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The bridge dismantling isn’t why a huge personal yacht is disgusting, indeed. It is just a poor choice of resource allocation, any way you look at it. Personal

The bridge dismantling isn’t why a huge personal yacht is disgusting, indeed. It is just a poor choice of resource allocation, any way you look at it. Personally for Bezos, or as a society

emteycz 5y ago
Why do you think so? Isn't it much cheaper and easier on the environment to dismantle a bridge (that was probably built with that in mind) than to move an entire city of professionals+the infrastructure around them away to a more suitable place?
- hoseja 5y ago
  I think they meant, building/owning a superyacht.
- fooqux 5y ago
  I think the point was the millions spent on this boat could have been allocated instead to improving society, rather than a boat that will likely only get used once per year.
  - jl6 5y ago
    I’m sure the boat builders are very happy to take the money. It’s not like the money just disappears. The only resources being used up here are one boat’s worth of metal/plastic/energy/whatever. Probably about as much as a couple of hundred cars.
    - BingoAhoy 5y ago
      Money is fake, it's an abstraction made of cheap throw away goods (what money is printed on) used as a representation for real resources. I personally wouldn't count it as relevant but it does buy access to what is relevant. I would add to your list, some of the finite resources I can think of that's wasted here is labor per human per year. The labor of those boat builders. It's an opportunity cost type of waste.
    - makapuf 5y ago
      That and many hours of skilled work that could be applied elsewhere.
      - jl6 5y ago
        You could add “luxury yacht builder” to the very, very long list of jobs that exist only to provide entertainment to other people.
        makapuf 5y ago
        Indeed, but those people could make luxury yacht for 100 people, dividing uselessness by 100.
  - ricardobeat 5y ago
    They didn’t build the boat out of bank notes. The $500M is in the pocket of the thousands of people involved in the supply chain for the shipyard. Much better use society-wise than keeping that value parked in financial instruments.
    - 542458 5y ago
      While I do agree that having money put to use is preferable to not, the argument that any spending is therefore good seems somewhat absurdist. We wouldn’t apply that logic to government spending, for example - the government gold-plating Air Force One produces different effects than the government building water sanitation, even though they both result in economic activity. Accordingly, some spending produces more social good than others. The argument that critics of spending like this isn’t that it would be better for the money to sit in financial instruments, it’s that the money would be better off partially captured via taxes and more directly allocated to social good.
  - iqanq 5y ago
    Well, it's his money.
  - RandomLensman 5y ago
    The world is probably full of things that shouldn't exist by that standard. Do we "need" all the big cathedrals, pyramids, temples, expensive to make works of art to name a few?
  - pharke 5y ago
    Others have already commented in a similar manner but I think this is worth driving home since the argument you provide is so typical when it comes to these discussions. The money spent on the yacht has improved society. The evidence of such is that the public officials in Rotterdam are willing to temporarily move a bridge so that construction of the yacht can continue within their municipality. They see it as a greater benefit to their society to encourage the construction of such yachts. Oceanco employs 320 people whose salaries are likely taxed at a fairly high rate. They have two shipyards in Rotterdam on which they probably pay significant property tax among other fees. They are a manufacturing business and yachts consist of a huge variety of different materials and finished goods so they will be deeply integrated with the supply chain which means there is a large outflow of cash from them to other businesses. The production of luxury goods has a significant impact on an economy, by their nature they demand the highest quality parts and workmanship. Attracting those materials and skills to a city has many knock-on effects that are beneficial. If you removed the demand for or the option to buy super yachts, Rotterdam and other cities would suffer a loss of jobs, skills, tax income, and probably several other businesses.
- 542458 5y ago
  I think the parent comment refers to how the cost of this vehicle could instead prevent around one hundred thousand deaths from maleria*, or uplift several entire communities out of poverty, or provide education to thousands of children, or some other societal good. * if we assume ballpark $300-400 million cost of construction.
  - namdnay 5y ago
    I guess we could outlaw yachts and then collect money to lift all the people who used to build and work on yachts out of poverty :)
    - mitchdoogle 5y ago
      We don't have to outlaw yachts, just tax extreme wealth
    - fortran77 5y ago
      This is exactly what the United States did, except it printed money rather than confiscate it. (The end result was the same though -- taxation through inflation.) Even the left-leaning NY Times wrote a piece on how "luxury taxes" on yachts killed the industry. https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/03/opinion/l-boat-luxury-tax-drives-an-industry-aground-926091.html https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/03/opinion/l-boat-luxury-tax...
  - fastball 5y ago
    A nice idea, but unfortunately that's not how resource allocation works.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  The building of the superyacht brings in money to the ship builders this is true, don't know how much will assume at least 1B if it costs 500M to move dismantle part of bridge. But of course that money could have been spent on other things, it even seems suboptimal for Bezos, which implies to me he must have so much money he doesn't actually know what to do with it. But even worse, the 500M to dismantle part of bridge evidently isn't considered in cost of superyacht so there is a loss of 500M from city's budget because of the money because building superyacht is worth more than this loss to city - but you can see how that is a worse deal for Rotterdam then if Bezos had superyacht built without needing to dismantle bridge.
