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> The fact that capital owners successfully avoid contributing to the financing of our states and social systems is Are you sure capital owners do not contribu

> The fact that capital owners successfully avoid contributing to the financing of our states and social systems is Are you sure capital owners do not contribute to our states and financial systems? For instance, Jeff Bezos is worth $238 billion even though Amazon has a $2.6 trillion market cap. That's $2.4 trillion of value created for other shareholders plus trillions more for employees, customers, suppliers, governments, and other stakeholders. Jensen Huang is worth $164 billion while NVIDIA’s market cap is $5 trillion. That’s $4.8 trillion of value for other people (ignoring value created for non-equity stakeholders). etc. I'm not saying that there should not ALSO be other ways to force contribution (e.g. via taxes), but to say they do not contribute at all is false.

code_for_monkey 11mo ago
I would say they dont contribute. I don't think Jeff Bezos has contributed anything positive, at all. He's managed to become insanely rich in a system that rewards bad behavior, so what? All that value isnt doing anything.
- cons0le 11mo ago
  Absolutely. Creating value in the stock market is not the same thing as creating value for society. Are we really better off as a society now that amazon has closed down all the mom & pop stores? Are we really better off as a society now that the entire internet is centralized around AWS? It made a lot of people rich, but the internet sucks more than ever
- SirMaster 11mo ago
  Are you saying Amazon isn't a positive? Or that Bezos didn't contribute to making Amazon what it is? I think it's pretty clear Amazon is quite a positive given by how many people like using it so much for it's convenient 1-stop shop, quick shipping, and hassle-free return process. Are you saying it would be better to have to shop at 1000 different little websites with probably crappy or at least inconsistent return processes?
  - nightshift1 11mo ago
    People would be more likely to shop in their local stores, buy local products, and sustain the local economy.
    - SirMaster 11mo ago
      OK but how realistic is that? Not everyone lives in a city nearby local stores. There is such a wide variety of products that people go to Amazon for. I know I do. So many things are niche I can't see how any local stores could exist to stock things like that in even a 1 hour range from a majority of the population. How many people are going to drive hours to go to a special boutique that has this random thing they want or need? Maybe people use Amazon to buy routine things that could easily be stocked locally. But I guess I use Amazon to get things that I can't really get or even usually find anywhere else for that matter. Most come from small operations using Amazon as their sales platform. Amazon is providing a lot of discoverability and logistics to them and I am not sure I would even stumble across the seller if I had to find some tiny website that they operated themselves. I am not sure most people would prefer to shop locally, most people don't seem to even go to the store anymore and instead use delivery services for everything. This saves so much time to allow us to do other things that we enjoy in our lives. I don't think small shops would be able to offer this level of convenience.
      - timeon 11mo ago
        > OK but how realistic is that? Not everyone lives in a city nearby local stores. Are you serious? I live in country where we are not using Amazon.
        SirMaster 11mo ago
        And you don’t have another big online marketplace that’s basically similar? And if not, you are saying you have a similar availability of such a vast network of goods, almost anything you might want and the convenience of fast delivery and simple returns via local shops or something? I guess I’m not sure what you are suggesting. I personally find that shopping and finding and acquiring the products I want is vastly more convenient and easier with Amazon than before we had Amazon and yes I was around back then too. I’d never want to go back personally. Most family and friend I know seem to feel the same.
elevatortrim 11mo ago
You are assuming: 1. Value created for other shareholders is a good thing 2. $ "value" directly translates to actual resources or services 3. These employees and customers would not get the same or more value elsewhere if Amazon did not exist 4. This "value" created by Amazon is better compared to the alternative (such as more resources used locally instead of global trade)
- thesmtsolver2 11mo ago
  Well, you are assuming there is a central benevolent dictator who can compute "Value" more accurately than millions of people collectively voting with their wallets.
  - lenerdenator 11mo ago
    Not to speak for the other poster but I didn't see any implication of a central benevolent dictator in their comment.
    - overrun11 11mo ago
      It's implicit. Amazon has billions of dollars because customers freely handed over the money. We know they found the service valuable because they wouldn't have done so otherwise. The poster is suggesting there is some _true_ value separate from what these customers who know their own situations best think. That they are secretly being fleeced and a central planner will somehow better allocate the resources.
      - lenerdenator 11mo ago
        >It's implicit Not at all. What if it were an employee co-op? "The ultra-wealthy should have less power" != "We should implement a five-year plan for our command economy as thought up by glorious and correct Party."
  - Zigurd 11mo ago
    If AGI is actually attainable, then, sure, planned economies will be more performant than market economies, especially for high value industrial captal equipment. No need for Gosplan to decide on your candy bars and craft breweries.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
Salgat 11mo ago
> That's $2.4 trillion of value created for other shareholders plus trillions more for employees, customers, suppliers, governments, and other stakeholders. That's not Bezos' doing alone, that's Bezos plus over a million workers that did that. If Bezos never existed in history, someone else would have filled in that market. We need to stop this myth that a few men alone create all this value and that without them we'd still be dragging plows through the mud for our farms.
- wslh 11mo ago
  This is a two-edged discussion. On one extreme, there’s an interesting Marxist idea that value creation is largely the product of historical and social forces, not just individual effort. However, I don’t think it’s fair to single out AI, or any billionaire to fit that narrative while ignoring other factors, such as the idea that nations should not exist since they can be thought in the same terms. On the other side, Jeff Bezos is clearly an outlier. Even if we agree that ecommerce would have existed without him, we don’t know whether someone else would have created the same scale of value.
  - Salgat 11mo ago
    Neither do we know if things would have turned out better without him.
    - wslh 11mo ago
      But we know that there are few winners and past competitors like eBay faded out. It is more extreme with Microsoft: they have survived more market shifts than anybody else, there is no doubt they have something special and at that business level it is difficult to argue that competitors have not tried everything, and the idea of good and bad behaviors is naive at that level. For example, a "good" company such as Sun Microsystems was involved in bribes to gain markets.
gortok 11mo ago
One thing to point out that is lost in these arguments of “they create value for the shareholders”. Folks that own a vast amount of stock do not pay taxes on that stock. They own the shares, and they take out loans against those shares. At some point they rollover or pay off those loans by selling some shares, but the shares have increased in value significantly in that time, or they’ve been granted new shares. When we say “<business> has created value for shareholders”, it’s said in a way that implies that somehow that wealth creation makes its way into the tax system by virtue of the fact the wealth was ‘created’. It does not.
- overrun11 11mo ago
  First, taxes still get paid when the individual dies as estate tax. Second, increased shareholder value typically means more corporate profit which is also taxed. Third, dividends are taxed. So your claim that the shareholder value never makes its way into the tax system is plainly false. This is all aside from the fact that increased shareholder value means a more abundance society regardless of the increase in taxes. We could quibble over the exact distribution of who gains from the enlarged pie but it's certainly not the case the 100% of it goes to capitalists so consumers and employees also benefit.
  - semiquaver 11mo ago
    > taxes still get paid when the individual dies as estate tax Almost no one in the US pays the estate tax. It only applies to estates over $14MM and most large estates get reorganized into trusts with estate tax avoidance as a primary motive.
    - overrun11 11mo ago
      > It only applies to estates over $14MM Yes this entire conversation is about the ultra wealthy not paying their "fair share". A $14MM exemption is practically irrelevant here. > most large estates get reorganized into trusts with estate tax avoidance This isn't so simple. Transfers to a irrevocable trust count against your lifetime 14mm estate and gift tax exemption and a trust in excess of the 14M exemption is subject to gift tax. Also, this discussion was about "Buy Borrow Die" strategy. Irrevocable trusts don't make much sense in this context because trusts aren't subject to stepped up basis.

