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Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless
- karangoeluw 8y agoI have always wondered which one is better: 1. Contribute early on little by little 2. Contribute nothing to very little for a while amassing huge fortunes (and compound interest magic), then donate big. Pretty much the same question as lump sum vs dollar cost averaging in investing. Have there been studies on this?
- jamestimmins 8y agoHe's also doing this at when the stock market is very high, which means that this is the cheapest $2 billion he's ever owned. I say that not to undercut the significance, mostly to point out that the stock market is also important to this consideration.
- drworm 8y agoIt's not really the same thing, because (assuming a positive ROI) dollar cost averaging will always end up better off than lump sum investing (assuming the same amount is invested).
- have_faith 8y agoSeeing how few people make it to the huge fortune stage it seems like a very bad strategy if broadly adopted. How we do it now makes sense, contribute as much as you are comfortable with regardless at which step of the ladder you are on.
- agumonkey 8y agoI think history gives a bit of the answer. There's always been work done to help homeless people, and it never really got better. Worst part IMO is that it's not to be a money sink. I deeply believe that homelessness is mostly emotional, these guys need deep moral support and a bit of material support. But you can't buy moral support. Having someone drop 2B might help motivate society and finally realize how to fix the problem, even if not all the money is spent.
- blacksmith_tb 8y agoI think that may be overstating things[1], though I agree it's a tough problem. Lots of folks need some extra help, they're disabled, they have mental illnesses, or substance addictions (or all of the above). Just giving them a tiny house or apartment is not enough to keep them housed. But typically we fund programs to address all of those problems separately, with varying degrees of cooperation between them. 1: https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic-homelessness-by-91-percent-heres-how https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chroni...
- sabalaba 8y ago1. Usually will end when you pass away. 2. (Especially if establishing a foundation.) Will outlive you and continue on for potentially hundreds of years into the future. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Endowment_for_International_Peace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Endowment_for_Interna... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Foundation
- marnett 8y agoThe growth of these foundations require global Capitalism to continue to spread.
- istjohn 8y agoMoney given today pays dividends in the lives of those who benefit and the lives of people who are around them, it just doesn't show up on any balance sheet. The after school program that provides the missing support network for a child, keeping them out of a street gang and later prison, and helping them develop the skills to find gainful employment pays hidden dividends of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for society. Also there are second and third order effects that amplify those gains further. If that money was instead earning 5% in an endowment fund, it may keep the name of a robber baron alive for perpetuity, but it does far less for society today. And if you could trace the knock-on effects of the money given today, you would likely find that the benefits distributed throughout society accumulate quicker than the 5% rate of growth achieved by that endowment fund.
- savanaly 8y agoThis isn't a study, but as far as the science of philanthropy goes I know of no one better to look to than GiveWell and they did write a blog post about it: https://blog.givewell.org/2011/12/20/give-now-or-give-later/ https://blog.givewell.org/2011/12/20/give-now-or-give-later/
- pessimizer 8y agoIf you amass a huge fortune through paying your workers low wages, it would probably be best to avoid amassing that huge fortune, give your workers a larger share of your profits, and allow them to donate themselves. It helps you to avoid the temptation to cynically set up a tax-offsetting fund to avoid potential legislation that forces you to contribute to the communities where you are located. Either way, it's good to figure out how to contribute back to a country who created your wealth, by allowing you to operate a business for two decades without being subject to the sales taxes that the long-shuttered businesses who previously employed your desperate applicants were required to pay. So donate to politicians early so you don't have to pay taxes, donate to charity to avoid taxes later, buy a newspaper somewhere in between.
- asdfman123 8y agoThat ignores the psychology of your Bezoses and Gateses, though. They are maniacally obsessed with growing their companies as much as possible, and everything they do works towards that goal. They don't have time for philanthropy, or worrying about social issues, while they're doing that. Gates was able to give so much away because he shifted focus after leaving Microsoft. Hopefully others like him will follow.
- ppeetteerr 8y agoI would recommend you do both. Give a little (but only less than 1%) of what you make today, but aim to make a ton of money. Once you've made the money, give all you can. Your children don't need that much to live a life without work (10-20M). It's more important to know how you give and whom you give it too. I'm of the opinion that given $5 to a homeless person is much more effective than giving $5 to a charity.
- degrews 8y agoThe Effective Altruism community has produced a lot of discussion about donating early vs saving and giving later. This post does a good job of listing some of the trade-offs and includes several links to more discussion: http://effective-altruism.com/ea/4e/giving_now_vs_later_a_summary/ http://effective-altruism.com/ea/4e/giving_now_vs_later_a_su...
- 2bitmachine 8y agoThat he subverted democracy by threatening the Seattle city council as they attempted to address their homelessness crisis makes me skeptical of this effort. I doubt we can do much to fix the underlying issues in a context where billionaires can intimidate governments into surrendering power to their unilateral, authoritarian control.
- mc32 8y agoI don’t agree with Bezos on a few things, but this is big. It’s about time companies care for their down and out compatriots. Progressives make all kinds of noise and virtue signal for people outside our care, but where the rubber meets the road, they fall short on helping fellow Americans—this is a nice start. Let’s see where it goes. Wonder if he’ll get Bernie to contribute (tongue in cheek)
- noobermin 8y agoThe best way for companies to care for their down and out compatriots is to pay their workers their due instead of profiting handsomely from underpaying them.
