4 ms·

Tell that to Amazon warehouse worker making $10-20 an hour that instead of putting food on the table, roof on the head of his family, he should have bought Amaz

by akg_67 6y ago

Tell that to Amazon warehouse worker making $10-20 an hour that instead of putting food on the table, roof on the head of his family, he should have bought Amazon shares. Bezo is epitome of what’s wrong with America and American “capitalist” system.

Aunche 6y ago
New Amazon workers aren't the ones who made it a trillion-dollar company. The older ones were. By your standards, the only way Amazon could compensate them fairly is to pay workers in Amazon shares and force them to hold it.
- webmaven 6y ago
  > New Amazon workers aren't the ones who made it a trillion-dollar company. The older ones were. By your standards, the only way Amazon could compensate them fairly is to pay workers in Amazon shares and force them to hold it. Something like mandatory equity contributions to the company pension fund would probably work.
robswc 6y ago
How? $10-20 an hour is better than minimum wage and a few years ago I worked a labor job that "only" paid $12.00/hr. Is Jeff Bezo's personal net worth the causation behind someone not being able to support a family? What about Zuckerberg, what is the average salary of a FB employee? If its above a certain amount is that a "moral" billionaire? I would argue that pursuit of profits can lead to bad things for employees... but I never understood going after billionaires when their wealth is almost exclusively because they created a company worth billions. If that were the case, everyone making minimum wage should have seen their salaries skyrocket when these billionaires lost great %'s of their wealth over the last year. I personally see rent/CoL being the problem. I don't know of solutions but I do feel going after billionaires is just a waste of energy. I'm a bit bias as my work has some crossover with "wealth and finance" (trading stocks) but all too often these ideas about "taxing rich people" just blow up and leave everyone worse off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_financial_transaction_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_financial_transaction_... TL;DR, they tax each trade on the market. It makes a fraction of what it was projected to make and never comes close to making more than they did before by just taxing the capital gains (profit from trading). Its an idea I've seen showing up more and more.
- confidantlake 6y ago
  My view is that "creating" a billion dollar company is a misleading description. I view it more as "capturing" a billion. You mention FB. With network effects, it is inevitable that there will be a few large dominate social media companies. If it wasn't Zuckerberg it would have been someone else. I view these people not as pioneers pushing us forward but as lottery winners. Why should the lucky one on top capture most of the value? The people like Newton and Einstein who actually had revolutionary ideas were not even close to billionaires. I am not sure why you feel that "taxing rich people" makes everyone worse off. 60 years ago a man with a high school diploma could support a middle class life for a family of 4. Taxes on the highest earners were much higher than they were today. 60 years before that there was no federal income tax and people worked 14 hour days in dangerous conditions while Carnegie and Rockefeller amassed wealth on scales not seen until today. But yes I agree with you that a tax on each market trade is lol stupid. But I think it is a straw-man argument along with setting the tax rate at 100%.
  - robswc 6y ago
    >Why should the lucky one on top capture most of the value? Because they were first or best to do it. MySpace was already a thing, several other social media sites but today they're mostly dead while FB is not. Luck does have a lot to do with it. I feel trying to quantify luck though will get us no where. Trying to "correct" for it, even more so. >The people like Newton and Einstein who actually had revolutionary ideas were not even close to billionaires. Do you think they should be? I cannot think of a reason... but I do understand what you mean. >I am not sure why you feel that "taxing rich people" makes everyone worse off. I think it would be hard to quantify it but yes, I do think people are "worse off" - not by much though, if you're going by metrics like salary. I'm thinking about all the advances we've made. I don't see half the stuff happening if not for the ability for excess money to be invested. I mean, the very thing we're talking on for instance (and yea maybe it could have been on some other site like FB or reddit) but those are also because of investing. >60 years ago a man with a high school diploma could support a middle class life for a family of 4. Taxes on the highest earners were much higher than they were today. 60 years before that there was no federal income tax and people worked 14 hour days in dangerous conditions while Carnegie and Rockefeller amassed wealth on scales not seen until today. I don't see how the two are related though. There were a lot of things different about back then vs today. I would like to see the focus be on rent and CoL as I see those as way more of a problem than if Jeff Bezos has $50b or $100b. (his wealth has fluctuated like crazy with covid and divorce). >But yes I agree with you that a tax on each market trade is lol stupid. But I think it is a straw-man argument I'm glad you agree and also glad its not like twitter or reddit where we have to try to score cheap condescending shots in to "argue" lol... but alas. I would say if its the very thing presidential candidates like Bernie and Andrew Yang are saying they would like to get done, I would consider that beyond a straw man. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/why-bernie-sanders-financial-transaction-tax-would-hurt-main-street-2019-7-1028390075 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/why-bernie-s... https://www.yang2020.com/policies/financial-transaction-tax/ https://www.yang2020.com/policies/financial-transaction-tax/ It is also what people are pushing as a solution for student debt. I agree the 100% tax is a strawman though! ... Unless a significant figure proposes it, I will always say that's a strawman lol

by akg_67 6y ago

Aunche 6y ago

New Amazon workers aren't the ones who made it a trillion-dollar company. The older ones were. By your standards, the only way Amazon could compensate them fairly is to pay workers in Amazon shares and force them to hold it.

