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>it's still in his best interest to ensure that the economy doesn't crash Technically, yeah! Functionally, though, if the Even Greater Depression arrived tomor

>it's still in his best interest to ensure that the economy doesn't crash Technically, yeah! Functionally, though, if the Even Greater Depression arrived tomorrow? He'd still be the richest man alive, and probably even more powerful than he already is right now thanks to how Amazon and AWS would get to take over more failing social institutions. Sure, a falling tide lowers all boats, but Bezos will still comfortably afford his gigayacht. It's a setback for Bezos, and maybe he wants to avoid it in order to maximize profit and utility and whatever, but it's an existential threat to him in the same way spilling a glass of milk or losing a round in a video game are. Even extreme social unrest has been priced in, at however much a luxury bunker in New Zealand costs. Other people, when the Big Crash arrives, will -- in a totally economically rational way! -- commit suicide in order to ensure their spouses and children aren't bankrupted by their medical bills. Uh, in greater numbers than they already do. Many will starve, or at least go very hungry. In greater numbers, I mean. Should be a good time for the owner class to buy up all the housing stock for cheap, too. I don't think the owner class is worried about it. I think they actually might be excited.

darawk 5y ago
None of this is the point, though. The point is that Amazon wouldn't have achieved what it has if Bezos was forced to slowly divest control of his company over the last two decades. Bezos does not have his cash in hand, for the most part. To the extent that he does have cash in hand, he has already paid taxes on that cash. To the extent that he has not paid taxes on his wealth, he is fully incentivized by the share price of AMZN.
- wavefunction 5y ago
  >The point is that Amazon wouldn't have achieved what it has Sounds good to me.
  - xyzzyz 5y ago
    Fortunately, you don’t get to decide that. Contrary to popular sentiment on HN, Amazon is one of the most favorably perceived brand by Americans, ranked top 4 in 2020. When you go against Amazon, you go against something that Americans like more than Netflix.
    - rsj_hn 5y ago
      This is interesting: https://tenetpartners.com/top100/most-powerful-brands-list.html https://tenetpartners.com/top100/most-powerful-brands-list.h... Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft all in the top 10. Exxon way more popular than Netflix.
    - bangkoksbest 5y ago
      > When you go against Amazon, you go against something that Americans like more than Netflix. That just gives more reason to go against, there's quite a few Western comforts that could use a bit more opposition, Amazon being one of them. You're making the case that it is virtuous to be aligned with popular sentiments on issues, which is a position that dissolves any ethical or political principles in the name of conformity.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > Bezos does not have his cash in hand, for the most part. To the extent that he does have cash in hand, he has already paid taxes on that cash. What a lot of high wealthy individuals are doing is using their portfolios as collateral against lines of credit. The LOCs give them cash to fund their lifestyle, and they don't have to liquidate their portfolios and take the capital gains charges (at least in the short-term). Someone can have both holdings and cash in this situation. This has been possible lately because rates are so low, so the interest doesn't cost borrowers that much.
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    Pretty sure many in the middle class do the exact same thing. That's the whole idea behind mortgages, auto loans, etc -- to fund consumption on credit and pay the interest with income.
    - throw0101a 5y ago
      For the middle-class, the closest would be a home equity line of credit (HELOC). Reverse mortgages are also a variant of this. Generally though, most 'middle-class loans' have an end date.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - rsj_hn 5y ago
        I think a lot of middle class people roll over their debt, too, no? Say buying a new car when the warranty expires on the old car. Or buying a new house every 10 years (US average). But I don't feel like digging around SCF data, so this is just a hunch. Having said that, my hunch is that middle class households are much more indebted than wealthy households.
      - taeric 5y ago
        I think an easy argument can be made that the standard home and car loans are the same. In spirit, payday loans are exactly the same. Difference is just the volume of money and when the term is due.
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  I’m willing to bet he has more cash on hand than we will make in our entire lifetimes… what’s the point of arguing how much it is? the point is that he has so much money that nothing really matters.