- lolsal 8y agoAre we in disagreement that this is better than nothing, though?
- gamegoblin 8y agoThis is something I have legitimately wondered for a while now, and maybe someone on here with an economics background has some links to share: Which is more economically efficient: 1. Pay workers above-market wages 2. Pay workers market wages, but use taxes and some sort of welfare to bring the workers effective income up to where it would be had you paid them above-market wages. Presumably the taxes used to fund Option 2 would be something like a wealth tax (including corporate wealth). My non-economist intuition is that Option 1 could have weird effects on the economy due to paying non-market-based wages.
- cryoshon 8y agothe problem is that the "market wages" generate both humanitarian disasters of poverty and also demand gaps wherein people can't afford to buy goods, which puts a drag on the economy. #2 is an issue because government transfers nearly always have terms attached. people get food stamps for food, housing assistance for housing, etc. so demand gaps can still occur because people still don't have the "right" kind of money. plus, it's less efficient because the government has to be involved. i'm in favor of a wealth tax, however. implementation issues aside, it's the most realistic chance we have of making businesses pay up.
- Covzire 8y agoNice. Now if every multi-Billionaire built a Desalination plant...
- ProAm 8y agoFor a billionaire who is slowly killing small business (because your margins are his opportunity), forcing people to earn less I find this ironic.
- tejaswiy 8y agoSo you'd rather have him hoard his wealth and do nothing? Or somehow handicap Amazon so it doesn't compete? Your argument doesn't really hold up.
- throwaway2048 8y ago2 billion dollars is a drop in the bucket compared to what he has extracted.
- tejaswiy 8y agoYou didn't really answer the question.
- lostmsu 8y agoIt's like saying, that industrial revolution killed artisan makers. It did, but it also was a global good. Small businesses must adapt.
- thieving_magpie 8y agoIf I have this right, the moral of your story is that small businesses will die and amazon-sized corporations are for the global good.
- kolanos 8y agoCall me cynical, but shouldn't this $2B go towards compensating his employees well enough to not have to use government welfare programs? [0] [0]: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-takes-walmarts-spot-with-bezos-act-2018-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-takes-walmarts-spot-w...
- maxxxxx 8y agoThere is more glory in philanthropy than in paying your employees. The ROI in terms of reputation is higher. Addition: the same is true for funding something like a computer lab at a school. Lots of good PR for funding a new one but nothing for keeping an existing one funded for the next few years. Although I think it's more valuable to make sure existing infrastructure stays funded.
- dforrestwilson 8y agoWondering - is the actual ROI likely higher due to tax benefits on charitable giving as well? Crazy thought but are we incentivizing this behavior? I haven’t seen any math on this, but if I pay workers more I still pay the same tax rate on profits and profits will be lower. OTOH if I pay them less, profits are higher, my stock goes up. I donate stock to my charitable fund and get a personal tax break.
- DoreenMichele 8y agoYou aren't anywhere near cynical enough. Taken far enough, programs to "help the homeless" -- instead of programs to reduce homelessness -- are a de facto plot to keep homelessness alive and well. It's a form of oppression of the masses. https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-shirky-principle-and-homelessness.html https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-shirky-...
- iooi 8y agoI don't necessarily agree with you, but another interesting take on this is by Slavoj Zizek, who argues that charitable giving perpetuates the problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g
- wlesieutre 8y agoHow about paying the warehouse employees more?
- TuGuQuKu 8y agoSo brave of him to donate 1.2% of his vast fortune to a PR project with his name on it! This really makes up for the whole FOXCONN-level human despair harvesting labor practices thing imo. Hell, we don't even need to go through with that legislation any more.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- burlesona 8y agoI hope this works and is successful. Still I can’t help but be reminded of the saying that roughly goes “the people who are paid to solve a problem end up having a vested interest in the problem not being solved.” Specifically with regards to homelessness, the problem seems to be the critical shortage of housing for people in general, leading to a total crisis of affordable housing, rather than a specific problem of insufficient services exclusively for “the homeless.” Certainly there are people who need support above and beyond affordable housing, but isn’t the bedrock of this whole crisis the shortage of homes in the places where people are trying to live and work?
- kakarot 8y agoIt's called the Cobra Effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect That said, one has to wonder how maintaining the homeless population would be beneficial to Amazon.
- burlesona 8y agoNot amazon but the organizations they fund and the people who work for them.
- umvi 8y ago> the people who are paid to solve a problem end up having a vested interest in the problem not being solved. AKA the Shirky Principle https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-shirky-prin/ https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-shirky-prin/
- burlesona 8y agoThanks for the link! I couldn’t remember the attribution.
- java_script 8y agoAt some point you have to blame the homeless people themselves. I've been walking up to them searching for a hot-spot and found that nearly none of them are choosing to make money by being walking routers anymore. Also interesting to find out that there aren't any vacant homes anymore.
- jandrese 8y agoNice, maybe now those Amazon warehouse workers will be able to find a home they can afford.
