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>These billionaires made many billions on covid, while you got a 1400 dollar check so you could survive. They made billions from excellent businesses on which

by pb7 5y ago

>These billionaires made many billions on covid, while you got a 1400 dollar check so you could survive. They made billions from excellent businesses on which the world relied during a time of crisis. What would people have done without the likes of Amazon and fast delivery of nearly everything? >These billionaires pay their workers minimum wage every day. No one makes minimum wage at Amazon. >People can't get toilet breaks at amazon warehouse without being harassed. Citation needed. Individuals out of a population of 1,000,000 diverse people choosing to do things is not a trend. >He doesn't care about any of us. I don't care about him either. It's a business transaction that benefits both parties, nothing more, nothing less.

Ostrogodsky 5y ago
> They made billions from excellent businesses on which the world relied during a time of crisis. What would people have done without the likes of Amazon and fast delivery of nearly everything? And the people earning the low wages were all doing crappy jobs? Did Bezos personally deliver all the packages? I mean you can be as capitalistic as mr Moustache (or whatever he is called) from Monopoly,but you have to agree this is equivalent to defending the feudal lords who "gave" us their lands so we could all eat. > No one makes minimum wage at Amazon. They make 17 USD/h. Double in actual dollars from 1975 minimum wage. College, medicine, housing have increased 5-10 times. In 1975 the richest man in America (Howard Hughes) had around 11 billion of CURRENT dollars, 5% of Bezos. It is Bezos 20X as productive? Meanwhile in the real world : https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2020/12/18/amazons-warehouse-workers-struggle-to-make-ends-meet/ https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2020/12/18/amazons-wareho... Amazon is colony of locusts,devoring everything in front of them.
- co_pilates 5y ago
  He's called the Monopoly Man as far as I know. Also, I second your remarks; these guys made great businesses... by investing a sliver of their money in smart managers and execs. They certainly couldn't have done it all themselves, not even half of it, so why do they get like 90 percent or more of the profits and upside? Why shouldn't Joe Dirt from bumfuck get double or even triple what they make as a packer? He's the one doing all the work that makes packages move, when it comes down to it.
- tester756 5y ago
  > College, medicine have increased 5-10 times I think you should be mad on your govt, not Bezos.
  - Ostrogodsky 5y ago
    The government is only to blame insofar as they let the capitalistic system run unfettered which has created this obscene level of inequality and this rare breed of what it is effectively working class people defending 10-20 oligarchs.
jonny_eh 5y ago
> They made billions from excellent businesses on which the world relied during a time of crisis. What would people have done without the likes of Amazon and fast delivery of nearly everything? They've been rewarded enough already. Sometimes enough is enough, it's obscene.
- pb7 5y ago
  So where do you draw the line? What's the number? And when that number is reached, what happens exactly?
  - jonny_eh 5y ago
    100x the poverty line. Excess earnings goes to taxes.
    - mym1990 5y ago
      RIP innovation if the bar is that low
      - jonny_eh 5y ago
        Innovators gonna innovate, they don't need ginormous returns to get out of bed.
        mym1990 5y ago
        This comment is pretty hand wavy, but generally speaking the innovator is not the only part of the puzzle. Our world is still largely driven by investment and risk and something has to balance the scales. I agree that intrinsically motivated people probably care less for the money piece, but there are plenty of innovators that are both extrinsically and intrinsically motivated.
      - thundergolfer 5y ago
        The world's greatest 20th century innovators, such as Einstein and Shannon, did not do their work to get rich. It's more than a little crazy that "innovation" has become so closely associated with ECommerce entrepreneurship, and is assumed to be driven by greed.
MildlySerious 5y ago
> They made billions from excellent businesses on which the world relied during a time of crisis. What would people have done without the likes of Amazon and fast delivery of nearly everything? "Excellent businesses" that are modern day slave labor, in the case of Amazon. Their employment is predatory to the maximum, optimized around the ridiculous churn rates. Blocking unions from forming the same way Musk and others do is really just the smallest part of that at this point. This article below touches some of the insane practices one should keep in mind while watching Bezos thank his employees and customers for paying for his cowboy space ride. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/15/us/amazon-workers.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/15/us/amazon-wor...
coliveira 5y ago
> They made billions from excellent businesses Bezos is not 1 million times more productive than other human beings. He just managed to create a system that exploits people in a massive scale. That's not what I call excellent business.
- pb7 5y ago