  - emteycz 5y ago
    This place would've been looking for another super yacht contract if Bezos didn't come around. It's not like Bezos caused this city to develop yachts, they built this industry there themselves and they need clients. Bezos is paying for the bridge, not the city.
    - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      >Bezos is paying for the bridge, not the city. This was not evident from the article? >This place would've been looking for another super yacht contract if Bezos didn't come around They build ships, they would have been looking for another building a ship contract.
- fjfaase 5y ago
  The bridge is not in use any more. It has the status of a historical landmark (monument). In 2017 it has been renovated during which the 'bridge' part was removed for some time (years) and the city government promised that it would never be removed again. Now, they have agreed that this part of the bridge will be removed again for a certain period. Removing the part is not trivial as it was not designed to be easily removed.
  - emteycz 5y ago
    Still, they probably considered that when they approved a shipbuilding business within their city borders.
    - yourusername 5y ago
      Oceanco is not within Rotterdam municipal borders. It's downriver in Alblasserdam. But still, Rotterdam wants to keep the shipbuilding and outfitting industry in the region strong. Removing this bridge for a few days really isn't a big deal. If the yacht was not owned by someone well known it would not go beyond Rotterdam local news.
refurb 5y ago
Well the cool thing about Western democracies is that nobody cares what you think about what they spend their money on. And the folks hired to built that yacht (versus a home or a new company) are probably pretty happy to get the business.
- kaibee 5y ago
  > Well the cool thing about Western democracies is that nobody cares what you think about what they spend their money on. The cool thing about democracies is that we could democratically decide to tax the ultra-wealthy at a much higher rate. > And the folks hired to built that yacht (versus a home or a new company) are probably pretty happy to get the business. And glass-makers are happy when it hails, but that doesn't mean we should be going around breaking windows.
  - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
    > The cool thing about democracies is that we could democratically decide to tax the ultra-wealthy at a much higher rate. And yet it doesn't happen > And glass-makers are happy when it hails, but that doesn't mean we should be going around breaking windows. No one is going around breaking windows to give window makers jobs
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      > And yet it doesn't happen Sure it does. Quite a few European countries have a top tax bracket in the 50% range. Denmark's capital gains rate is 42%, more than double what Bezos pays here.
      - yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
        Have a guess why Jeff Bezos hasn't decided to move to Denmark.
        ceejayoz 5y ago
Miner49er 5y ago
This is a perfect example of why extreme wealth inequality is bad. It leads to sub-optimal uses of the economy, like this.
- rxdb 5y ago
  Isn't 95% of every resource use "sub-optimal"? Everyone goes to holidays or buys stuff they do not need. Bezos is just rich enough so that his spending goes into the news.
  - mitchdoogle 5y ago
    Yes but this is an extreme example
    - fastball 5y ago
      Right, but how do you compare? Where do you draw the line?
      - jamil7 5y ago
        > Where do you draw the line? 500m dollar yacht seems like a good place to start, we can work our way back from there.
        fastball 5y ago
        Well I can't speak for everyone else, but your arbitrary conception of what is "too much" actually doesn't cut it for me.
        jamil7 5y ago
        I'm not arguing that my definition is the correct one, I'm arguing that we can and have drawn lines before and are capable of doing it again.
        5y ago
rg111 5y ago
> It is just a poor choice of resource allocation Well, not always. And sometimes many stone-cold, rational people flash money. Just to improve business. A friend of mine was perfectly happy with his shit of a car even though he could afford something much better. Then he started a business. A business that involved communicating and meeting with people very outside of our tech or liberal/vegan/minimalist/generic-dominant-fad bubbles. These people cared about the car he drove. They did not want to be seen or meeeting or seen with someone with a shitty car or using a cab. Perception mattered, and business was hurt. Then, that friend bought a BMW just to drive it to meetings. He also keeps his old car and drives for personal use. There might be some people, important to Bezos's business that care about where they meet with him. Bezos wants it to be a yatch. Can't blame him without more information. He might be a money-flashing, wealth-displaying rich asshole. But I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
- vanusa 5y ago
  Can't blame him without more information. Nothing to do with "blame", or being an asshole. At some point we just can't let these people keep gobbling up resources like there's no tomorrow. Doesn't matter how much money they have. That doesn't buy them any special rights.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jamil7 5y ago
  > There might be some people, important to Bezos's business that care about where they meet with him. Bezos wants it to be a yatch. > He might be a money-flashing, wealth-displaying rich asshole. But I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. So you're willing to to give him the benefit of the doubt that there's a chance he needs to impress other wealth-displaying rich assholes like your friend's colleagues? This is almost a worse reason than him just wanting the absurd boat in the first place.
- sofixa 5y ago
  Bezos literally flew to space, with a rocket designed by a company he owns. I'm fairly certain he can use a much smaller yacht to seem important to other rich people and will still be taken seriously.

