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If you pay your employees $7.25 you deserve to be made fun off at least. Jeff Bezos recently also said Amazon deserved being scrutinised. I'm not saying this is

If you pay your employees $7.25 you deserve to be made fun off at least. Jeff Bezos recently also said Amazon deserved being scrutinised. I'm not saying this is what triggered them, but sometimes you have to take a strong position in order to be listened to.

chrisseaton 8y ago
> you deserve to be made fun of I don't think anyone deserves to be made fun of, full stop. Grown-up criticism is fine.
- Steltek 8y ago
  Political humor, especially satire, can sometimes cut through the fog of bullshit quite clearly.
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    I disagree I think it muddies the waters! A political comedian will have an agenda that they try to get across using satire, but they tell half-truths and exaggerate to make their jokes work. It's toxic, as some people don't understand the satire, or misunderstand which bits were exaggerated for comedic effect and which were based in fact.
    - Steltek 8y ago
      That's a trait of humans and is not limited to comedians. In fact, the lens of comedy usually focuses on a political personality stating something completely foolish with complete sincerity in an attempt to score points.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
- ionised 8y ago
  Not a fan of satire and parody then?
- Egidius 8y ago
  I don't agree. I think satire, which this can be perceived as, is a means to achieve people to get to change their mind. Making fun of people on terms of race, age, gender, anything they cannot do anything about, is not something I agree with doing. But come on, this guy was squeezing out people who ended up in the situation where they had to work in warehouse packing boxes.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
roenxi 8y ago
It hasn't crossed a threshold into being a big deal, but singling out an individual does look like bullying and bullying isn't funny. Jeff Bezos has to respect the law or face a series of consequences up to imprisonment. We all know he is going to respect the law like we all do. It is mean spirited to write a (potential) law that disrespects him directly. He can't really respond to that. Sanders should have stuck to calling him names in a speech, or informally calling it the Bezos' Act. That is just discussion and fair game. This type of formal embedding is unpleasant at a deeper level to no-one's benefit. We can do without that in politics, thankyouverymuch.
- maaark 8y ago
  When the individual is worth more than many nation states, I have no problem with singling them out.
  - leetcrew 8y ago
    even if that person is the richest man in the world, a US senator singling out a private citizen in formal legislation is still "punching down". you really shouldn't cheer for that.
    - graedus 8y ago
      I'm absolutely astonished at this definition of "punching down"!
      - leetcrew 8y ago
        afaik, it is commonly used to refer to situations where someone makes a joke at the expense of someone less powerful than they are. do you disagree with my understanding of the definition, or are you implying that jeff bezos is more powerful than a US senator who made a decent run for the presidency and is acting in his official capacity as such?
        hataraku 8y ago
driverdan 8y ago
> If you pay your employees $7.25... ...then you're paying the wage your employees are willing to work for. Basic economics in action. If you're making fun of this you need to take an econ 101 class.
- huntie 8y ago
  >willing to work for More like have to work for. People working for minimum wage will work for whatever you pay them, because their choices are that or homelessness/dying of starvation which is no choice at all. Case in point, illegal immigrants work for less than minimum wage.
- Egidius 8y ago
  I believe people working in Amazons warehouses ended up in a situation they did not want to end up in the first place. Adam Smith (writer of The Wealth of Nations, you might have heard of it) pointed out that forcing individuals to perform mundane and repetitious tasks would lead to an ignorant, dissatisfied work force. For this reason he advanced the revolutionary belief that governments had an obligation to provide education to workers. I think that when you get payed $7.25 an hour you have to work so many hours that there's no way you have spare time to educate yourself to get out of that situation. Amazon is an example of capitalism gone a tad bit too far. The market is only self correcting to a certain point. It's great that Amazon (not only Bezos, but all the stakeholders that agreed with this step) is acknowledging that people deserve a decent pay.
  - philwelch 8y ago
    Amazon provides generous education benefits to their hourly employees: https://www.aboutamazon.com/working-at-amazon/career-choice https://www.aboutamazon.com/working-at-amazon/career-choice Which is both a good thing for workers and something that makes sense for Amazon to provide. Amazon, believe it or not, doesn't actually want to hire and deal with workers who perceive themselves as perpetually and inevitably poor. They want to hire hardworking, ambitious people who want to move on to bigger and better things. Positioning themselves as a way up for hardworking, ambitious people who haven't developed marketable skills yet puts them in a position to benefit from the labor of hardworking, ambitious people, who are generally the most valuable people to employ. The notion of minimum wage jobs as a stopgap that allows people to support themselves just long enough to improve their future earning prospects, as you point out, doesn't make sense--unless those people have the ability to improve their future earning prospects. Amazon is one of the very few employers, then, for whom it does make sense. Ironically, Sanders and Amazon's other critics would probably much rather that Amazon pay people just enough money to spend their entire lives working in a warehouse for minimum wage than for Amazon to provide this education benefit. That's because someone who spends a year or two working at an Amazon warehouse, takes advantage of the education benefit, and transitions into a higher earning job is not going to believe Sanders' demagoguery.

chrisseaton 8y ago

> you deserve to be made fun of I don't think anyone deserves to be made fun of, full stop. Grown-up criticism is fine.