- throwaway39233 8y agoHe's obviously trying to diffuse the momentum of a movement that is aligning against him. The most popular politician in America just introduced the Stop BEZOS act: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/09/05/bernie-sanders-introduces-stop-bezos-act-senate/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/09/05/bernie-sa... The 2B are less costly than losing the whole shebang. I would not be surprised in the least if he ends up still controlling the 2B and this ends up as just a headline.
- vxNsr 8y ago> The most popular politician in America just introduced the Stop BEZOS act from the article: > Bernie Sanders Popular by who's standards?
- stevenwoo 8y ago2016, 2017 polls by Harvard/Harris of nation, polls about senators within their states. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/04/bernie-sanders-most-popular-politician-country-poll-says/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/04/bernie-sanders-... https://morningconsult.com/july-2017-senator-rankings/ https://morningconsult.com/july-2017-senator-rankings/
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- SketchySeaBeast 8y agoYou know he could just pay his staff more directly. I guess he found a loophole where the money ends up at the same place, but this way it's more of a tax write-off.
- etaty 8y agoAll hail to Bezos... Earlier this year, under pressure from Amazon and other large employers, Seattle’s City Council repealed an employee head tax designed to provide housing and services for the homeless. In a statement, Amazon called the vote “the right decision for the region’s economic prosperity. We are deeply committed to being part of the solution to end homelessness in Seattle and will continue to invest in local nonprofits” that work with the homeless. Oligarchy?
- pinewurst 8y agoSpeaking as a Seattle resident, and despite my dislike for Bezos, this was a stupid tax - more connected to Seattle's dysfunctional politics than solving our bad homeless problem. Among other things, it was keyed to revenues not profits (specifically to target Amazon) but it ended up burning the likes of grocers who provide decent jobs but don't have a lot of margin even with large revenues. Good riddance to it and a pox on our local Pol Pot that drove it.
- dunpeal 8y agoAs a Seattle resident, what do you think of the argument that Amazon greatly contributed to homelessness in Seattle? I read somewhere that Amazon's explosive growth raised the property values in Seattle, which in turn caused a surge in homelessness. Is that true?
- pinewurst 8y agoMy 2 cents is that Amazon isn't a major cause. There's a few things going on(1): - exploding drug addiction and related mental health issues - Seattle does a remarkably crappy job of assigning the low income housing we build and/or contract for. Too many people get it who shouldn't qualify. Too many non-profits cherry pick their clients. Etc, etc. - It's super hard to get coherent services out of the system. Which makes it self-selecting in the sense of concentrating the worst cases. Amazon, to a certain degree, was/is part of running up the price of apartments and homes. Some homelessness is a consequence, but mostly that pushed people further (or totally out) of the area. I'm not at all convinced that if we raise 2x the money, we'll spend it intelligently enough to make a difference here. (1)My partner worked in the area homeless system and I'm getting a lot of my info from that.
- beenBoutIT 8y agoIs $2B enough to assist all of the homeless people currently employed by or working for Amazon?
- mothsonasloth 8y agoCurious to know if there is an Amazon killer company(ies) that will emerge in the future?
- rhexs 8y agoSure, after anti-trust, which isn't a thing in the United States anymore. All hail the ever increasing stock and housing market, the savior of the boomers, the one true political goal.
- chillacy 8y agoThere are so many options out there today but the customer experience isn’t as good as amazon. Fact is amazon’s customer obsession is a real thing, and so they’re deservedly winning customers right now. If they ever slipped, Walmart is definitely eyeing their spot.
- onemoresoop 8y agoIf Amazon had paid their federal income taxes this philanthropy wouldn't be necessary. Amazon paid no federal income tax in 2017: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/may/03/bernie-s/amazon-paid-0-federal-income-taxes-2017/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/may...
- tajen 8y agoStates aren’t solving homelessness issues any time soon. Homelessness hits mostly men, and the fewer women (1/3 to 1/8 depending on city) have available beds in shelters anyway. In France we prefer to let homeless people die by freezing than assign them to a female shelter bed. That’s how far we go to protect women from the risk of being raped. Die, men, die. If the state had more money? They’d simply assign it to the sexism campaigns. Or to one of the 2000 battered woman shelters in USA (and only one for men – hence homelessness?). Source: I’m a volunteer for a suicide hotline.
- throwaway180915 8y agoAlternate heading: “Bezos donates 1.2% of his net-worth to help homeless”
- rectang 8y agoFrom A History of Richard the Third by Jacob Abbott (1901): "This ceremony being concluded, a company of heralds came forward before the king, and proclaimed 'a largesse,' as it was called. The ceremony of a largesse consisted in throwing money among the crowd to be scrambled for. Three times the money was thrown out, on this occasion, among the guests in the hall. The amount that is charged on the royal account-book for the expense of this largesse is one hundred pounds."
- kevmo 8y ago"Philanthropy" is just another way that oligarchs take tax-free control of our society and shape it to their whims. A fine example of this is Bill Gates - with no educational training or experience, he used his fortune to push failing methods on millions on American kids.[1] Bezos is a great creator of poverty. He is the wrong person to try and fix it. We need to just make these oligarchs pay taxes and living wages, full-stop. [1] https://www.philanthropydaily.com/gates-philanthropy-failure-common-core https://www.philanthropydaily.com/gates-philanthropy-failure...