  - darawk 5y ago
    The point is exactly what I said in the rest of the comment. He has already paid taxes on the cash he has in hand. The only assets he has not paid taxes on are the shares in AMZN that he has not realized the gains on.
    - pnutjam 5y ago
      I haven't realized any gains on my house, but I pay taxes on it.
      - darawk 5y ago
        Yes, but your property tax rate is a much lower recurring rate than the capital gains tax rate. In fact, a tax like that on unrealized gains would probably be a much better way to structure things. You pay 1% a year on unrealized gains until they are realized, at which point you can deduct what you've already paid. I guess this would be annoying to calculate, though.
        pnutjam 5y ago
        Good news the unrealized gains are in a form very similar to what you outlined.
    - micromacrofoot 5y ago
      sure but he’s got so much he has no incentive to touch it, and it gains all the same… if he makes a 5% return this year, take 2%…
      - darawk 5y ago
- andrekandre 5y ago
  > Bezos does not have his cash in hand, for the most part. yes, but it works as collateral for whatever cash he may need/want, which means effectively the same thing in the end, no?
- JaimeThompson 5y ago
  In large portions of the united states people who own homes have their property taxes go up most every year based on the value of their home. Seems a bit strange to me to treat, in this respect, peoples homes differently.
  - human 5y ago
    That’s because you pay those taxes in exchange for services from your municipality. And let’s admit it, it’s stupid that your payment is proportional to the value of your house. How is the city budget correlated with house values?
    - JaimeThompson 5y ago
      And they pay taxes in exchange for services as well. And it isn't stupid as if the cost was, for example, divided up equally between all residents a very large portion of them would be unable to live in cities due to the increase in cost.
gruez 5y ago
>He'd still be the richest man alive if you're measuring outcomes by relative income/wealth, then you can also argue that the "Even Greater Depression" wouldn't affect the average person either, because everyone would stay in the same place (on average). >probably even more powerful than he already is right now thanks to how Amazon and AWS would get to take over more failing social institutions. We just had a huge pandemic and recession. Did he take over "failing social institutions" did he "take over"? >It's a setback for Bezos, and maybe he wants to avoid it in order to maximize profit and utility and whatever, but it's an existential threat to him in the same way spilling a glass of milk or losing a round in a video game are. Even extreme social unrest has been priced in, at however much a bunker in New Zealand costs. Surely he'd prefer to be the leader of a global megacorp, travel anywhere in the world, partake in various space-related adventures, and not be trapped in a bunker? You're right he won't ever have to worry about his basic needs, but I wouldn't characterize it as "spilling a glass of milk or losing a round in a video game". I'd be pretty pissed if the US government somehow revoked by right to leave the country. >Other people, when the Big Crash arrives, will -- in a totally economically rational way! -- commit suicide in order to ensure their spouses and children aren't bankrupted by their medical bills. Uh, in greater numbers than they already do. I'm not sure why this is being brought up, other than for the shock value. >I mean. Should be a good time for the owner class to buy up all the housing stock for cheap, too. Similar to your fears about amazon taking over, this seems to be unsupported by the data. The great recession lasted from Q1 2008 to Q3 2009, according to the fed. However, this doesn't seem to correlate with institutions buying up houses? https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22647043/Screen_Shot_2021_06_09_at_4.07.25_AM.png https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22647043/S...
- revolvingocelot 5y ago
  >I'm not sure why this is being brought up, other than for the shock value. I suspect that you don't understand why I'm bringing up the human consequences for the same reason you've claimed that "the "Even Greater Depression" wouldn't affect the average person either, because everyone would stay in the same place (on average)". Bezos and his peers can lose hundreds of thousands of dollars of abstract net worth every day for decades before they even notice, let alone have the material conditions of their lives change in the least; the modal person will be dead of exposure in a few days. It's somewhat incredible that you'd even try to make the argument, actually. >Surely he'd prefer to be the leader of a global megacorp, travel anywhere in the world, partake in various