This point would be more believable if rates of poverty and numbers of ultra wealthy weren't inversely correlated, but they are.

It's almost impossible to be in poverty in the United States unless you're willfully trying to do so. It's certainly impossible to starve. There are free food programs in every city.

Comments like these are usually driven from ideological places or jealousy, rather than a factual linking of billionaires to poverty. Any given US billionaire is likely providing over 1,000,000 direct and indirect jobs for starters.

Look at evil Jeff Bezos, who created a platform in which basic necessities are sold for margins that are frequently 0%. Previously 'local business' middlemen would charge 50% margins to impoverished locals. Undoubtedly Amazon has lowered the prices of goods. That's merely one example.

> impossible to starve

this is a very low bar for determining a decent quality of life for a human being.

> ideological places or jealousy

but presumably you are a "temporarily embarrassed billionaire"?

> billionaire is likely providing over 1,000,000 direct and indirect jobs

No, they don't 'provide jobs', they suck up [human] resources that could otherwise have gone to schools and hospitals.

> Undoubtedly Amazon has lowered the prices of goods.

but at what cost to the social fabric (Walmart is probably the greater transgressor there though).

Developed societies tolerate the ultra-wealthy because a) they are an artifact of a free market for capital allocation (vs state control), and b) sometimes having large wealth concentrations has proved a useful 'short-circuit' to normal capital allocation for otherwise unfundable but ultimately beneficial projects.

The key word here is 'tolerate'. If society feels the ultra-wealthy are no longer worth the problems they cause (e.g. hoarding certain finite resources), then society should get rid of them.

I would add that beyond a certain point (a place to live, personal possessions, retirement fund, etc), there is no moral case - in the sense of the natural right of ownership - for their wealth, and we can simply confiscate it. For example in the UK we used 'death duties' to break the aristocracy.