- jakelazaroff 8y agoPotentially hot take: charitable donations (perhaps over a certain small amount) should not be tax-deductible. "Philanthropy" by the ultra-rich is essentially just them deciding where their tax dollars go.
- dharmon 8y agoGates also has no educational training in Computer Science / Engineering nor Business, and he's seem to have done pretty well in those areas. :) There's plenty of room to throw rocks at billionaire philanthropists, but Gates is more knowledgeable about the areas in which his foundation operates than the heads of most well-known non-profits and relief organizations.
- mikeyouse 8y ago> Gates is more knowledgeable about the areas in which his foundation operates than the heads of most well-known non-profits and relief organizations. This is laughably absurd. Come on. Edited because I was still thinking about this Who do you think knows more about Malaria, Bill Gates (who is incredibly knowledgeable about Malaria) or Dr. Pedro Alonso who runs the WHO's malaria program? > His professional career began in The Gambia in the 1980s. A study on the validation of verbal autopsies was followed by the scientific assessment of the efficacy of Insecticide Treated Nets (ITNs) as a preventive tool against malaria. The utility of such nets was, at the time, controversial, and the publication of new results in The Lancet[1] was critical for the launching of subsequent studies confirming first evaluations. Based on this evidence, WHO recommended the universal use of ITNs as a vector control tool, since a pillar in the fight against malaria. It is estimated that extensive distribution programs of ITNs can claim responsibility for 69% of the 663 million of averted malaria cases in Subsaharan Africa between 2001 and 2015.[2] .. > With the support of the Hospital Clínic and the University of Barcelona, he founded in 2006 the Barcelona Centre for International Health Research (CRESIB). In this institution he accomplished one of his most renowned works, the contribution to the clinical development and impact assessment of a new malaria vaccine: RTS,S. In collaboration with the Manhiça Health Research Centre in Mozambique, he implemented two proofs of concept that established for the first time the efficacy of the vaccine in infants[3] and children aged 1–4 years.[4] These results opened the door to subsequent assessments and to a Phase 3 clinical trial performed in 11 African research centres. Ultimately, this vaccine received a positive assessment by the European Drugs Agency, in 2015,[5] while the highest expert committees at WHO have recommended that it starts to be utilized, as of 2018, in pilot programs in three African countries.[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_L._Alonso https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_L._Alonso
- dsabanin 8y agoWhat's up with the critical comments in here? How many of the judgemental and jaded posters here donated anything close to this to a charitable cause? Good deeds must be applauded, not shamed for not being better. Especially if the definition of "better" is made up randomly on the spot.
- jakelazaroff 8y agoNo one's shaming him for not doing something better. They're shaming him for having a direct role in creating the problem this charity is supposed to resolve.
- yeukhon 8y agoIsn’t this “problem created by” anyone who is rich then?
- moises_silva 8y agoAnd conveniently the definition of 'rich' for almost everyone is anyone who has more money than me.
- emodendroket 8y agoYou certainly would not have to look very hard to find people who would argue that
- selimnairb 8y agoYes. We should tax billionaires out of existence. This level of wealth and power accumulation is as unseemly as it is dangerous to our democracy and economy.
- stass 8y agoTaking other people money by force is even more dangerous for democracy and economy.
- maym86 8y agoHow about pay your workers so they're not on food stamps and pay taxes so public schools are supported first.
- mabbo 8y agoJeff Bezos, for once in his life, gives away a money and all anyone has to say is that he's a monster for not doing something else. He doesn't have to. It's a free country and he follows the laws. I work most days inside Amazon Fulfillment Centers. No one is forced to be there and most are happy they have the jobs they do because every other company out there treats them as bad or worse. If they don't want to be there, they can quit at any time. The problem isn't Amazon, it's a society that doesn't give a shit about the lower class and won't pass any laws to help them. Not if it would mean higher prices. Not if it's the demonized 'socialism'. Complaining about Bezos feels great, but it doesn't do anything. Lobby your congressman and senator for law changes that force all companies to treat their lowest-paid employees better. Tell them to support Sander's "stop Bezos act" too if you like- I think it's a great idea. Fight the root of the problems, not the symptoms. And don't complain when someone actually tries to do good for once. And of course, bias note: I work for Amazon but I don't speak for the company in any capacity. These opinions are my own.
- beerbajay 8y agoFix capitalism's problems with charity lol
- dmode 8y agoFinally someone realizes that there is a problem. There is no justification in the biggest economy of the world to have this much poverty and homelessness. I am amazed every time I travel to Europe, how few homeless people there are, despite their economic growth lagging the US. And it is inherently a solvable problem with adequate resources. We have $1 trillion for the military. Surely, we can spare a few billions and house the downtrodden and provide mental care for those who can't take care of themselves.
- anthanm 8y agoI think Bezos probably realized when he paid a bunch of money and shut down construction of Amazon buildings in order to strongarm the Seattle government into killing a tax that was specifically to go towards reducing homelessness.
- throwaway2048 8y agoIts not like we needed bezo's to come down from the mountain and tell us all what a terrible scourge homelessness is. You are fooling yourself if you think this 2 billion comes anywhere close to correcting the level of homelessness amazon generates.
- WillPostForFood 8y agoMilitary spending is only 16% of Government spending, you'd think we could cover the homeless somehwere in that other 84%.
