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Reminder that the reason he is doing this is to trick you into thinking massive top-heavy wealth accumulation can be sustainable or in any way "good". If you n

by cazum 8y ago

Reminder that the reason he is doing this is to trick you into thinking massive top-heavy wealth accumulation can be sustainable or in any way "good". If you need any evidence that this is anything but a PR sham, read this: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/06/amazon-seattle-repeal-head-tax-homelessness https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/06/amazon-seattle-repea...

refurb 8y ago
Your article doesn't really convince me. You can be for helping the homeless, but be opposed to a head tax.
notyourwork 8y ago
Perhaps you could describe your interpretation of the article referenced and why you feel he is trying to trick people by giving away ~$100M.
- aylmao 8y ago
  My interpretation: - Paying this small tax would help the homeless, but Jeff/Amazon would see no direct benefit from this. - Donating money has the direct benefit of positive PR. The last wealthiest guy in the world did it too-- so arguably not doing it is in fact not a neutral stance but negative PR. Hence it's in Jeff Bezos' interest to pay less taxes and donate the money it takes to make the headlines.
  - lisper 8y ago
    It's also important to remember that while $100M sounds like a lot of money (and it is) it is only 0.1% of Bezos's net worth. It's the equivalent of someone whose net worth is $1M giving away $1000.00. And actually, it's not even equivalent to that because if you have $1M and you give away $1000 you can no longer afford to buy something that costs $1M. But when your net worth is $100B and you give away $100M your net worth is still $99.9B. You are still the richest man in the world by a wide margin, and there is essentially nothing you can't buy.
    - notyourwork 8y ago
      Really excellent perspective on this. However, I don't think we should downplay anyone giving away that amount of money. I'd rather someone give away $100M compared to $0 even if its peanuts for them based on their personal finance. It seems odd that society feels entitled to decide what the richest person in the world should and shouldn't do with their money. I don't disagree with premise that he can hand away $5B and still not bat an eye but why is it out decision to make?
      - lisper 8y ago
        > It seems odd that society feels entitled to decide what the richest person in the world should and shouldn't do with their money. IMHO society is entitled to decide whether or not the concept of "private property" should be part of the rules of the game at all. And it is certainly entitled to decide whether or not a vast amount of wealth and power should vest in the hands of a single individual who is accountable to no one. It may be that the answer to both of those question is "yes", but that is not a straightforward consequence of the laws of physics.
        notyourwork 8y ago
        Doesn't society determine how wealth is concentrated based on how they use their wallets? The wealth accumulated by founding Amazon is due to millions of people's purchases on the retail site. It is further enhanced by the amount of money being spent on AWS cloud services. This is how a free market works, the market dictates where wealth concentrates and disseminates. I don't disagree that in theory we shouldn't have it so lop sided but I don't see how we have a free market without the possibility of a Jeff Bezos rising to the top.
        lisper 8y ago
        > Doesn't society determine how wealth is concentrated based on how they use their wallets? Only when consumers actually have a choice. That's why monopolies are bad. This is something many people miss about capitalism. The way it is supposed to work is that if Bob starts to make a ton of money, Alice notices this and enters the market herself so that she can capture some of the market currently being served by Bob. The resulting competition drives prices down so that eventually goods and services become available at the lowest possible price. If one person or company is getting fabulously wealthy, that means that the market has failed. Society has a lot of mechanisms for preventing this from happening. Progressive taxation. Anti-trust laws. The laws of physics do not lead inexorably to laissez-faire capitalism.

by cazum 8y ago

refurb 8y ago

Your article doesn't really convince me. You can be for helping the homeless, but be opposed to a head tax.

notyourwork 8y ago

Perhaps you could describe your interpretation of the article referenced and why you feel he is trying to trick people by giving away ~$100M.

aylmao 8y ago
My interpretation: - Paying this small tax would help the homeless, but Jeff/Amazon would see no direct benefit from this. - Donating money has the direct benefit of positive PR. The last wealthiest guy in the world did it too-- so arguably not doing it is in fact not a neutral stance but negative PR. Hence it's in Jeff Bezos' interest to pay less taxes and donate the money it takes to make the headlines.
- lisper 8y ago
  It's also important to remember that while $100M sounds like a lot of money (and it is) it is only 0.1% of Bezos's net worth. It's the equivalent of someone whose net worth is $1M giving away $1000.00. And actually, it's not even equivalent to that because if you have $1M and you give away $1000 you can no longer afford to buy something that costs $1M. But when your net worth is $100B and you give away $100M your net worth is still $99.9B. You are still the richest man in the world by a wide margin, and there is essentially nothing you can't buy.
  - notyourwork 8y ago
    Really excellent perspective on this. However, I don't think we should downplay anyone giving away that amount of money. I'd rather someone give away $100M compared to $0 even if its peanuts for them based on their personal finance. It seems odd that society feels entitled to decide what the richest person in the world should and shouldn't do with their money. I don't disagree with premise that he can hand away $5B and still not bat an eye but why is it out decision to make?
    - lisper 8y ago
      > It seems odd that society feels entitled to decide what the richest person in the world should and shouldn't do with their money. IMHO society is entitled to decide whether or not the concept of "private property" should be part of the rules of the game at all. And it is certainly entitled to decide whether or not a vast amount of wealth and power should vest in the hands of a single individual who is accountable to no one. It may be that the answer to both of those question is "yes", but that is not a straightforward consequence of the laws of physics.
      - notyourwork 8y ago
        Doesn't society determine how wealth is concentrated based on how they use their wallets? The wealth accumulated by founding Amazon is due to millions of people's purchases on the retail site. It is further enhanced by the amount of money being spent on AWS cloud services. This is how a free market works, the market dictates where wealth concentrates and disseminates. I don't disagree that in theory we shouldn't have it so lop sided but I don't see how we have a free market without the possibility of a Jeff Bezos rising to the top.
        lisper 8y ago
        > Doesn't society determine how wealth is concentrated based on how they use their wallets? Only when consumers actually have a choice. That's why monopolies are bad. This is something many people miss about capitalism. The way it is supposed to work is that if Bob starts to make a ton of money, Alice notices this and enters the market herself so that she can capture some of the market currently being served by Bob. The resulting competition drives prices down so that eventually goods and services become available at the lowest possible price. If one person or company is getting fabulously wealthy, that means that the market has failed. Society has a lot of mechanisms for preventing this from happening. Progressive taxation. Anti-trust laws. The laws of physics do not lead inexorably to laissez-faire capitalism.