5 ms·

And these are jobs people 100 years ago in this country would have given anything to have, and ones millions today, perhaps even billions, would still give anyt

And these are jobs people 100 years ago in this country would have given anything to have, and ones millions today, perhaps even billions, would still give anything to have. And Amazon's margins are far smaller than you're implying. Their latest quarterly had a profit margin of 0.59%. They have more than half a million employees and a net income of just ~$2.4 billion. Imagine they give a modest $1000 raise to all their employees. That'd be more than $500 million or about 23% of their entire net income. Mass increases in labor to the point that the hourly requirements of each employee substantially decreased is simply out of the question. In looking at wealth inequality, I think we lose track of how many of us there are. If you received just $1 from each person on Earth you'd be the 175th richest person in the world. $15 per person and you'd be, by far, the richest person alive. And that also goes the other way - even the richest are diluted to very little on the scale of the populations of this place we live in. If every single dollar or produced value, at least according to GDP, was perfectly evently distributed in the US we'd each get about $52k a year. Getting about half the average for moving boxes doesn't seem like something that screams catastrophe to me.

selectodude 9y ago
Amazon is famous for spending every penny they make on investing in Amazon. Their net profit is not really a good place to look for the amount of money they’re actually making.
- indubitable 9y ago
  Definitely a fair point. On the other hand without that investing jobs like these would not exist. Is Amazon destroying more lucrative jobs he could have otherwise had? Very possibly, but I think that's somewhat speculative. And it also ignores secondary effects of economic expansion. Amazon in turn helps countless other businesses grow and thrive which in turn provide more opportunity and jobs for people. So we can't only consider the jobs it may destroy but also the jobs which it creates. In the end, what is the net effect? That's an extremely complex question to answer, but I suspect living in a world where you can get $25k a year for moving boxes is more likely a positive than negative indicator of overall effect.
sorokod 9y ago
"And these are jobs people 100 years ago in this country would have given anything to have, and ones millions today, perhaps even billions, would still give anything to have." The numbers will be even more impressive if life was made more miserable for a few billion people. Then you could argue that several billion people would give anything to take up a job like this.
- indubitable 9y ago
  Except life isn't being made more miserable. It's paradoxically the rising quality of life that makes it seem this way. Take a thought experiment and imagine we have 1000 people living under a single king all in complete filth and disgust, except for our king. Our people might be a bit jealous of the king but in general everything seems reasonably equal. Now imagine our king himself starts to feel guilty about the state of affairs and decides to begin progressive expansion. So he takes 50 of the people and grants them land and businesses giving them very comfortable lives. Well people are kind of happy, but now there's certainly quite a lot of jealousy. It's not just one king, but a whole 5% of the population living head and shoulders above the rest. So the king realizes this and decides to make an incredible expansion expending much of his wealth in the progress. He now grants those 5% substantial estates and then grants a whole 20% the privileges and property just the 5% had before. Again we'd expect society to be absolutely thrilled at the massive progress. But what this actually does is emphasize how shit the now 75% are. Instead of people being thrilled at people overall become wealthier, the 75% are now incensed. What's so special about those 25%? We want that too. As we, dramatically, improved society - society itself became even more incensed that it wasn't happening all at once. As we reach the point where the majority slowly become very comfortable, it would somehow paradoxically seem ever and ever more unfair and unjust.
  - sorokod 9y ago
    The definition of a shit job is relative to the perceived average. What is paradoxical about that?
    - indubitable 9y ago

selectodude 9y ago

Amazon is famous for spending every penny they make on investing in Amazon. Their net profit is not really a good place to look for the amount of money they’re actually making.

indubitable 9y ago
Definitely a fair point. On the other hand without that investing jobs like these would not exist. Is Amazon destroying more lucrative jobs he could have otherwise had? Very possibly, but I think that's somewhat speculative. And it also ignores secondary effects of economic expansion. Amazon in turn helps countless other businesses grow and thrive which in turn provide more opportunity and jobs for people. So we can't only consider the jobs it may destroy but also the jobs which it creates. In the end, what is the net effect? That's an extremely complex question to answer, but I suspect living in a world where you can get $25k a year for moving boxes is more likely a positive than negative indicator of overall effect.

sorokod 9y ago

"And these are jobs people 100 years ago in this country would have given anything to have, and ones millions today, perhaps even billions, would still give anything to have." The numbers will be even more impressive if life was made more miserable for a few billion people. Then you could argue that several billion people would give anything to take up a job like this.

indubitable 9y ago
Except life isn't being made more miserable. It's paradoxically the rising quality of life that makes it seem this way. Take a thought experiment and imagine we have 1000 people living under a single king all in complete filth and disgust, except for our king. Our people might be a bit jealous of the king but in general everything seems reasonably equal. Now imagine our king himself starts to feel guilty about the state of affairs and decides to begin progressive expansion. So he takes 50 of the people and grants them land and businesses giving them very comfortable lives. Well people are kind of happy, but now there's certainly quite a lot of jealousy. It's not just one king, but a whole 5% of the population living head and shoulders above the rest. So the king realizes this and decides to make an incredible expansion expending much of his wealth in the progress. He now grants those 5% substantial estates and then grants a whole 20% the privileges and property just the 5% had before. Again we'd expect society to be absolutely thrilled at the massive progress. But what this actually does is emphasize how shit the now 75% are. Instead of people being thrilled at people overall become wealthier, the 75% are now incensed. What's so special about those 25%? We want that too. As we, dramatically, improved society - society itself became even more incensed that it wasn't happening all at once. As we reach the point where the majority slowly become very comfortable, it would somehow paradoxically seem ever and ever more unfair and unjust.
- sorokod 9y ago
  The definition of a shit job is relative to the perceived average. What is paradoxical about that?
  - indubitable 9y ago