- dmode 8y agoIf you include all DoD spend include VA, it is well over 20%. Why this portion ? Because it is mostly unnecessary and just needed to foster faux nationalism
- krn 8y ago> I am amazed every time I travel to Europe, how few homeless people there are, despite their economic growth lagging the US. This. I grew up in Eastern Europe where middle-class people would make and eat every single meal at home, but I have never seen such level of poverty as I saw in the streets of the US.
- perfunctory 8y ago$2B is ~1% of his net worth. Not that impressive. And much lower than Thomas Picketty's proposed wealth tax rate.
- neonate 8y agoThat criticism only makes sense if he never gives anything else.
- perfunctory 8y agoEven if he gives this amount every year it's still lower than Picketty's tax rate.
- 1053r 8y agoHomelessness in the USA in most places is an emotional or mental problem, but in some parts of the country, it's actually an affordability / NIMBYism / price control problem. For example, in the San Francisco Bay Area, there is a broad swath of folks who work full time (or more!) who have three choices: 1) Live with roommates, often exceeding the legal limits on the dwelling on the number of occupants, or live in illegal and often not-up-to-code housing. 2) Live two or more hours from their job(s), each way. 3) Live in a van, tent, or truck. Sometime, people make a sane (for them) choice to choose the last one. Driving around the bay area, one can see these tents and vans in many places. There are obviously thousands of people (perhaps tens of thousands?, it's hard to get a census of these folks) who are plainly visible once you know the signs (blacked out windows, small exhaust vents, generators, etc.) On the margin, some folks end up sleeping in doorways because of the pressures involved with choosing one of those choices. You could see the evidence for this in a recent article in the Economist which included a diagram of feces complaints spreading out from the Tenderloin (bad neighborhood in central San Francisco) across the city, and the new mayor has hired a "poop patrol" to start cleaning up after them. Meanwhile, homes that would rent for under $1000/month in many parts of America are renting for over $5K a month. (Actually, in most parts of America, these homes would come with much larger yards, as well as lower prices.) Proposal after proposal to densify the bay area or improve transit get shot down on thinly veiled racist or nakedly self interested grounds. Those proposals that get through are intensely profitable, often to the tune of 5x return on investment or more (not counting fighting the inevitable lawsuits), because the market is so starved for housing. Forgive the rant, but price controls never work,* and efforts to mitigate the problems caused by price controls are so expensive as to never really solve the problem. The only solution here is to abolish the price controls and the incentives they cause for subsequent laws and zoning which make development impossible. However, that's politically untenable at this time. (So frustration and rants.) * Actually, the price controls in CA do EXACTLY what they were intended to do, which is to raise the prices on homes, to the benefit of homeowners. As a side effect which many folks foolishly welcome, they also serve to keep Hispanics and Blacks in deeply segregated neighborhoods.
- skrebbel 8y agoI'm a clueless foreigner [0], and HN is my only window into the Bay Area (and, in a more general sense, into America), so I appreciate your writeup. On HN my impression that absolutely everybody agrees that SF and the cities near it should just build more and higher. It appears to solve all the problems (insane rent, extreme commutes, homelessness, poo), so why is it politically untenable? Who exactly is pro insane rent, extreme commutes, homelessness and poo? I mean, the home owners can't be the voting majority right? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17932484 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17932484
- CodeSheikh 8y agoI dont't care if this is a PR stint to ward of recent criticism Bezos is getting from Bernie et al but if this fund goes and actually help and make a real life impact on the lives of homeless people, then I am fine and I will hold back my criticism of Amazon. I mean clearly I have not done enough to mitigate homelessness in this country who am I to question others motives trying to solve the same problem?
- staticautomatic 8y agoBad actors must be held to account even if they occasionally do good things. I see no compelling reason to withhold criticism of Amazon because of this.
- icelancer 8y agoThe reverse is true as well. It would apparently kill people to admit that giving two billion dollars to something like this is an act of good faith because their judgment is so clouded by hate.
- staticautomatic 8y agoWhether or not it was done in good faith is irrelevant because it does not and cannot compensate for the harm Amazon/Bezos has caused.
- icelancer 8y agoRight, Amazon is purely net negative. Billions of dollars of wealth, the vast majority created on the backs of laborers via exploitation the world 'round. I get the shtick. I hear it enough. It's not true, but it's a good story. Plays well on social media. The world is almost certainly better off with Amazon existing than without, even if they do some heinous stuff.
- staticautomatic 8y ago
- aaroninsf 8y agoGreat! I would still much prefer to live in a culture in which obscene concentration of wealth–not least at the expense of meaningful government checking of the race to minimize employee count and wellbeing–does not mean we are beholden to gracious oligarchs to bestow basic services, thereby distinguishing themselves from the oligarchs who invest only in consolidation of their own power.
- sonnyblarney 8y agoI don't believe these externalized 'throwing money at things' solves much. What he can do is find innovative solutions within is own organization for the wellbeing of his own staff. And given his power in the value chain, start to demand basic rights in the crap countries of the world where the crap he peddles is made. Steve Jobs had so much power that literally in one, single email, in one sentence, could have changed workers rights globally. His supply chain would have had to bend to his specific requirements and it would have propagated. A simple 'charter of workers rights', you know, like the 'right to go to the bathroom' and to 'not be woken up in the middle of the night' etc. would have been nice to see.
