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.
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.