The bridge dismantling isn’t why a huge personal yacht is disgusting, indeed. It is just a poor choice of resource allocation, any way you look at it. Personally for Bezos, or as a society

emteycz 5y ago

Why do you think so? Isn't it much cheaper and easier on the environment to dismantle a bridge (that was probably built with that in mind) than to move an entire city of professionals+the infrastructure around them away to a more suitable place?

hoseja 5y ago
I think they meant, building/owning a superyacht.
fooqux 5y ago
I think the point was the millions spent on this boat could have been allocated instead to improving society, rather than a boat that will likely only get used once per year.
- jl6 5y ago
  I’m sure the boat builders are very happy to take the money. It’s not like the money just disappears. The only resources being used up here are one boat’s worth of metal/plastic/energy/whatever. Probably about as much as a couple of hundred cars.
  - BingoAhoy 5y ago
    Money is fake, it's an abstraction made of cheap throw away goods (what money is printed on) used as a representation for real resources. I personally wouldn't count it as relevant but it does buy access to what is relevant. I would add to your list, some of the finite resources I can think of that's wasted here is labor per human per year. The labor of those boat builders. It's an opportunity cost type of waste.
  - makapuf 5y ago
    That and many hours of skilled work that could be applied elsewhere.
    - jl6 5y ago
      You could add “luxury yacht builder” to the very, very long list of jobs that exist only to provide entertainment to other people.
      - makapuf 5y ago
        Indeed, but those people could make luxury yacht for 100 people, dividing uselessness by 100.
- ricardobeat 5y ago
  They didn’t build the boat out of bank notes. The $500M is in the pocket of the thousands of people involved in the supply chain for the shipyard. Much better use society-wise than keeping that value parked in financial instruments.
  - 542458 5y ago
    While I do agree that having money put to use is preferable to not, the argument that any spending is therefore good seems somewhat absurdist. We wouldn’t apply that logic to government spending, for example - the government gold-plating Air Force One produces different effects than the government building water sanitation, even though they both result in economic activity. Accordingly, some spending produces more social good than others. The argument that critics of spending like this isn’t that it would be better for the money to sit in financial instruments, it’s that the money would be better off partially captured via taxes and more directly allocated to social good.
- iqanq 5y ago
  Well, it's his money.
- RandomLensman 5y ago
  The world is probably full of things that shouldn't exist by that standard. Do we "need" all the big cathedrals, pyramids, temples, expensive to make works of art to name a few?
- pharke 5y ago
  Others have already commented in a similar manner but I think this is worth driving home since the argument you provide is so typical when it comes to these discussions. The money spent on the yacht has improved society. The evidence of such is that the public officials in Rotterdam are willing to temporarily move a bridge so that construction of the yacht can continue within their municipality. They see it as a greater benefit to their society to encourage the construction of such yachts. Oceanco employs 320 people whose salaries are likely taxed at a fairly high rate. They have two shipyards in Rotterdam on which they probably pay significant property tax among other fees. They are a manufacturing business and yachts consist of a huge variety of different materials and finished goods so they will be deeply integrated with the supply chain which means there is a large outflow of cash from them to other businesses. The production of luxury goods has a significant impact on an economy, by their nature they demand the highest quality parts and workmanship. Attracting those materials and skills to a city has many knock-on effects that are beneficial. If you removed the demand for or the option to buy super yachts, Rotterdam and other cities would suffer a loss of jobs, skills, tax income, and probably several other businesses.