- notaboutdave 8y agoHere's a Henry Rollins anecdote on how throwing money at tent cities might not be the best idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY2n4BYbgYE&t=23m51s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY2n4BYbgYE&t=23m51s
- projektir 8y agoMeanwhile: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/10/25/240590433/what-happens-when-you-just-give-money-to-poor-people https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/10/25/240590433/what...
- mrlala 8y ago>right to go to the bathroom This is hyperbolic bullshit though. Just because you have some workers that choose to basically not go to the bathroom frequently and work like crazy to get the highest ratings doesn't mean it's mandated that way or encouraged to any degree. Are other workers 'competing' against people that do such things, thus incentivising them to do the same behavior? Sure. But sorry that has nothing to do with amazon- that's the workers. You can find this behavior anywhere in any sort of company.. people that come in earlier, work later.. yeah people around them might be encouraged to do so to keep up, but that doesn't mean it's anyone's fault but the population.
- ithilglin909 8y agoThis isn’t popular, but I’d challenge anyone who thinks homelessness in Seattle isn’t primarily an addiction and mental illness problem to go spend a few afternoons in areas with significant homeless populations (3rd Ave in Pioneer Square is a great place, if you need a suggestion). It’s not that affordable housing isn’t a problem in Seattle. I know people who couldn’t live on their own in Seattle anymore due to rental increases, including members of my extended family. But those people either move away to more affordable areas, moving in with family or friends or into (sometimes questionably legal) group housing situations, but they don’t live on the street.
- ithilglin909 8y agoBefore you downvote me, please, go hang out in Pioneer Square in the middle of the day.
- anatari 8y agoYou are taking your personal anecdotes and extrapolating. No one would disagree with you that mental illness and addiction are major factors in homelessness. But your argument is like saying, anyone who doesn't believe everyone in the world is wealthy go spend some time in Medina. It's a ridiculous argument.
- cortesoft 8y agoI am not sure how hanging out with a particular group of homeless people is going to let you understand homelessness as a whole. It will only tell you about that particular group of homeless people.
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- DoreenMichele 8y agoI've had a class on Homelessness and Public Policy and I've been homeless. Addiction is not, per se, a major root cause of homelessness. There are people with addictions who have careers. If addiction caused homelessness, then getting addicted would land people on the street as a routine consequence. People see homeless individuals do X and conclude "X causes homelessness" or is otherwise some inherent trait of "those people" and it's usually unfounded.
- bitxbit 8y agoAt some point in the next decade, I believe shareholders or the govt will break up Amazon into retail and aws. There’s just too much unwanted public attention at this scale.
- benologist 8y agoIn anticipation of many of his employees, sorry contractors, being unable to afford 24/7 rent no matter how many bottles they piss in.
- msie 8y agoHopefully it does better than Mark Zuckerberg’s 100 million dollar gift to Newark schools. Oh brother!
- forapurpose 8y agoRecall that Bezos effectively undid a Seattle tax, already passed by the democratic government there, to fund affordable housing.[0] This is not a substitute for that tax and policy. Instead, it part of a dangerous trend where an aristocracy substitutes for a democratic society, seizing power and decision-making from fellow citizens. If Bezos or his company would pay their share of taxes, then society could make a joint decision and investment on how to help the homeless. Instead he does not pay, undermining democracy, and then he has power over the homeless and over the policy of his country. (In fairness, not all charity is aristocracy, but I'm talking about charity in the absence of democracy and as a substitute for it.) [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/12/technology/seattle-tax-amazon.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/12/technology/seattle-tax-am...
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- fixermark 8y agoUtilitarian question: Can he do more net good spending $2 billion to help the homeless, or spending an equivalent amount to double the take-home pay of warehouse employees and/or convert the "money towards medical insurance" plan into a company-supplied medical plan? (Follow-up question is "Given he doesn't have plurality control of the stock votes, does he have the authority to do so in a vacuum without getting ejected from his own company?")
- ericpauley 8y agoAmazon has (conservatively) over 500,000 employees. This $2B would cover a pre-tax salary increase of $4000 for one year, which wouldn't come close to doubling take-home pay.
- fixermark 8y agoI was thinking specifically of anyone making below $15/hr, not of the entire employee pool. Amazon software engineers, I love you to pieces, but you're capable of negotiating your own salary or leaving the company to pursue other opportunities if you're feeling under-paid. ;)
- KaoruAoiShiho 8y agoThis fund has way more PR value than just paying his workers a decent amount. The latter creates entitlement and expectation which this avoids as well. I personally have a very dim view of these philanthropic efforts.
- DominikPeters 8y agoThe homeless are usually worse-off than people having a job, so by diminishing returns one should expect to be able to help more by spending on the homeless. In addition, if worker pay is increased significantly above market rate, this will plausibly lead to things changing elsewhere to get closer to market clearing, such as via worse working conditions or additional automation or requiring Bachelor's degrees for pickers. While we are being utilitarian, it seems clear that either option is far from optimal, and the money would better be spent on the global poor, or farm animals, or helping future generations.
- slantedview 8y agoIs he going to start by paying his warehouse workers a living wage?