  Who said that he was? Wealth has little to do with productivity.
  - andrepd 5y ago
    Yes, and perhaps that might be a problem, don't you think?
    - pb7 5y ago
      No. I want people to keep being incentivized to create innovative companies, products, and services that make my life easier and more enjoyable. The people that are successful in doing so will reap rewards many orders of magnitude more than their employees that did not take on any risk and whose output is measured by “productivity”.
      - dane-pgp 5y ago
        Do you think people would no longer be incentivized if there were, for example, a cap on how much money/wealth they could own? Let's say the limit was $1 billion, to start with. The only counter-argument I can think of is that SpaceX might have run out of money if Elon "only" had $1 billion to pour into it, but I believe he started the company with just a $100 million investment of his own money. I'd also accept people being able to funnel billions into non-profit foundations which they control, as long as those foundations have goals which vaguely benefit society, such as "making humans a multi-planetary species".
      - andrepd 5y ago
        > I want people to keep being incentivized to create innovative companies, products, and services that make my life easier and more enjoyable. Funny, I do too! That's why I don't want all the wealth and power in the hands of a few oligarchs, and that's why I want everyone to be properly compensated and rewarded for their work and their creations. Capitalism, especially in its current flavour, prevents this. > their employees that did not take on any risk If a business fails and closes down its employees will be out on the dole, and that's the best case scenario. They lose their health care, possibly their homes and other possessions. Capital risks what, materially? One less luxury auto? One less vacation across the globe this year? Probably not even that. I confess I never really understood all that talk about "risk".
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
amazoningrace 5y ago
> They made billions from excellent businesses on which the world relied during a time of crisis. What would people have done without the likes of Amazon and fast delivery of nearly everything? You're building an argument atop the assumption that if Amazon didn't exist, nothing else would be available. Amazon's strategy is to spend money that no other company can spend (by forgoing profits) to be the fastest / cheapest option available. Bezos' innovation is not the "fast shipping" or "broad range of products" Amazon offers, his innovation was the foresight to understand how to dominate the market and the gumption to do it. A single business that owns the sales and distribution of goods is one possible solution to the problem you describe, absolutely, and it's pretty clear that Amazon is doing the best job at that solution... but it's not the only solution, it's one of many.
- pb7 5y ago
  Well written reply so I'll try to address thoroughly. >You're building an argument atop the assumption that if Amazon didn't exist, nothing else would be available. I cannot be making this argument because Amazon exists and we have many other options. We also had many other options before Amazon. Despite this, Amazon became an e-commerce powerhouse. Why? I suspect it's because Amazon is by the far the best option for consumers and others are only close because they adopted many of the same guiding principles like fast free shipping and easy returns. >Amazon's strategy is to spend money that no other company can spend (by forgoing profits) to be the fastest / cheapest option available. Bezos' innovation is not the "fast shipping" or "broad range of products" Amazon offers, his innovation was the foresight to understand how to dominate the market and the gumption to do it. He dominated the market because he offered those things. How else would Amazon be able to overtake its much larger competitors? Amazon is not operating at a loss with external funding like many startups, it simply reinvests in itself because it makes incredibly impressive use of its resources. Other companies could do the same but as it turns out, it's quite difficult to repeatedly leverage your profits into bigger and better outcomes. Apple and Google sit on a pile of cash because they don't know how to best make use of it despite a history of successes. >A single business that owns the sales and distribution of goods is one possible solution to the problem you describe, absolutely, and it's pretty clear that Amazon is doing the best job at that solution... but it's not the only solution, it's one of many. Nothing stops me from shopping elsewhere and I frequently do. Best Buy gets much of my business for certain products because they've been quite good ever since their early 2010s turn around. eBay gets all of my business for used products. Walmart, Target, and regional grocery stores (not Whole Foods) get the rest. And I shop online mercilessly and don't have a particularly strong taste for Amazon (despite my countless comments in this thread would suggest -- I'm simply arguing for principles) so I'm as decent of a gauge for the state of things as anyone.
andrepd 5y ago
You're blind to the injustices and violence in the system, masked under the veneer of "free transactions". There's nothing "free" about the current organization of the global economy. Free market ≠ Capitalism ≠ Post-80s Neoliberal Capitalism