542458 5y ago
I think the parent comment refers to how the cost of this vehicle could instead prevent around one hundred thousand deaths from maleria*, or uplift several entire communities out of poverty, or provide education to thousands of children, or some other societal good. * if we assume ballpark $300-400 million cost of construction.
- namdnay 5y ago
  I guess we could outlaw yachts and then collect money to lift all the people who used to build and work on yachts out of poverty :)
  - mitchdoogle 5y ago
    We don't have to outlaw yachts, just tax extreme wealth
  - fortran77 5y ago
    This is exactly what the United States did, except it printed money rather than confiscate it. (The end result was the same though -- taxation through inflation.) Even the left-leaning NY Times wrote a piece on how "luxury taxes" on yachts killed the industry. https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/03/opinion/l-boat-luxury-tax-drives-an-industry-aground-926091.html https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/03/opinion/l-boat-luxury-tax...
- fastball 5y ago
  A nice idea, but unfortunately that's not how resource allocation works.
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
The building of the superyacht brings in money to the ship builders this is true, don't know how much will assume at least 1B if it costs 500M to move dismantle part of bridge. But of course that money could have been spent on other things, it even seems suboptimal for Bezos, which implies to me he must have so much money he doesn't actually know what to do with it. But even worse, the 500M to dismantle part of bridge evidently isn't considered in cost of superyacht so there is a loss of 500M from city's budget because of the money because building superyacht is worth more than this loss to city - but you can see how that is a worse deal for Rotterdam then if Bezos had superyacht built without needing to dismantle bridge.
- emteycz 5y ago
  This place would've been looking for another super yacht contract if Bezos didn't come around. It's not like Bezos caused this city to develop yachts, they built this industry there themselves and they need clients. Bezos is paying for the bridge, not the city.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    >Bezos is paying for the bridge, not the city. This was not evident from the article? >This place would've been looking for another super yacht contract if Bezos didn't come around They build ships, they would have been looking for another building a ship contract.
fjfaase 5y ago
The bridge is not in use any more. It has the status of a historical landmark (monument). In 2017 it has been renovated during which the 'bridge' part was removed for some time (years) and the city government promised that it would never be removed again. Now, they have agreed that this part of the bridge will be removed again for a certain period. Removing the part is not trivial as it was not designed to be easily removed.
- emteycz 5y ago
  Still, they probably considered that when they approved a shipbuilding business within their city borders.
  - yourusername 5y ago
    Oceanco is not within Rotterdam municipal borders. It's downriver in Alblasserdam. But still, Rotterdam wants to keep the shipbuilding and outfitting industry in the region strong. Removing this bridge for a few days really isn't a big deal. If the yacht was not owned by someone well known it would not go beyond Rotterdam local news.