- fixermark 8y agoDoes he have authority to? Immediately yes, but he only owns 17% or so of the company. If he doubles / triples the wage in absence of market pressure to do so to keep competent staff in the warehouses, how long does he get to do it before the stockholders gang up and replace him?
- marricks 8y agoIt’s pretty telling that his company went all out against increased taxes in Seattle to help the homeless only to then start this initiative once being attacked by Bernie. This shouldn’t be praised as companies doing good, it’s them shirking their taxes and having enough money to start a 2 billion dollar PR campaign. Same shit with Amazon helping start a new Insurance plan, they want to demonstrate they have an alternative solution to Medicare for all. Heck, look at the fall out from the Facebook / Cambridge Anlytica scandal, no new regulation, just a brief verbal flogging and FB assuring they will change. This is all a sign of the times, corporations can’t be regulated and only when threatened, or in a deep scandal, will they briefly self regulate to show how they don’t need it. Conservatives already hate the government and liberals buy up this PR, we seem pretty screwed. Goodbye democracy hello corporatocracy.
- throwawaymanbot 8y agoWhy not pay the employees?
- ahh 8y agoBezos pays the Danegeld. I'm disappointed in him. I'm also not sure what political player he's paying off...he didn't seem to need much influence with Seattle politicians lately. Bezos is smart enough to know that the problem with Seattle homelessness has nothing to do with access to money. The city spends like water on the homeless, and we see nothing from it (which makes the spending a complete success for its intended beneficiaries, the bureaucrats in charge of the money.) We need a new policy to deal with them, and with this we won't get it.
- wiz21c 8y agoFTA : > The child will be the customer. Maybe he could just start giving a proper salary to his work force (the one who's moving the boxes around) ?
- detcader 8y agoSerious albeit philosophical question: Why not more? Why not $160B?
- fucking_tragedy 8y agoWhy not both fund this and pay Amazon employees more?
- kashyapc 8y agoYour question reminds me of the Australian moral philosopher (and one of the founders of the "Effective Altruism" movement) Peter Singer. I have an inkling that you know him. He talks about (and makes people squirm) "how much should one give?": "[...] In particular, he expands upon some of the arguments made in his 1972 essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", in which he posits that citizens of rich nations are morally obligated to give at least some of their disposable income to charities that help the global poor. He supports this using the drowning child analogy, which states that most people would rescue a drowning child from a pond, even if it meant that their expensive clothes were ruined, so we clearly value a human life more than the value of our material possessions. As a result, we should take a significant portion of the money that we spend on our possessions and instead donate it to charity." People have punched some solid holes through his argument, I can't link to them all, as I'm typing on the phone. But regardless, it's impossible to ignore Singer's arguments.
- detcader 8y agoAn "anonymous" author sharpens this argument in a Current Affairs essay called It's Basically Just Immoral To Be Rich. The logic works better applied to super-rich people than trying to get to the assertion that everyone should give up expensive things they have or want and live in some minimal way. Also check out This Little Rock And All Who Sail On It on the same website.
- kashyapc 8y agoTrue; Singer's argument that "everyone should get enlightened on this" is a hard sell and isn't going to happen in real life. Thanks for the other recommendations.
- carlosag 8y agoIt's great to see Bezos invest in a way that is quite different than other folks in tech's Big Philanthropy approach. Many are piling their money into trusts to avoid taxes now, but don't deploy their philanthropic dollars quickly. Even with increasing wealth and charity dollars in cities like San Francisco, local charities have had a hard time making ends meet. International philanthropy and trusts are not bad in and of themselves, but need to support local charities as well which seems to be the goal. Pretty awesome.
- miesman 8y agoReminds me of how Pablo Escobar gave money to the poor in Medellín. Not implying Bezos is a narcoterrorist but the goals seem similar to me.
- Fuckyourself 8y agoBelieve in better.
- antirez 8y agoStrange to think that a model where people getting disproportionately rich, then give some of that richness away to poors, is going to work. The problem with US seems more that people lose the way because the state does not provide any fundamental help when you need it. So IMHO makes more sense to increase spending (and maybe taxes) in order to provide things like free health care, minimum pension, and so forth. This way the homeless can be, in part, prevented.
- wwarner 8y agoI think it's good for Bezos to fight homelessness, but funding drug treatment programs from the sale of legal drugs would be a better long term solution. Treatment should be the first, if not the only, spending target of marijuana revenue.
- SurgeonOfDeath 8y agoIt depends. Like in USA i would agree because there is a lot of mentally ill people on street. In other cases like teaching is better. They spend all day on street. Going somewhere learn it is just much better environment for them. I don't drink but If was homeless in cold country I would drink and take drugs to forget about cold. It requires so much strong will to live in this environment.
- loceng 8y agoThe reason Bezos is the richest man in the world is he successfully tapped into facilitating the supply chain and has continued to fill different roles of the whole funnel and on a massive, growing scale. His success is shining a light on the future of using autonomous systems to further reduce costs and increase profits, however that doesn't lead to any individually owned system or organization to being incentivized to allocate their services or products to take care of society's basic needs. This is where government should come in, however then you have competition against what's best for society - you have layers upon layers of for profit systems pressuring the system for their own advantage, their own specific needs to succeed and benefit the most, at the direct or indirect cost of others and society of a whole. Jeff and no one should have to shoulder these costs on their own, though he certainly is heavily benefitting from the status quo, and the exponential benefit weighted towards his scale and foundational transactional layer they support, and so it's good he's directing some resources - however whether his core values and efforts are attempting to solve the deeper problems or if he and his companies will simply pressure existing systems to benefit their own systems they excel at primarily for their own benefit, and not the benefit of the system as a whole, is what we should be questioning.
