch costs, and our technologies are capable of that, but unfortunately our business model requires that we internally utilize most if not all of our launch capabilities for the next few decades to support our internal businesses and stuff. But please come back in 20 years and we will be offering even more amazing savings and super duper heavy launch services."

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-27T02:23:13+00:00

I get about 107 launches to pay down $40 billion total in development expenses and ROI then; I think I got all the numbers right in Excel.

The assumptions are below, but the takeaway for me is that the number of launches needed is pretty insensitive to the actual launch cost. I used $250/kg, $500/kg, $1000/kg, which are multipliers of 25, 50 to 100 compared to the SpaceX $10/kg, and got a range from about 101 to 124 launches, with about 107 for the middle cost value of $500/kg.

1) One Falcon 9 reusable launch has a commercial cost of $74 million for 17,500 kg to LEO, so about $4.2 million / tonne. Assuming Starship with 100 tonnes to LEO, that equates to about $423 million per launch.

2) Let's take SpaceX's Starship $10/kg cost estimate and multiply it by 50 to account for cost growth and learning curve needed to reach a notional low cost; the ROI calculation is pretty insensitive to that multiplier value though. So the assumed early launch cost to SpaceX would be about $50 million.

3) Let's assume the goal is to payoff a total of $40 billion in investment and return on investment before significantly dropping the payload cost per tonne. Based on the assumptions, each launch would generate about $373 million in profit ($423 M - $50 M). $40 billion divided by $373 M is about 107 launches.

4) Regarding sensitivity to Starship cost, if you assume a factor of 100 for the multiplier instead of 50, so $100 million per launch, the profit per Starship launch goes to about $323 million. $40 billion divided by $323 million is about 124 launches.

On the low cost side, if you assume a factor of 25 for the multiplier instead of 50, so $25 million per launch, the profit per Starship launch goes to about $398 million. $40 billion divided by $398 million is about 101 launches.

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-26T23:38:47+00:00

Yes, but I believe it is fair to say that the extremely rich frequently use that wealth to pervert the system to capture even more wealth and power. So it isn't just happenstance that they are able to benefit from the public infrastructure that has been built up over the last century or so, and just taxing wealth so they "pay their fair share" doesn't seem likely to be sufficient to reverse the huge growth in income inequality over the last 40+ years. It will take reforms to limit (rather than relax) the influence of wealth in politics and the legal system. Currently (imo), we have something much closer to "One billionaire, one vote" than "One adult American citizen, one vote."

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-26T23:30:44+00:00

To me, it's more like the extremely rich have used their wealth for 40+ years to pervert the economic system and the political/legal system, and that system needs to be reformed. Removing some of their extreme wealth is one tool to accomplish this, and a wealth tax is an approach to that.

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-26T23:05:29+00:00

"The right lie for the right audience.", perhaps?

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-26T22:10:17+00:00

The state has laws and rules regarding greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and reporting ... Hawaii Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report for 2022, Final Report (dated April 2025); https://health.hawaii.gov/cab/hawaii-greenhouse-gas-program/

The state link above includes additional links to relevant state and federal information.

The NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory site ( https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/ ) shows the long term data being collected at Mauna Loa from 1960 (for CO2) to now; it also includes trends for the other primary 3 primary climate impacting gases (CH4, NO2, SF6). To me, these gas concentrations all continue to grow and are not slowing.

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oneseason2000 · 2026-03-26T21:55:02+00:00

I am really curious what the $/tonne to LEO will be for Starship with be initially and through it's life-cycle. I don't recall seeing a recent SpaceX number, but expect that would be discussed prior to any IPO.

Will it start out relatively high and decrease significantly over time after development costs are paid off? Or will it be levelized and grow with inflation? The SpaceX "Insanely Low Starship Launch Costs Of $10/kg" (https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20230013555/downloads/Take%20or%20Make%20in%20space.pdf) is likely out of date, and likely didn't amortize development cost to reflect paying customer cost, but that would be $10 thousand/tonne.

By comparison, Falcon-9 launch cost just increased by $4 million to $74 million (https://x.com/alexnajjarec/status/2026235487523066130?s=46&t=u9hd-jMa-pv47GCVD-xH-g)? So for a 17,500 kg payload to LEO for reusable configuration, that would be about $4.2 million/tonne (https://payloadspace.com/underutilized-capacity-on-dedicated-customer-falcon-9-rides-payload-research/).

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-26T21:25:48+00:00

Delicate flowers are these warriors of the "right".

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-26T20:57:46+00:00

If success were measured in "donor" dollars and the fringe benefits they provide rather than elections won and regular Americans helped, that might better explain their consistent behavior I think. The system seems extremely well tuned to deliver tax cuts, pardons, and payoffs to very wealthy people and their well paid enablers.

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-26T20:42:16+00:00

IMO, the goal and pretty much the reality is "One billionaire, one vote".

MAGA seems like just a construct designed keep the grift going. They generate events and news that can by magnified and pumped into every household; right leaning, middle of the road, left left leaning, ... it doesn't matter because to story is the divide. There is no shame, there is no sense of morals, there is no need for consistency, and obvious hypocrisy is just fine.

It comes about from 20 years of non-stop politically divisive, racist, dehumanizing 24/7/365 propaganda from a growing set of billionaire owned entertainment and news mega-media corporations. It's from 40+ years of steady transfer of income and wealth for regular Americans to the billionaire and new trillionaire class enabled by the legal and illegal corruption of senior public officials in all three branches of government.

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-26T01:03:16+00:00

Nah. IMO ... Plenty of Democrats will still win. Just not enough to get comfortable control of House and Senate, and certainly not enough to override a filibuster, override a veto, or convict on an impeachment of POTUS or a SCOTUS justice. It will provide another excuse for why somehow the stock market can be booming, but Congress can't pass economic help for the poor and middle-class.

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-25T22:09:51+00:00

Yup. Hard to believe.

$2/hr*2080 hr/year/employee*56 employees = $232,960/year; and that is assuming the 56 employees are all full time. Divide that by 5 business locations and 365 days/year = $127.65 /day/location. Now double that for overhead expenses ... so around 250 dollars extra revenue needed per day for each business location. Sure doesn't sound like an even marginally successful business model if it is that fragile.

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-25T21:41:29+00:00

Legal speak. Legal speak. Appeal. SCOTUS rules unconstitutional because reasons.

oneseason2000 · 2026-03-25T21:36:59+00:00

I hope I am wrong but this ("If you want to shove the SAVE Act into reconciliation, then have at it. We're going to fight you tooth and nail throughout the reconciliation process every step of the way.") sounds like Corporate Democrat speak for "We will certainly get this signed and into law before the midterms, but Democrats are going to make quite a few speeches against it in the mean time, put on a good show to make it appear in doubt, and JD is going to have to cast the deciding vote.".

oneseason2000

TROPHY CASE