This is entirely nonsense, though. $1,000 is NOT a lot of money, and if that was your entire net worth, you would absolutely not be squandering single dollars like you do when your net worth is many tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Think about someone who earns $100,000 a year (let alone that it's their entire net worth). Do you think they just spend $100 like its meaningless?
If your net worth is a billion dollars, saying "a million dollar is a rounding error" depends very much on the context of that million dollars. Are you talking about earning $1m? Or spending $1m? Is it a one-time purchase? Or something you are suggesting they spend regularly? What are they spending it on?
Someone who earns $100,000 presumably doesn't balk at going out to a restaurant and spending $100 once in a while, but they don't necessarily do it every day. they might not bat an eye at their income going up or down $100 a year, but they may or may not think twice about spending $100 on a concert or sports ticket.
To a billionaire, a thousand dollars is a "rounding error". Ten thousand dollars is a "rounding error". I wouldn't say the same about a million dollars. A hundred thousand is probably in border territory.
if that was your entire net worth, you would absolutely not be squandering single dollars like you do when your net worth is many tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
There's validity to that logic, but I still don't think that a billionaire looks at a million dollars like it's nothing. Hundred thousand? Maybe. But a million? You still can only blow (or not blow - just spend) a million dollars a thousand times before you have blown a million dollars. In the long run, that's not THAT many times, if you are frivolous with money as much as "rounding error" can make it sound like you are.
Edit: I'm not saying they can't afford to spend or donate or blow $1m... but they can't afford to do that all the time like comparing it to pocket change of $1 suggests. Many people of typical incomes consider that amount so frivolous, they spend 5x that amount daily on a coffee. I don't think billionaires look at/spend millions as casually as we non-billionaires look at coffee money. I mean, I'm sure there are a few that do, but doubt that is common.
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u/canada11235813 5d ago
To put it in a more relatable scale, let’s say you have around $1,000 in your pocket.
Now I give you a dollar. How much do you have?
Around $1,000.