by pb7 5y ago

Ostrogodsky 5y ago

> They made billions from excellent businesses on which the world relied during a time of crisis. What would people have done without the likes of Amazon and fast delivery of nearly everything? And the people earning the low wages were all doing crappy jobs? Did Bezos personally deliver all the packages? I mean you can be as capitalistic as mr Moustache (or whatever he is called) from Monopoly,but you have to agree this is equivalent to defending the feudal lords who "gave" us their lands so we could all eat. > No one makes minimum wage at Amazon. They make 17 USD/h. Double in actual dollars from 1975 minimum wage. College, medicine, housing have increased 5-10 times. In 1975 the richest man in America (Howard Hughes) had around 11 billion of CURRENT dollars, 5% of Bezos. It is Bezos 20X as productive? Meanwhile in the real world : https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2020/12/18/amazons-warehouse-workers-struggle-to-make-ends-meet/ https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2020/12/18/amazons-wareho... Amazon is colony of locusts,devoring everything in front of them.

co_pilates 5y ago
He's called the Monopoly Man as far as I know. Also, I second your remarks; these guys made great businesses... by investing a sliver of their money in smart managers and execs. They certainly couldn't have done it all themselves, not even half of it, so why do they get like 90 percent or more of the profits and upside? Why shouldn't Joe Dirt from bumfuck get double or even triple what they make as a packer? He's the one doing all the work that makes packages move, when it comes down to it.
tester756 5y ago
> College, medicine have increased 5-10 times I think you should be mad on your govt, not Bezos.
- Ostrogodsky 5y ago
  The government is only to blame insofar as they let the capitalistic system run unfettered which has created this obscene level of inequality and this rare breed of what it is effectively working class people defending 10-20 oligarchs.

jonny_eh 5y ago

pb7 5y ago
So where do you draw the line? What's the number? And when that number is reached, what happens exactly?
- jonny_eh 5y ago
  100x the poverty line. Excess earnings goes to taxes.
  - mym1990 5y ago
    RIP innovation if the bar is that low
    - jonny_eh 5y ago
      Innovators gonna innovate, they don't need ginormous returns to get out of bed.
      - mym1990 5y ago
        This comment is pretty hand wavy, but generally speaking the innovator is not the only part of the puzzle. Our world is still largely driven by investment and risk and something has to balance the scales. I agree that intrinsically motivated people probably care less for the money piece, but there are plenty of innovators that are both extrinsically and intrinsically motivated.
    - thundergolfer 5y ago
      The world's greatest 20th century innovators, such as Einstein and Shannon, did not do their work to get rich. It's more than a little crazy that "innovation" has become so closely associated with ECommerce entrepreneurship, and is assumed to be driven by greed.

MildlySerious 5y ago

> They made billions from excellent businesses on which the world relied during a time of crisis. What would people have done without the likes of Amazon and fast delivery of nearly everything? "Excellent businesses" that are modern day slave labor, in the case of Amazon. Their employment is predatory to the maximum, optimized around the ridiculous churn rates. Blocking unions from forming the same way Musk and others do is really just the smallest part of that at this point. This article below touches some of the insane practices one should keep in mind while watching Bezos thank his employees and customers for paying for his cowboy space ride. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/15/us/amazon-workers.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/15/us/amazon-wor...

coliveira 5y ago

> They made billions from excellent businesses Bezos is not 1 million times more productive than other human beings. He just managed to create a system that exploits people in a massive scale. That's not what I call excellent business.

