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Does Bill Gates, the richest person in the world, face scarcity? Does everyone? Are there any exceptions?

Everyone in the world faces scarcity.  There are no exceptions.  Even Bill Gates cannot escape scarcity.  Scarcity is endemic to the human condition.


Scarcity exists because people have limited resources but, at the same time, have unlimited desires.  We people tend to want many things, but we do not have unlimited resources with which to fulfill those wants.  This is true even of Bill Gates.  Let us imagine that Bill Gates wants to buy a certain island.  He might not be able to because the island is not for sale.  The owner of the island may love the island and may not want to sell it for any price.  In addition, even Bill Gates could not buy absolutely everything he might want to buy.  For example, Bill Gates could not come anywhere near to buying up all the shares of Apple or Google.  Those companies are worth much more than Gates’ net worth.  When Gates invests in the stock market, he cannot buy everything because even he does not have enough money to do so.


Now imagine that Gates had literally unlimited money.  Even then, he would still face scarcity.  He would still have to make economic decisions because he would have limited time.  He would still need to decide whether to work on Microsoft projects or on charity projects at any given time.  He would still have to decide whether to go on vacation in Place X or Place Y.  These are economic decisions because he has to give one thing up in order to do the other.


For these reasons, every human being (even if they were richer by far than Bill Gates) would face scarcity.

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