I've always thought that it was dishonest to include non-monetary compensation in statements like "they make [x] amount of dollars, they can afford to [y]". Usually, to buy [y], you need cash.

Cash is easy to get by borrowing against assets.

This is true for some people, some assets, and some amounts of money. Regardless, for the super-rich, they have enough cash that people can make more honest apples-to-apples comparisons with the same effect.

Particularly for stock assets, where margin interest is less than 1% for large accounts.