space-related adventures, and not be trapped in a bunker? Aww, shucks, I'm confident Bezos will be able to continue his worldly lifestyle until things go very poorly indeed. That said, the very existence of the owner class's anxiety-bunkers is a sign that they're not entirely behind keeping the global economy running and serving the people, don't you think? If there's only one escape pod and it's for the command staff, only us crew need suffer the consequences of their tactical decisions. >I'd be pretty pissed if the US government somehow revoked by right to leave the country. I never mentioned this, and I'm not sure what relevance this has to anything either of us has said. I'm beginning to believe you're not arguing in good faith. >Similar to your fears about amazon taking over, this seems to be unsupported by the data AWS didn't even need a pandemic to achieve running most of the DoD. Not sure if you've been following the housing market, but Zillow didn't need an economic crash to go all in to rent(al)-seeking behaviour. At least they seem to be dropping the ball on that one, but think of how much more effective buying up all the houses will be once everyone's underwater on their mortgage and unemployed? I'm also a little surprised that you'd show me a chart that shows that this historical low of landlord house purchasing represents a fall to 20%. Since you're so familiar with CoreLogic's data sets regarding this, I'm sure you're aware that in 2000 it was between 5 and 10%, and trended upward until only recently. Unsupported by the data, my eye; you're just closing yours to the important parts of the story. >The great recession lasted from Q1 2008 to Q3 2009, according to the fed. However, this doesn't seem to correlate with institutions buying up houses? The other way to phrase this, of course, is "having ballooned in the past eight years, the proportion of home sales to landlords snaffling up housing stock continued to rise, even during an economic crisis, and rose precipitously after the crisis was 'over'".
ethbr0 5y ago
> He'd still be the richest man alive, and probably even more powerful than he already is right now thanks to how Amazon and AWS would get to take over more failing social institutions. Bezos isn't even the richest person alive today. That would be Musk. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/elon-musk-is-now-nearly-24100-billion-richer-than-jeff-bezos-and-his-net-worth-is-on-the-cusp-of-hitting-24300-billion/ar-AAPZ5zi https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/elon-musk-is-now-n...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
  - cto_of_antifa 5y ago
    This guy probably thinks he'll be on the Mars rocket lmao
- revolvingocelot 5y ago
  Feh, you're right -- I hadn't looked at the leaderboards lately. While that mistake makes me look stupid, I don't think it detracts significantly from what I was trying to say.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    It happened when Tesla stock shot up 12%. I guess my read is that if Bezos got his title from a company that didn't exist, in modern, sell-everything form, until 22 years ago... (and in +AWS form, until 19 years ago) And if the current holder got his title from a company that didn't have a physical product until 12 years ago... It's probably a bad bet to say "Obviously, these people are going to be the richest forever."
    - revolvingocelot 5y ago
      >It's probably a bad bet to say "Obviously, these people are going to be the richest forever." Obviously, but again, the point isn't who's at the very top of the leaderboard. The point is that the material situations of the top, say, 500 richest easily allow for what we plebes would parse as insane economic loss in real wealth, and they'd be basically OK with it. Perhaps they'd no longer be in the top two digits, but they have only really lost in the sense of a high score, not lost in the sense of total dispossession and now your life's over. If SpaceX was somehow destroyed, reputationally and materially, Musk would still have Tesla, and all his other ventures and economic instruments. Likewise Amazon could go belly-up due to a sudden locavore craze and a drone uprising, and AWS would continue making money hand over fist. My point is that the owner class is thus not actually seriously incentivized to prevent an economic crash, and in fact their apocalypse-bunkers indicate that they're pricing in the clearly non-zero chance of it happening. Lastly, the numbers you're using about the ages of these mega-corps? Good point about that -- the Hudson's Bay Company once owned more land than any other company ever, acted as first contact to uncontacted Natives, and now they are a department store. That said, I don't think Amazon or Tesla will fall from grace in the near term. Blithely assuming that the HBC, like many a corporation, would have a 20 year lifespan or even just wane in power in 20 years, would have been a bad bet in 1700.

