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Voters decide, not money. And the rich usually want a free world...

by emteycz 5y ago

andrepd 5y ago
I don't recall ever reading such a naive statement x)
- emteycz 5y ago
  I don't recall ever reading such bland, uninteresting statement. If you want to claim democracy doesn't work, post some explanation of your position. You might feel like your opinion is shared amd known by everyone, but that's just a social bubble. I'm more towards your side than you probably think, btw.
joshjdr 5y ago
I disagree. Many complain about Bezos making billions and not paying a fair share of taxes; yet they support and empower him to further do so with every purchase they make from Amazon. Sure, voters have power voting in occasional elections, but every other day they vote with their dollars—whether they see that or not.
- dantheman 5y ago
  Notice what the 'fair share' is, is never stated, and at the same time want to encourage behavior via the tax code, but then get mad when people use the incentives.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - joshjdr 5y ago
    I see this article and thread as a general exploration/discussion of these concepts. I’d have suggested we could probably peg ‘fair share’ anywhere between zero and average American tax rate for the sake of this argument, but let’s just go ahead and say 24%. Do you believe an individual should be able to earn billions, and should able to pay less in taxes than individuals making under 100k? If you agree I’ll bet you can find several billionaire (and many more on their payroll) that’d agree. Look, I admit Ive made my share of contributions to the Bezos machine. Now I could vote for Bernie all the while, but ultimately my point in response above is/was that we vote with more than bumper stickers, social posts, and… well, votes. I might be hypocritical, but I’m not mad or delusional. Also I don’t hate Bezos or Thiel for playing this game, and I’m not saying you should hate either, but heck I think it’s okay to say at some point, it’d be okay to look at the policy and say okay you made a billion tax free, nice one, but that’s enough we tap out. And yeah I’d love to divorce business/financial decisions from politics/voting, but you know, Citizens United…
    - pmoriarty 5y ago
      "it’d be okay to look at the policy and say okay you made a billion tax free, nice one, but that’s enough we tap out" I'd make the taxation retroactive.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "Many complain about Bezos making billions and not paying a fair share of taxes; yet they support and empower him to further do so with every purchase they make from Amazon." From what I understand, the vast majority of Amazon's profit comes not from the e-commerce website but from AWS. And the overwhelming majority of Bezos' net worth comes from the value of Amazon's stock, does it not? So aren't the people who are most responsible for his wealth the purchasers of Amazon's stock, not the users of the e-commerce part of the business?
  - joshjdr 5y ago
    It’s true they’ve rewarded shareholders and shareholders have rewarded them, but the profit metrics by division are almost trivial in this context. Amazon didn’t turn a profit for nearly 15 years- and not because they couldn’t have. The e-commerce has historically been run at near-zero margin, even willfully running categories at a loss to drive out competitors. As the consumer buying diapers from Amazon you might think you’re just saving a dollar vs diapers.com, it’s low margin so who cares, maybe you’re even sticking it to them if they’re really losing money on the transaction? But then diapers.com doesn’t exist anymore, and shareholders are rewarding Amazon. A single snapshot can only begin to tell the story.
    - pmoriarty 5y ago
      So should we have been buying from Amazon's competitors instead, even if they have a worse selection, worse customer service, few if any reviews, slower delivery, and are much more inconvenient to buy from? Variety, choice, and a healthy competitive ecosystem are definitely desirable and to be missed with Amazon's dominance, but there are many reasons Amazon is ahead of other e-commerce sites and brick-and-mortar stores. It'll be interesting to see if/when Amazon finally starts to seriously increase its prices once the rest of its competition are dead and there's no where else for consumers to go. Will there be a reckoning? Will Amazon be split up?
pmoriarty 5y ago
"Voters decide, not money." The voters are told what to believe by the likes of Peter Thiel and Cambridge Analytica, or by the likes of Hearst, Bezos, and Rupert Murdoch owning newspapers. The rich very often have the ears of politicians, with which (if they don't directly bribe) they can easily have lunch any day of the week to lobby for their special interest, or propose quid-pro-quo plans. How often does the average voter have lunch with their elected representatives? For almost all of them the answer is never. The rich also donate to foundations (if they don't own some outright) that lobby the government for their interests, they fund ads to the tune of millions of dollars, they sometimes use millions of their own money to fund their own campaigns for office (Trump being exhibit #1, and Bloomberg #2), etc.
ABCLAW 5y ago
>the rich usually want a free world... There are plenty of Kleptocrats that aren't concerned with the world being free and fair; they're just happy to sit atop the pile, regardless of what the pile is.
mschuster91 5y ago
Given the enormous reliance on advertising in US elections and the mindblowing sums that parties, candidates and PACs burn on them: money buys votes.