refurb 5y ago

Well the cool thing about Western democracies is that nobody cares what you think about what they spend their money on. And the folks hired to built that yacht (versus a home or a new company) are probably pretty happy to get the business.

kaibee 5y ago
> Well the cool thing about Western democracies is that nobody cares what you think about what they spend their money on. The cool thing about democracies is that we could democratically decide to tax the ultra-wealthy at a much higher rate. > And the folks hired to built that yacht (versus a home or a new company) are probably pretty happy to get the business. And glass-makers are happy when it hails, but that doesn't mean we should be going around breaking windows.
- NikolaeVarius 5y ago
  > The cool thing about democracies is that we could democratically decide to tax the ultra-wealthy at a much higher rate. And yet it doesn't happen > And glass-makers are happy when it hails, but that doesn't mean we should be going around breaking windows. No one is going around breaking windows to give window makers jobs
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    > And yet it doesn't happen Sure it does. Quite a few European countries have a top tax bracket in the 50% range. Denmark's capital gains rate is 42%, more than double what Bezos pays here.
    - yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
      Have a guess why Jeff Bezos hasn't decided to move to Denmark.
      - ceejayoz 5y ago

Miner49er 5y ago

This is a perfect example of why extreme wealth inequality is bad. It leads to sub-optimal uses of the economy, like this.

rxdb 5y ago
Isn't 95% of every resource use "sub-optimal"? Everyone goes to holidays or buys stuff they do not need. Bezos is just rich enough so that his spending goes into the news.
- mitchdoogle 5y ago
  Yes but this is an extreme example
  - fastball 5y ago
    Right, but how do you compare? Where do you draw the line?
    - jamil7 5y ago
      > Where do you draw the line? 500m dollar yacht seems like a good place to start, we can work our way back from there.
      - fastball 5y ago
        Well I can't speak for everyone else, but your arbitrary conception of what is "too much" actually doesn't cut it for me.
        jamil7 5y ago
        I'm not arguing that my definition is the correct one, I'm arguing that we can and have drawn lines before and are capable of doing it again.
        5y ago

rg111 5y ago

> It is just a poor choice of resource allocation Well, not always. And sometimes many stone-cold, rational people flash money. Just to improve business. A friend of mine was perfectly happy with his shit of a car even though he could afford something much better. Then he started a business. A business that involved communicating and meeting with people very outside of our tech or liberal/vegan/minimalist/generic-dominant-fad bubbles. These people cared about the car he drove. They did not want to be seen or meeeting or seen with someone with a shitty car or using a cab. Perception mattered, and business was hurt. Then, that friend bought a BMW just to drive it to meetings. He also keeps his old car and drives for personal use. There might be some people, important to Bezos's business that care about where they meet with him. Bezos wants it to be a yatch. Can't blame him without more information. He might be a money-flashing, wealth-displaying rich asshole. But I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

vanusa 5y ago
Can't blame him without more information. Nothing to do with "blame", or being an asshole. At some point we just can't let these people keep gobbling up resources like there's no tomorrow. Doesn't matter how much money they have. That doesn't buy them any special rights.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jamil7 5y ago
> There might be some people, important to Bezos's business that care about where they meet with him. Bezos wants it to be a yatch. > He might be a money-flashing, wealth-displaying rich asshole. But I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. So you're willing to to give him the benefit of the doubt that there's a chance he needs to impress other wealth-displaying rich assholes like your friend's colleagues? This is almost a worse reason than him just wanting the absurd boat in the first place.
sofixa 5y ago
Bezos literally flew to space, with a rocket designed by a company he owns. I'm fairly certain he can use a much smaller yacht to seem important to other rich people and will still be taken seriously.