darawk 5y ago

None of this is the point, though. The point is that Amazon wouldn't have achieved what it has if Bezos was forced to slowly divest control of his company over the last two decades. Bezos does not have his cash in hand, for the most part. To the extent that he does have cash in hand, he has already paid taxes on that cash. To the extent that he has not paid taxes on his wealth, he is fully incentivized by the share price of AMZN.

wavefunction 5y ago
>The point is that Amazon wouldn't have achieved what it has Sounds good to me.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  Fortunately, you don’t get to decide that. Contrary to popular sentiment on HN, Amazon is one of the most favorably perceived brand by Americans, ranked top 4 in 2020. When you go against Amazon, you go against something that Americans like more than Netflix.
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    This is interesting: https://tenetpartners.com/top100/most-powerful-brands-list.html https://tenetpartners.com/top100/most-powerful-brands-list.h... Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft all in the top 10. Exxon way more popular than Netflix.
  - bangkoksbest 5y ago
    > When you go against Amazon, you go against something that Americans like more than Netflix. That just gives more reason to go against, there's quite a few Western comforts that could use a bit more opposition, Amazon being one of them. You're making the case that it is virtuous to be aligned with popular sentiments on issues, which is a position that dissolves any ethical or political principles in the name of conformity.
throw0101a 5y ago
> Bezos does not have his cash in hand, for the most part. To the extent that he does have cash in hand, he has already paid taxes on that cash. What a lot of high wealthy individuals are doing is using their portfolios as collateral against lines of credit. The LOCs give them cash to fund their lifestyle, and they don't have to liquidate their portfolios and take the capital gains charges (at least in the short-term). Someone can have both holdings and cash in this situation. This has been possible lately because rates are so low, so the interest doesn't cost borrowers that much.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  Pretty sure many in the middle class do the exact same thing. That's the whole idea behind mortgages, auto loans, etc -- to fund consumption on credit and pay the interest with income.
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    For the middle-class, the closest would be a home equity line of credit (HELOC). Reverse mortgages are also a variant of this. Generally though, most 'middle-class loans' have an end date.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - rsj_hn 5y ago
      I think a lot of middle class people roll over their debt, too, no? Say buying a new car when the warranty expires on the old car. Or buying a new house every 10 years (US average). But I don't feel like digging around SCF data, so this is just a hunch. Having said that, my hunch is that middle class households are much more indebted than wealthy households.
    - taeric 5y ago
      I think an easy argument can be made that the standard home and car loans are the same. In spirit, payday loans are exactly the same. Difference is just the volume of money and when the term is due.
micromacrofoot 5y ago
I’m willing to bet he has more cash on hand than we will make in our entire lifetimes… what’s the point of arguing how much it is? the point is that he has so much money that nothing really matters.
- darawk 5y ago
  The point is exactly what I said in the rest of the comment. He has already paid taxes on the cash he has in hand. The only assets he has not paid taxes on are the shares in AMZN that he has not realized the gains on.
  - pnutjam 5y ago
    I haven't realized any gains on my house, but I pay taxes on it.
    - darawk 5y ago
      Yes, but your property tax rate is a much lower recurring rate than the capital gains tax rate. In fact, a tax like that on unrealized gains would probably be a much better way to structure things. You pay 1% a year on unrealized gains until they are realized, at which point you can deduct what you've already paid. I guess this would be annoying to calculate, though.
      - pnutjam 5y ago
        Good news the unrealized gains are in a form very similar to what you outlined.
  - micromacrofoot 5y ago
    sure but he’s got so much he has no incentive to touch it, and it gains all the same… if he makes a 5% return this year, take 2%…
    - darawk 5y ago
andrekandre 5y ago
> Bezos does not have his cash in hand, for the most part. yes, but it works as collateral for whatever cash he may need/want, which means effectively the same thing in the end, no?
JaimeThompson 5y ago
In large portions of the united states people who own homes have their property taxes go up most every year based on the value of their home. Seems a bit strange to me to treat, in this respect, peoples homes differently.
- human 5y ago
  That’s because you pay those taxes in exchange for services from your municipality. And let’s admit it, it’s stupid that your payment is proportional to the value of your house. How is the city budget correlated with house values?
  - JaimeThompson 5y ago
    And they pay taxes in exchange for services as well. And it isn't stupid as if the cost was, for example, divided up equally between all residents a very large portion of them would be unable to live in cities due to the increase in cost.

gruez 5y ago

>He'd still be the richest man alive if you're measuring outcomes by relative income/wealth, then you can also argue that the "Even Greater Depression" wouldn't affect the average person either, because everyone would stay in the same place (on average). >probably even more powerful than he already is right now thanks to how Amazon and AWS would get to take over more failing social institutions. We just had a huge pandemic and recession. Did he take over "failing social institutions" did he "take over"? >It's a setback for Bezos, and maybe he wants to avoid it in order to maximize profit and utility and whatever, but it's an existential threat to him in the same way spilling a glass of milk or losing a round in a video game are. Even extreme social unrest has been priced in, at however much a bunker in New Zealand costs. Surely he'd prefer to be the leader of a global megacorp, travel anywhere in the world, partake in various space-related adventures, and not be trapped in a bunker? You're right he won't ever have to worry about his basic needs, but I wouldn't characterize it as "spilling a glass of milk or losing a round in a video game". I'd be pretty pissed if the US government somehow revoked by right to leave the country. >Other people, when the Big Crash arrives, will -- in a totally economically rational way! -- commit suicide in order to ensure their spouses and children aren't bankrupted by their medical bills. Uh, in greater numbers than they already do. I'm not sure why this is being brought up, other than for the shock value. >I mean. Should be a good time for the owner class to buy up all the housing stock for cheap, too. Similar to your fears about amazon taking over, this seems to be unsupported by the data. The great recession lasted from Q1 2008 to Q3 2009, according to the fed. However, this doesn't seem to correlate with institutions buying up houses? https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22647043/Screen_Shot_2021_06_09_at_4.07.25_AM.png https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22647043/S...