Voters decide, not money. And the rich usually want a free world...

andrepd 5y ago

I don't recall ever reading such a naive statement x)

emteycz 5y ago
I don't recall ever reading such bland, uninteresting statement. If you want to claim democracy doesn't work, post some explanation of your position. You might feel like your opinion is shared amd known by everyone, but that's just a social bubble. I'm more towards your side than you probably think, btw.

joshjdr 5y ago

I disagree. Many complain about Bezos making billions and not paying a fair share of taxes; yet they support and empower him to further do so with every purchase they make from Amazon. Sure, voters have power voting in occasional elections, but every other day they vote with their dollars—whether they see that or not.

dantheman 5y ago
Notice what the 'fair share' is, is never stated, and at the same time want to encourage behavior via the tax code, but then get mad when people use the incentives.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- joshjdr 5y ago
  I see this article and thread as a general exploration/discussion of these concepts. I’d have suggested we could probably peg ‘fair share’ anywhere between zero and average American tax rate for the sake of this argument, but let’s just go ahead and say 24%. Do you believe an individual should be able to earn billions, and should able to pay less in taxes than individuals making under 100k? If you agree I’ll bet you can find several billionaire (and many more on their payroll) that’d agree. Look, I admit Ive made my share of contributions to the Bezos machine. Now I could vote for Bernie all the while, but ultimately my point in response above is/was that we vote with more than bumper stickers, social posts, and… well, votes. I might be hypocritical, but I’m not mad or delusional. Also I don’t hate Bezos or Thiel for playing this game, and I’m not saying you should hate either, but heck I think it’s okay to say at some point, it’d be okay to look at the policy and say okay you made a billion tax free, nice one, but that’s enough we tap out. And yeah I’d love to divorce business/financial decisions from politics/voting, but you know, Citizens United…
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    "it’d be okay to look at the policy and say okay you made a billion tax free, nice one, but that’s enough we tap out" I'd make the taxation retroactive.
pmoriarty 5y ago
"Many complain about Bezos making billions and not paying a fair share of taxes; yet they support and empower him to further do so with every purchase they make from Amazon." From what I understand, the vast majority of Amazon's profit comes not from the e-commerce website but from AWS. And the overwhelming majority of Bezos' net worth comes from the value of Amazon's stock, does it not? So aren't the people who are most responsible for his wealth the purchasers of Amazon's stock, not the users of the e-commerce part of the business?
- joshjdr 5y ago
  It’s true they’ve rewarded shareholders and shareholders have rewarded them, but the profit metrics by division are almost trivial in this context. Amazon didn’t turn a profit for nearly 15 years- and not because they couldn’t have. The e-commerce has historically been run at near-zero margin, even willfully running categories at a loss to drive out competitors. As the consumer buying diapers from Amazon you might think you’re just saving a dollar vs diapers.com, it’s low margin so who cares, maybe you’re even sticking it to them if they’re really losing money on the transaction? But then diapers.com doesn’t exist anymore, and shareholders are rewarding Amazon. A single snapshot can only begin to tell the story.
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    So should we have been buying from Amazon's competitors instead, even if they have a worse selection, worse customer service, few if any reviews, slower delivery, and are much more inconvenient to buy from? Variety, choice, and a healthy competitive ecosystem are definitely desirable and to be missed with Amazon's dominance, but there are many reasons Amazon is ahead of other e-commerce sites and brick-and-mortar stores. It'll be interesting to see if/when Amazon finally starts to seriously increase its prices once the rest of its competition are dead and there's no where else for consumers to go. Will there be a reckoning? Will Amazon be split up?

pmoriarty 5y ago

"Voters decide, not money." The voters are told what to believe by the likes of Peter Thiel and Cambridge Analytica, or by the likes of Hearst, Bezos, and Rupert Murdoch owning newspapers. The rich very often have the ears of politicians, with which (if they don't directly bribe) they can easily have lunch any day of the week to lobby for their special interest, or propose quid-pro-quo plans. How often does the average voter have lunch with their elected representatives? For almost all of them the answer is never. The rich also donate to foundations (if they don't own some outright) that lobby the government for their interests, they fund ads to the tune of millions of dollars, they sometimes use millions of their own money to fund their own campaigns for office (Trump being exhibit #1, and Bloomberg #2), etc.

ABCLAW 5y ago

>the rich usually want a free world... There are plenty of Kleptocrats that aren't concerned with the world being free and fair; they're just happy to sit atop the pile, regardless of what the pile is.

mschuster91 5y ago

Given the enormous reliance on advertising in US elections and the mindblowing sums that parties, candidates and PACs burn on them: money buys votes.