webmaven 6y ago
> New Amazon workers aren't the ones who made it a trillion-dollar company. The older ones were. By your standards, the only way Amazon could compensate them fairly is to pay workers in Amazon shares and force them to hold it. Something like mandatory equity contributions to the company pension fund would probably work.

robswc 6y ago

How? $10-20 an hour is better than minimum wage and a few years ago I worked a labor job that "only" paid $12.00/hr. Is Jeff Bezo's personal net worth the causation behind someone not being able to support a family? What about Zuckerberg, what is the average salary of a FB employee? If its above a certain amount is that a "moral" billionaire? I would argue that pursuit of profits can lead to bad things for employees... but I never understood going after billionaires when their wealth is almost exclusively because they created a company worth billions. If that were the case, everyone making minimum wage should have seen their salaries skyrocket when these billionaires lost great %'s of their wealth over the last year. I personally see rent/CoL being the problem. I don't know of solutions but I do feel going after billionaires is just a waste of energy. I'm a bit bias as my work has some crossover with "wealth and finance" (trading stocks) but all too often these ideas about "taxing rich people" just blow up and leave everyone worse off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_financial_transaction_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_financial_transaction_... TL;DR, they tax each trade on the market. It makes a fraction of what it was projected to make and never comes close to making more than they did before by just taxing the capital gains (profit from trading). Its an idea I've seen showing up more and more.

confidantlake 6y ago
My view is that "creating" a billion dollar company is a misleading description. I view it more as "capturing" a billion. You mention FB. With network effects, it is inevitable that there will be a few large dominate social media companies. If it wasn't Zuckerberg it would have been someone else. I view these people not as pioneers pushing us forward but as lottery winners. Why should the lucky one on top capture most of the value? The people like Newton and Einstein who actually had revolutionary ideas were not even close to billionaires. I am not sure why you feel that "taxing rich people" makes everyone worse off. 60 years ago a man with a high school diploma could support a middle class life for a family of 4. Taxes on the highest earners were much higher than they were today. 60 years before that there was no federal income tax and people worked 14 hour days in dangerous conditions while Carnegie and Rockefeller amassed wealth on scales not seen until today. But yes I agree with you that a tax on each market trade is lol stupid. But I think it is a straw-man argument along with setting the tax rate at 100%.
- robswc 6y ago
  >Why should the lucky one on top capture most of the value? Because they were first or best to do it. MySpace was already a thing, several other social media sites but today they're mostly dead while FB is not. Luck does have a lot to do with it. I feel trying to quantify luck though will get us no where. Trying to "correct" for it, even more so. >The people like Newton and Einstein who actually had revolutionary ideas were not even close to billionaires. Do you think they should be? I cannot think of a reason... but I do understand what you mean. >I am not sure why you feel that "taxing rich people" makes everyone worse off. I think it would be hard to quantify it but yes, I do think people are "worse off" - not by much though, if you're going by metrics like salary. I'm thinking about all the advances we've made. I don't see half the stuff happening if not for the ability for excess money to be invested. I mean, the very thing we're talking on for instance (and yea maybe it could have been on some other site like FB or reddit) but those are also because of investing. >60 years ago a man with a high school diploma could support a middle class life for a family of 4. Taxes on the highest earners were much higher than they were today. 60 years before that there was no federal income tax and people worked 14 hour days in dangerous conditions while Carnegie and Rockefeller amassed wealth on scales not seen until today. I don't see how the two are related though. There were a lot of things different about back then vs today. I would like to see the focus be on rent and CoL as I see those as way more of a problem than if Jeff Bezos has $50b or $100b. (his wealth has fluctuated like crazy with covid and divorce). >But yes I agree with you that a tax on each market trade is lol stupid. But I think it is a straw-man argument I'm glad you agree and also glad its not like twitter or reddit where we have to try to score cheap condescending shots in to "argue" lol... but alas. I would say if its the very thing presidential candidates like Bernie and Andrew Yang are saying they would like to get done, I would consider that beyond a straw man. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/why-bernie-sanders-financial-transaction-tax-would-hurt-main-street-2019-7-1028390075 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/why-bernie-s... https://www.yang2020.com/policies/financial-transaction-tax/ https://www.yang2020.com/policies/financial-transaction-tax/ It is also what people are pushing as a solution for student debt. I agree the 100% tax is a strawman though! ... Unless a significant figure proposes it, I will always say that's a strawman lol