Does it blow your mind when educated people don’t understand net worth?

Sorry if this belongs on the Money Board But I figured it was more a discussion about people than specifically your net worth and how to manage it.

I had to explain to a friend that Jeff Bezos doesn’t actually have 182 billions dollars in cash that he could whip out at a moments notice. He was talking about how he thinks it should be illegal to be that wealthy (communism) and there should be a tax that prevents it.

Me (shocked) tries to describe to him that liquid cash (of which I’m sure he has plenty) is only part of his wealth. He has all kinds of assets I’m sure that likely range from stocks, property, cash, vehicles, maybe some loans he’s the lender on where he’s gaining interest, etc...

So I ask my friend well what’s the cap and how do you manage it. Let’s say you’re only able to be “worth” $150 billion and bezos has to shave off 32B. Well is someone appraising all of his net worth that’s in appreciating or depreciating assets like cars and houses? What about his stock that at his levels of volume fluctuates by god only knows how much each day?

It was fascinating try and open up that can of worms in about five minutes and struggle to find a good answer. As if what he thought would happen is his bank accounts would hit some sort of red flag if he tried to deposit more than the conceivably allowed threshold.