Most people reading this are probably very familiar with buying things between $0-1000 USD (such as everyday food and everyday clothing, perhaps weekly rent). Some of us will have experience buying more expensive items, like a car ($10,000s), or maybe even a house ($100,000s or even $1,000,000s). Some of you might want to object to those numbers I listed, they obviously will vary wildly in different markets, but I want to now ask about much more expensive things.
What is the cost of some items that few-if-any Lemmy users can afford? What can the absurdly rich buy that we can’t? How much does it cost them?
You must give a money value with some evidence, no just knee-jerking and saying something vague like “elections” - instead find articles disclosing how much manipulation campaigns cost a political party.
Corporation takeovers. From what i could find, the most expensive ever was 1999 takeover of Mannesmann by Vodafone Airtouch plc at $183 billion ($334.7 billion in 2024 dollars).
Fun fact, in 193 CE Didius Iulianus bought the Roman Empire (or more accurately the emperor position) for roughly 1 671 480 000 dollars. Very roughly since we don’t exactly know how many praetorians there were so you might cut that number by half, and the calculation is by silver price. Also, he was soon murdered by the same people who murdered his predecessor and sold him the empire when someone with an army and know how to use it shown up (Septimius Severus). Alas.
Most expensive single thing ever would be ISS at over 150 billion.