For every $1,000 that you spend, you should be slapped in the face
Summary
A wild take about slapping people in the face for every $1,000 they spend turns into a surprisingly thoughtful conversation about wealth inequality. Kareem and a subway rider quickly realize the premise only makes sense for the ultra-rich. They hash out the details: a $10 million net worth threshold, exemptions for charity, and plenty of slaps for Jeff Bezos's $600 million wedding to Lauren Sánchez. The math gets ridiculous fast. Bezos would face 28,000 slaps for that rumored $28 million Melania Trump documentary fee alone. They agree billionaires shouldn't exist, though the rider admits they'd happily take $5 million to make indie movies. It's half absurdist comedy, half earnest critique of obscene spending in a country where Gen Z can't afford homes and $6,000 studio apartments already feel like a slap in the face.
Full Transcript
So, what's your take? For every $1,000 that you spend, you should be slapped in the face.
100% disagree. Hard. What does that even mean? Say you wanted to make a documentary about Melania Trump and you wanted to spend $28 million giving her a bribe. I mean, sorry, a fee. Then Jeff Bezos should have to be slapped in the face 28,000 times.
This only makes sense if you're really rich. What if—what if I'm buying a house? Gen Z can't afford a house nowadays.
I'm not Gen Z. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for the compliment. Think about rent in New York. Every time that you—if you pay $6,000 for a studio, you get slapped in the face six times.
That's sad. But that—it already feels like a slap in the face to pay.
I mean, think about healthcare in this country. It's criminal. I mean, I agree with you. As a society, we've entirely failed to prevent billionaires from accumulating obscene amounts of wealth.
So we should make it hard for them to spend it. Can we add more rules? Oh, yeah, because I don't want the common folk to get slapped in the face. Maybe if you have a net worth of like a million. No, let's make it 10 million. If you have a net worth of 10 million plus, then you start getting slapped.
Also, like, if you want to give your money away to charity, you don't get slapped. Nothing. What you want to stop is people spending, you know, like obscene amounts of money. Like Bezos's wedding, which is $58 million or whatever. He gets a lot of slaps. His—the upkeep on that every year is $30 million. I mean, shouldn't that money be put in the Washington Post to save democracy?
I don't think the Washington Post is going to save democracy. I think the Washington Post dug itself into a big fat hole before Jeff Bezos. I think the whole media in this country dug itself into a big fat hole before the billionaires. Yeah, we could agree with that. But we do think that we should make it harder for people to spend obscene amounts of money.
100% agree on net worth individuals that have over $10 million, maybe five. Yeah, we're in agreement. I don't think there should be billionaires. I'm not trying to become one. I would like $5 million. If you had $5 million, you could make five $1 million movies.
Yeah. Or 10 $500,000 movies, which is a lot of slaps. [laughter]