So a while ago, I learned a neat fact – not sure where, also not sure if it is true/still true – that statistically you can convince anyone to do anything by bribing them with roughly 10 million dollars ($10,000,000).
Let us assume that this number is both accurate and a guarantee, not statistically significant a guarantee. Let us also assume that this bribe lasts for forever, there is no renewing the bribe necessary. We can set this number as the value of a “bribery” and use this number to show how many people someone with a large net worth can bribe into doing anything.
Now before I get into this, I want you to understand the size of an army. A roman legion was roughly 6,000 men, and a modern “army” (labeled by NATO as a “Division”) is 6,000 to 25,000 men. A division is the fifith largest tier in the army hierarchy, the only ones larger are Region Theater, Front, Field Army, and Corps. This means:
- Jeff Bezos has 11,780 briberies of wealth, enough for a Divison
- Elon Musk has 19,110 briberies of wealth
- Mark Zuckerburg has 6,200 briberies
- Bill Gates has 10,570 briberies
- Bernard Arnault and his family have 21,160 briberies
Think about that, all of these people can theoretically raise an army that would require a response from NATO to combat. If they combined their collective 68,820 briberies together they could easily invade a small country and probably hold it indefinitely. Given NATO has decided that a 1:50 ratioo of soldiers to civilians is enough to occupy a country, this number is scary. NATO occupied Kosovo with 50,000 people. Who would be okay with five random billionaires being able to just say they are the new government of Puerto Rico, Bosnia and Herzegovnia, Mongolia, or any smaller nation? And before you state that this is all net worth, it's not liquid enough to just bribe someone with, ask yourself if are you still stuck in 2020. Billionaires are an inherently dangerous group of people, and this should be more than enough to show it, especially considering that Mercenaries will do far more than that bribery agrees to, while doing it for far less.