Steltek 8y ago
Political humor, especially satire, can sometimes cut through the fog of bullshit quite clearly.
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  I disagree I think it muddies the waters! A political comedian will have an agenda that they try to get across using satire, but they tell half-truths and exaggerate to make their jokes work. It's toxic, as some people don't understand the satire, or misunderstand which bits were exaggerated for comedic effect and which were based in fact.
  - Steltek 8y ago
    That's a trait of humans and is not limited to comedians. In fact, the lens of comedy usually focuses on a political personality stating something completely foolish with complete sincerity in an attempt to score points.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
ionised 8y ago
Not a fan of satire and parody then?
Egidius 8y ago
I don't agree. I think satire, which this can be perceived as, is a means to achieve people to get to change their mind. Making fun of people on terms of race, age, gender, anything they cannot do anything about, is not something I agree with doing. But come on, this guy was squeezing out people who ended up in the situation where they had to work in warehouse packing boxes.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

roenxi 8y ago

It hasn't crossed a threshold into being a big deal, but singling out an individual does look like bullying and bullying isn't funny. Jeff Bezos has to respect the law or face a series of consequences up to imprisonment. We all know he is going to respect the law like we all do. It is mean spirited to write a (potential) law that disrespects him directly. He can't really respond to that. Sanders should have stuck to calling him names in a speech, or informally calling it the Bezos' Act. That is just discussion and fair game. This type of formal embedding is unpleasant at a deeper level to no-one's benefit. We can do without that in politics, thankyouverymuch.

maaark 8y ago
When the individual is worth more than many nation states, I have no problem with singling them out.
- leetcrew 8y ago
  even if that person is the richest man in the world, a US senator singling out a private citizen in formal legislation is still "punching down". you really shouldn't cheer for that.
  - graedus 8y ago
    I'm absolutely astonished at this definition of "punching down"!
    - leetcrew 8y ago
      afaik, it is commonly used to refer to situations where someone makes a joke at the expense of someone less powerful than they are. do you disagree with my understanding of the definition, or are you implying that jeff bezos is more powerful than a US senator who made a decent run for the presidency and is acting in his official capacity as such?
      - hataraku 8y ago

driverdan 8y ago

> If you pay your employees $7.25... ...then you're paying the wage your employees are willing to work for. Basic economics in action. If you're making fun of this you need to take an econ 101 class.

huntie 8y ago
>willing to work for More like have to work for. People working for minimum wage will work for whatever you pay them, because their choices are that or homelessness/dying of starvation which is no choice at all. Case in point, illegal immigrants work for less than minimum wage.
Egidius 8y ago
I believe people working in Amazons warehouses ended up in a situation they did not want to end up in the first place. Adam Smith (writer of The Wealth of Nations, you might have heard of it) pointed out that forcing individuals to perform mundane and repetitious tasks would lead to an ignorant, dissatisfied work force. For this reason he advanced the revolutionary belief that governments had an obligation to provide education to workers. I think that when you get payed $7.25 an hour you have to work so many hours that there's no way you have spare time to educate yourself to get out of that situation. Amazon is an example of capitalism gone a tad bit too far. The market is only self correcting to a certain point. It's great that Amazon (not only Bezos, but all the stakeholders that agreed with this step) is acknowledging that people deserve a decent pay.
- philwelch 8y ago
  Amazon provides generous education benefits to their hourly employees: https://www.aboutamazon.com/working-at-amazon/career-choice https://www.aboutamazon.com/working-at-amazon/career-choice Which is both a good thing for workers and something that makes sense for Amazon to provide. Amazon, believe it or not, doesn't actually want to hire and deal with workers who perceive themselves as perpetually and inevitably poor. They want to hire hardworking, ambitious people who want to move on to bigger and better things. Positioning themselves as a way up for hardworking, ambitious people who haven't developed marketable skills yet puts them in a position to benefit from the labor of hardworking, ambitious people, who are generally the most valuable people to employ. The notion of minimum wage jobs as a stopgap that allows people to support themselves just long enough to improve their future earning prospects, as you point out, doesn't make sense--unless those people have the ability to improve their future earning prospects. Amazon is one of the very few employers, then, for whom it does make sense. Ironically, Sanders and Amazon's other critics would probably much rather that Amazon pay people just enough money to spend their entire lives working in a warehouse for minimum wage than for Amazon to provide this education benefit. That's because someone who spends a year or two working at an Amazon warehouse, takes advantage of the education benefit, and transitions into a higher earning job is not going to believe Sanders' demagoguery.