pb7 5y ago
Who said that he was? Wealth has little to do with productivity.
- andrepd 5y ago
  Yes, and perhaps that might be a problem, don't you think?
  - pb7 5y ago
    No. I want people to keep being incentivized to create innovative companies, products, and services that make my life easier and more enjoyable. The people that are successful in doing so will reap rewards many orders of magnitude more than their employees that did not take on any risk and whose output is measured by “productivity”.
    - dane-pgp 5y ago
      Do you think people would no longer be incentivized if there were, for example, a cap on how much money/wealth they could own? Let's say the limit was $1 billion, to start with. The only counter-argument I can think of is that SpaceX might have run out of money if Elon "only" had $1 billion to pour into it, but I believe he started the company with just a $100 million investment of his own money. I'd also accept people being able to funnel billions into non-profit foundations which they control, as long as those foundations have goals which vaguely benefit society, such as "making humans a multi-planetary species".
    - andrepd 5y ago
      > I want people to keep being incentivized to create innovative companies, products, and services that make my life easier and more enjoyable. Funny, I do too! That's why I don't want all the wealth and power in the hands of a few oligarchs, and that's why I want everyone to be properly compensated and rewarded for their work and their creations. Capitalism, especially in its current flavour, prevents this. > their employees that did not take on any risk If a business fails and closes down its employees will be out on the dole, and that's the best case scenario. They lose their health care, possibly their homes and other possessions. Capital risks what, materially? One less luxury auto? One less vacation across the globe this year? Probably not even that. I confess I never really understood all that talk about "risk".

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

amazoningrace 5y ago

> They made billions from excellent businesses on which the world relied during a time of crisis. What would people have done without the likes of Amazon and fast delivery of nearly everything? You're building an argument atop the assumption that if Amazon didn't exist, nothing else would be available. Amazon's strategy is to spend money that no other company can spend (by forgoing profits) to be the fastest / cheapest option available. Bezos' innovation is not the "fast shipping" or "broad range of products" Amazon offers, his innovation was the foresight to understand how to dominate the market and the gumption to do it. A single business that owns the sales and distribution of goods is one possible solution to the problem you describe, absolutely, and it's pretty clear that Amazon is doing the best job at that solution... but it's not the only solution, it's one of many.

pb7 5y ago
Well written reply so I'll try to address thoroughly. >You're building an argument atop the assumption that if Amazon didn't exist, nothing else would be available. I cannot be making this argument because Amazon exists and we have many other options. We also had many other options before Amazon. Despite this, Amazon became an e-commerce powerhouse. Why? I suspect it's because Amazon is by the far the best option for consumers and others are only close because they adopted many of the same guiding principles like fast free shipping and easy returns. >Amazon's strategy is to spend money that no other company can spend (by forgoing profits) to be the fastest / cheapest option available. Bezos' innovation is not the "fast shipping" or "broad range of products" Amazon offers, his innovation was the foresight to understand how to dominate the market and the gumption to do it. He dominated the market because he offered those things. How else would Amazon be able to overtake its much larger competitors? Amazon is not operating at a loss with external funding like many startups, it simply reinvests in itself because it makes incredibly impressive use of its resources. Other companies could do the same but as it turns out, it's quite difficult to repeatedly leverage your profits into bigger and better outcomes. Apple and Google sit on a pile of cash because they don't know how to best make use of it despite a history of successes. >A single business that owns the sales and distribution of goods is one possible solution to the problem you describe, absolutely, and it's pretty clear that Amazon is doing the best job at that solution... but it's not the only solution, it's one of many. Nothing stops me from shopping elsewhere and I frequently do. Best Buy gets much of my business for certain products because they've been quite good ever since their early 2010s turn around. eBay gets all of my business for used products. Walmart, Target, and regional grocery stores (not Whole Foods) get the rest. And I shop online mercilessly and don't have a particularly strong taste for Amazon (despite my countless comments in this thread would suggest -- I'm simply arguing for principles) so I'm as decent of a gauge for the state of things as anyone.

andrepd 5y ago

You're blind to the injustices and violence in the system, masked under the veneer of "free transactions". There's nothing "free" about the current organization of the global economy. Free market ≠ Capitalism ≠ Post-80s Neoliberal Capitalism