5 ms·

> Who are the beneficiaries? Literally any entity they interact with. And F500's interact a lot with a lot of entities!

myspy 6y ago
As long as there is shareholder before stakeholder, I don't see this as a good argument. Take Amazon. Employees in warehouses are low wage and hire and fire jobs. The CEO is getting richer and richer, not everyone is profiting as well as it could be. What Europe would need is to excel in computer science as well as design and engineering. The topic is pretty lacking here and would need a push. The result would be companies that could deliver experiences equal to the US or better. Take Facebook, a European version with the data protection laws here would be infinitely better.
- chii 6y ago
  > Employees in warehouses are low wage and hire and fire jobs. The CEO is getting richer and richer, not everyone is profiting as well as it could be. same old argument that marx has - that capital ownership (and by extension, capitalism) is the cause for such inequality. I personally don't think all inequality is the same, and inequality is what drives people. There's a reason why communism, and their strive for equality, has so far failed as a form of governance, and as a form of market economy.
  - 6AA4FD 6y ago
    Does inequality drive you? Personally, I don't work because I want to enjoy more goods, services, or life stability than my friends or family. I work because I want to be able to afford my own health insurance and pay my own grocery bill. I don't think my interest in doing that is really a function of anyone else's insurance or economic status.
  - jokethrowaway 6y ago
    > Does inequality drive you? Absolutely! If there is no inequality there is no profit for working more. If I can't earn more by working more then I'll just do the bare minimum and still receive my equal share. Luckily I never lived under a communist regime to witness it, but I've seen this happen in companies with middle managers who don't care: a few employees start working very little, a few more follow suits, motivated individuals complain, see that nothing happens and then start slacking as well.
- jonfw 6y ago
  I feel like this argument lacks a full understanding of what 'net worth' even means. Bezos is not taking enough cash from Amazon to be even remotely relevant to what they pay their warehouse workers. His cash compensation in 2019 was 1.6 million. Not sure how that reflects in 2020, 2021, but the point is that Bezos is only absurdly rich in theory He is theoretically worth hundreds of billions- but his actual consumption of goods, services, resources is a tiny percentage of that. There is no direct link between Bezos net worth and allocation of resources to laborers, and attempts to paint that picture are misguided. You criticize Amazon for their 'low paying' jobs- do you really understand the space these jobs exist in? I've worked warehouse gigs in college. I'm sure the Amazon jobs suck- but their minimum wage is what my supervisor got paid at a small building supply company. Amazon is actually considered a high paying gig in that arena.
  - sharkmerry 6y ago
    > There is no direct link between Bezos net worth and allocation of resources to laborers, and attempts to paint that picture are misguided. If they raised wages of factory workers, profits go down, stock goes down, Bezos net worth go down. no?
    - nfsdjkghewyuh 6y ago
      More likely if factory workers got better wages then prices of goods would go up, demand would go down, and some factory workers would no longer be needed. Amazon doesn't have the luxury of deciding it doesn't want to create value for it's shareholders, and I'm speculating widely, but I'm guessing the marketplace (B2C) aspect of the business is probably operating on much slimmer margins than the cloud aspect (B2B). If they were to subsidize the marketplace with cloud profits, it would be anti-competitive. They would be operating at a loss which would prevent competitors from being profitable and competitive.
    - ChrisLomont 6y ago
      >If they raised wages of factory workers They then also can hire a better class of workers, leaving some working there now no longer working there. And as prices go up, everyone loses some value to buying these goods, which is then less to spend on other things. When a worker is willing to work for some wage and an employer is willing to pay it, both sides benefit, and society as a whole is not paying extra. > ... profits go down As does innovation which is paid for from those profits. And outside places, such as teacher pensions, 401ks, union pensions, state pensions, all lose money too. Taking this money from those who funded Amazon via stock purchases and secondary markets would ensure that later there is less investment available for new companies, now jobs, new industries. Stock markets lets companies get capital to grow and usually employ more people. Taking out these incentives means less companies and less jobs, which means less competition among employers to hire people, which means less wages. Doing things inefficiently, such as paying lots more than needed to clear wage floors, or paying a worker to do one task instead of two, or similar, means less value in society overall than if the things were done efficiently.
- speleding 6y ago
  Keep in mind that the employees in Amazon warehouses are there of their own free will. So, however badly they are treated, Amazon is apparently providing an option to them that's better than any alternative they may have. Surely, that's better than them not having the option to work at Amazon at all.
  - jeremysalwen 6y ago
    In what hypothetical world does Amazon disappear and no other business takes its place?
    - ChrisLomont 6y ago
      In made up worlds they could work for magic company and make trillions of dollars a year, I'm sure. In the current world workers choose to work there. There are usually many other choices available that were discarded by those workers. What if all replacements were just like those numerous other companies that the current workers didn't choose? That seems more likely than some company appearing that gives them vastly better options.

