Imagine, if you will, that on the day you were born, you were handed a trust fund designed to run out the day you died — 100 years later. Every day of your life, you could spend some of that trust fund, and on the final day, you’d spend the final penny.1
How much would that daily amount be? Here’s what it looks like in daily spending terms — and how it would feel compared to someone earning $250,000 a year:
| lifetime amount | amount every day for 36,524 days | buying power over $6.85 |
| $1 million | $27.38 | 4x |
| $10 million | $273.79 | 40x |
| $100 million | $2,737.93 | 400x |
| $1 billion | $27,379.26 | 4000x |
| $10 billion | $273,792.57 | 40,000x |
| $100 billion | $2.738 Million | 400,000x |
| $250 billion | $6.845 Million | 1,000,000x |
No matter how much you started with, every single day would feel like spending just $6.85… at least to you.
The consequence is trivial. Like grabbing a drink at Starbucks on a $250K salary. But the power that money holds, that’s another matter. Depending on the size of the fund, your daily dollar could do the work of four times as much… or a million.
Put it another way: if you earn $250,000 a year, a billionaire is 4,000 times more capable of shaping the world with money than you are. And because money converts so easily into access, influence, insulation — even time — we might as well call it what it is: power.
A billionaire isn’t just rich. They can spend 4,000 times more than you and feel the same doing it. What feels like a once-in-a-lifetime splurge to you? That’s their morning coffee.
The President? 40,000 times. What might wipe out your student loans or pay off your mortgage? For him, it’s a Big Mac.
The richest man alive? He burns a million of your days. Every single day. What would erase your retirement fears? For him, it’s a month of Netflix. With ads.
Having money doesn’t mean you are smarter, kinder, better, or righter.
It means you can afford to be dumber, crueler, smaller, or wrong.
It means you can afford to rig the game, break the rules, and still take home the trophy.
- Obviously this ignores any investment gains or other financial management that would be going on with this kind of scenario, and it ignores taxes – this is just a simple thought experiment, not a model of finances. ↩︎