- jimnotgym 8y agoBezos can keep his donations, I just want Amazon to pay tax like any other business would in the UK, pay employees NI like any other business in the UK, and pay minimum wage like any other business in the UK. It shouldn't be up to the billionaires to choose where to spend money that should be in the hands of national governments and workers. This article for instance shows homeless Amazon warehouse workers living in tents [0]. Maybe a better solution to homelessness is to pay people properly. [0]https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/amazon-workers-sleep-tents-dunfermline-fife-scotland-a7467657.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/amazon-worke...
- yodsanklai 8y ago> I just want Amazon to pay tax like any other business would in the UK, pay employees NI like any other business in the UK, and pay minimum wage like any other business in the UK I agree with you, but you can't blame Jeff Bezos for UK legislation.
- Jedd 8y ago> ... but you can't blame Jeff Bezos for UK legislation. Ahh, the old 'unless it's specifically and explicitly denied, regardless of moral or ethical considerations, let alone acting contra to the spirit of the law, then it's okay' defence. Your misdirection is correct - Jeff Bezos is not responsible for UK legislation - however how Jeff Bezos instructs his vendors and employees to act is very much his responsibility.
- natalyarostova 8y agoIf you want to optimize systems, you should expect people to operate with self-interest with respect to the law. Attributing moral blame for self-interested parties not donating money to be within the spirit of the law is unreasonable.
- p1necone 8y agoNo it's fucking not.
- gerardnll 8y agoHe employs the working class with shitty salaries/conditions but then he keeps some of them out of the streets. Thanks
- watertom 8y agoThe homeless issue is, IMHO, a mental health crisis. We as a society didn't want to pay for the freeloading mental health patients, so now we have the homeless. In 1955 there were 560,000 patients in all mental hospitals across the united states, private, public and government. In 2010 there were 43,000 psychiatric beds in the United States, or about 14 beds per 100,000 people—the same ratio as in 1850 In 1950 there were 300 state psychiatric hospitals in the U.S., with 320,000 patients, today there are about 180 hospitals, with and about 20,000 patients.
- refurb 8y agoIt’s not about not wanting to pay, it’s about the changing attitude towards institutionalizing people, in particularly when it’s involuntary. Around the 1970-80s there was a big push to move mental patients out of institutions and into the community. It was viewed as more “humane”.
- 07d046 8y agoAs someone on Twitter said, this is like taxation, but he pays less, and gets more credit for it.
- entwife 8y agoBezos ought to start by paying each and every one of his employees enough so that they don't qualify for public assistance, and are able to support themselves in the respective community where they work.
- rosege 8y agoAgreed and same goes for Walmart
- arcticbull 8y agoAs much as I wish it would pass - and know it won't - Sanders' plan of charging back to employers the cost of social assistance incurred by employees who are paid below the cost of living is a clean and elegant solution to this.
- justbuchanan 8y agoI'm curious why you see Sanders' plan as a "clean and elegant" solution to this problem. It is a solution, but it seems likely to introduce some bad incentives at hiring time. For example, if a high school student and a single mother apply for the same job, which one should Amazon hire? Right now, both cost Amazon the same, but under the Sanders plan, hiring the single mother would likely cost a lot more due to the chargeback. This writeup has some more discussion on the likely negatives of the plan: https://www.cbpp.org/poverty-and-inequality/sanders-khanna-bill-risks-unintended-side-effects-that-could-hurt-lower https://www.cbpp.org/poverty-and-inequality/sanders-khanna-b....
- arcticbull 8y agoFair, I hadn't considered that. I guess I'm just happy the conversation is being had. That said to solve your specific problem, I'd say this is meant to be a punitive measure and therefore it doesn't need to be a 1:1 dollar-for-dollar cost recovery program. Take the 80th percentile burden on the government from underpayment, assign a 50% surcharge as penalty, then apply it for each employee paid less than a living wage, period. Now the mother costs just as much as everyone else, and it's a lot - so now it's in their interest to simply pay a living wage as it would be less expensive than paying the penalties. These problems have solutions, let's focus on finding them instead of pointing out problems and throwing our hands up. Or better yet don't tie it to the cost. Fine them. Or like. Set a living minimum wage.
- ccc111 8y agoand turn them into cheaper amazon labor. gg mr bezos
- beezischillin 8y agoThe thing that pisses me off, more than anything, is that huge companies like Amazon take advantage of a society and lobby for laws more favourable to them until society reaches a breaking point in tolerating it. Small businesses are already pretty much dead in the water by the time that happens due to the anti-competitive nature of these behemoths. And then the government decides to crack down and regulate and once more it's always the small businesses that suffer the most or go out of business. A self-regulating free market with competition would be beautiful but at this point we're past that and this scorched earth policy has to end somehow because it's a race to the bottom.