As long as there is shareholder before stakeholder, I don't see this as a good argument. Take Amazon. Employees in warehouses are low wage and hire and fire jobs. The CEO is getting richer and richer, not everyone is profiting as well as it could be. What Europe would need is to excel in computer science as well as design and engineering. The topic is pretty lacking here and would need a push. The result would be companies that could deliver experiences equal to the US or better. Take Facebook, a European version with the data protection laws here would be infinitely better.

chii 6y ago
> Employees in warehouses are low wage and hire and fire jobs. The CEO is getting richer and richer, not everyone is profiting as well as it could be. same old argument that marx has - that capital ownership (and by extension, capitalism) is the cause for such inequality. I personally don't think all inequality is the same, and inequality is what drives people. There's a reason why communism, and their strive for equality, has so far failed as a form of governance, and as a form of market economy.
- 6AA4FD 6y ago
  Does inequality drive you? Personally, I don't work because I want to enjoy more goods, services, or life stability than my friends or family. I work because I want to be able to afford my own health insurance and pay my own grocery bill. I don't think my interest in doing that is really a function of anyone else's insurance or economic status.
- jokethrowaway 6y ago
  > Does inequality drive you? Absolutely! If there is no inequality there is no profit for working more. If I can't earn more by working more then I'll just do the bare minimum and still receive my equal share. Luckily I never lived under a communist regime to witness it, but I've seen this happen in companies with middle managers who don't care: a few employees start working very little, a few more follow suits, motivated individuals complain, see that nothing happens and then start slacking as well.
jonfw 6y ago
I feel like this argument lacks a full understanding of what 'net worth' even means. Bezos is not taking enough cash from Amazon to be even remotely relevant to what they pay their warehouse workers. His cash compensation in 2019 was 1.6 million. Not sure how that reflects in 2020, 2021, but the point is that Bezos is only absurdly rich in theory He is theoretically worth hundreds of billions- but his actual consumption of goods, services, resources is a tiny percentage of that. There is no direct link between Bezos net worth and allocation of resources to laborers, and attempts to paint that picture are misguided. You criticize Amazon for their 'low paying' jobs- do you really understand the space these jobs exist in? I've worked warehouse gigs in college. I'm sure the Amazon jobs suck- but their minimum wage is what my supervisor got paid at a small building supply company. Amazon is actually considered a high paying gig in that arena.
- sharkmerry 6y ago
  > There is no direct link between Bezos net worth and allocation of resources to laborers, and attempts to paint that picture are misguided. If they raised wages of factory workers, profits go down, stock goes down, Bezos net worth go down. no?
  - nfsdjkghewyuh 6y ago
    More likely if factory workers got better wages then prices of goods would go up, demand would go down, and some factory workers would no longer be needed. Amazon doesn't have the luxury of deciding it doesn't want to create value for it's shareholders, and I'm speculating widely, but I'm guessing the marketplace (B2C) aspect of the business is probably operating on much slimmer margins than the cloud aspect (B2B). If they were to subsidize the marketplace with cloud profits, it would be anti-competitive. They would be operating at a loss which would prevent competitors from being profitable and competitive.
  - ChrisLomont 6y ago
    >If they raised wages of factory workers They then also can hire a better class of workers, leaving some working there now no longer working there. And as prices go up, everyone loses some value to buying these goods, which is then less to spend on other things. When a worker is willing to work for some wage and an employer is willing to pay it, both sides benefit, and society as a whole is not paying extra. > ... profits go down As does innovation which is paid for from those profits. And outside places, such as teacher pensions, 401ks, union pensions, state pensions, all lose money too. Taking this money from those who funded Amazon via stock purchases and secondary markets would ensure that later there is less investment available for new companies, now jobs, new industries. Stock markets lets companies get capital to grow and usually employ more people. Taking out these incentives means less companies and less jobs, which means less competition among employers to hire people, which means less wages. Doing things inefficiently, such as paying lots more than needed to clear wage floors, or paying a worker to do one task instead of two, or similar, means less value in society overall than if the things were done efficiently.
speleding 6y ago
Keep in mind that the employees in Amazon warehouses are there of their own free will. So, however badly they are treated, Amazon is apparently providing an option to them that's better than any alternative they may have. Surely, that's better than them not having the option to work at Amazon at all.
- jeremysalwen 6y ago
  In what hypothetical world does Amazon disappear and no other business takes its place?
  - ChrisLomont 6y ago
    In made up worlds they could work for magic company and make trillions of dollars a year, I'm sure. In the current world workers choose to work there. There are usually many other choices available that were discarded by those workers. What if all replacements were just like those numerous other companies that the current workers didn't choose? That seems more likely than some company appearing that gives them vastly better options.