revolvingocelot 5y ago
>I'm not sure why this is being brought up, other than for the shock value. I suspect that you don't understand why I'm bringing up the human consequences for the same reason you've claimed that "the "Even Greater Depression" wouldn't affect the average person either, because everyone would stay in the same place (on average)". Bezos and his peers can lose hundreds of thousands of dollars of abstract net worth every day for decades before they even notice, let alone have the material conditions of their lives change in the least; the modal person will be dead of exposure in a few days. It's somewhat incredible that you'd even try to make the argument, actually. >Surely he'd prefer to be the leader of a global megacorp, travel anywhere in the world, partake in various space-related adventures, and not be trapped in a bunker? Aww, shucks, I'm confident Bezos will be able to continue his worldly lifestyle until things go very poorly indeed. That said, the very existence of the owner class's anxiety-bunkers is a sign that they're not entirely behind keeping the global economy running and serving the people, don't you think? If there's only one escape pod and it's for the command staff, only us crew need suffer the consequences of their tactical decisions. >I'd be pretty pissed if the US government somehow revoked by right to leave the country. I never mentioned this, and I'm not sure what relevance this has to anything either of us has said. I'm beginning to believe you're not arguing in good faith. >Similar to your fears about amazon taking over, this seems to be unsupported by the data AWS didn't even need a pandemic to achieve running most of the DoD. Not sure if you've been following the housing market, but Zillow didn't need an economic crash to go all in to rent(al)-seeking behaviour. At least they seem to be dropping the ball on that one, but think of how much more effective buying up all the houses will be once everyone's underwater on their mortgage and unemployed? I'm also a little surprised that you'd show me a chart that shows that this historical low of landlord house purchasing represents a fall to 20%. Since you're so familiar with CoreLogic's data sets regarding this, I'm sure you're aware that in 2000 it was between 5 and 10%, and trended upward until only recently. Unsupported by the data, my eye; you're just closing yours to the important parts of the story. >The great recession lasted from Q1 2008 to Q3 2009, according to the fed. However, this doesn't seem to correlate with institutions buying up houses? The other way to phrase this, of course, is "having ballooned in the past eight years, the proportion of home sales to landlords snaffling up housing stock continued to rise, even during an economic crisis, and rose precipitously after the crisis was 'over'".

ethbr0 5y ago

> He'd still be the richest man alive, and probably even more powerful than he already is right now thanks to how Amazon and AWS would get to take over more failing social institutions. Bezos isn't even the richest person alive today. That would be Musk. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/elon-musk-is-now-nearly-24100-billion-richer-than-jeff-bezos-and-his-net-worth-is-on-the-cusp-of-hitting-24300-billion/ar-AAPZ5zi https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/elon-musk-is-now-n...

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
- cto_of_antifa 5y ago
  This guy probably thinks he'll be on the Mars rocket lmao
revolvingocelot 5y ago
Feh, you're right -- I hadn't looked at the leaderboards lately. While that mistake makes me look stupid, I don't think it detracts significantly from what I was trying to say.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  It happened when Tesla stock shot up 12%. I guess my read is that if Bezos got his title from a company that didn't exist, in modern, sell-everything form, until 22 years ago... (and in +AWS form, until 19 years ago) And if the current holder got his title from a company that didn't have a physical product until 12 years ago... It's probably a bad bet to say "Obviously, these people are going to be the richest forever."
  - revolvingocelot 5y ago
    >It's probably a bad bet to say "Obviously, these people are going to be the richest forever." Obviously, but again, the point isn't who's at the very top of the leaderboard. The point is that the material situations of the top, say, 500 richest easily allow for what we plebes would parse as insane economic loss in real wealth, and they'd be basically OK with it. Perhaps they'd no longer be in the top two digits, but they have only really lost in the sense of a high score, not lost in the sense of total dispossession and now your life's over. If SpaceX was somehow destroyed, reputationally and materially, Musk would still have Tesla, and all his other ventures and economic instruments. Likewise Amazon could go belly-up due to a sudden locavore craze and a drone uprising, and AWS would continue making money hand over fist. My point is that the owner class is thus not actually seriously incentivized to prevent an economic crash, and in fact their apocalypse-bunkers indicate that they're pricing in the clearly non-zero chance of it happening. Lastly, the numbers you're using about the ages of these mega-corps? Good point about that -- the Hudson's Bay Company once owned more land than any other company ever, acted as first contact to uncontacted Natives, and now they are a department store. That said, I don't think Amazon or Tesla will fall from grace in the near term. Blithely assuming that the HBC, like many a corporation, would have a 20 year lifespan or even just wane in power in 20 years, would have been a bad bet in 1700.