code_for_monkey 11mo ago

I would say they dont contribute. I don't think Jeff Bezos has contributed anything positive, at all. He's managed to become insanely rich in a system that rewards bad behavior, so what? All that value isnt doing anything.

cons0le 11mo ago
Absolutely. Creating value in the stock market is not the same thing as creating value for society. Are we really better off as a society now that amazon has closed down all the mom & pop stores? Are we really better off as a society now that the entire internet is centralized around AWS? It made a lot of people rich, but the internet sucks more than ever
SirMaster 11mo ago
Are you saying Amazon isn't a positive? Or that Bezos didn't contribute to making Amazon what it is? I think it's pretty clear Amazon is quite a positive given by how many people like using it so much for it's convenient 1-stop shop, quick shipping, and hassle-free return process. Are you saying it would be better to have to shop at 1000 different little websites with probably crappy or at least inconsistent return processes?
- nightshift1 11mo ago
  People would be more likely to shop in their local stores, buy local products, and sustain the local economy.
  - SirMaster 11mo ago
    OK but how realistic is that? Not everyone lives in a city nearby local stores. There is such a wide variety of products that people go to Amazon for. I know I do. So many things are niche I can't see how any local stores could exist to stock things like that in even a 1 hour range from a majority of the population. How many people are going to drive hours to go to a special boutique that has this random thing they want or need? Maybe people use Amazon to buy routine things that could easily be stocked locally. But I guess I use Amazon to get things that I can't really get or even usually find anywhere else for that matter. Most come from small operations using Amazon as their sales platform. Amazon is providing a lot of discoverability and logistics to them and I am not sure I would even stumble across the seller if I had to find some tiny website that they operated themselves. I am not sure most people would prefer to shop locally, most people don't seem to even go to the store anymore and instead use delivery services for everything. This saves so much time to allow us to do other things that we enjoy in our lives. I don't think small shops would be able to offer this level of convenience.
    - timeon 11mo ago
      > OK but how realistic is that? Not everyone lives in a city nearby local stores. Are you serious? I live in country where we are not using Amazon.
      - SirMaster 11mo ago
        And you don’t have another big online marketplace that’s basically similar? And if not, you are saying you have a similar availability of such a vast network of goods, almost anything you might want and the convenience of fast delivery and simple returns via local shops or something? I guess I’m not sure what you are suggesting. I personally find that shopping and finding and acquiring the products I want is vastly more convenient and easier with Amazon than before we had Amazon and yes I was around back then too. I’d never want to go back personally. Most family and friend I know seem to feel the same.

elevatortrim 11mo ago

You are assuming: 1. Value created for other shareholders is a good thing 2. $ "value" directly translates to actual resources or services 3. These employees and customers would not get the same or more value elsewhere if Amazon did not exist 4. This "value" created by Amazon is better compared to the alternative (such as more resources used locally instead of global trade)

thesmtsolver2 11mo ago
Well, you are assuming there is a central benevolent dictator who can compute "Value" more accurately than millions of people collectively voting with their wallets.
- lenerdenator 11mo ago
  Not to speak for the other poster but I didn't see any implication of a central benevolent dictator in their comment.
  - overrun11 11mo ago
    It's implicit. Amazon has billions of dollars because customers freely handed over the money. We know they found the service valuable because they wouldn't have done so otherwise. The poster is suggesting there is some _true_ value separate from what these customers who know their own situations best think. That they are secretly being fleeced and a central planner will somehow better allocate the resources.
    - lenerdenator 11mo ago
      >It's implicit Not at all. What if it were an employee co-op? "The ultra-wealthy should have less power" != "We should implement a five-year plan for our command economy as thought up by glorious and correct Party."
- Zigurd 11mo ago
  If AGI is actually attainable, then, sure, planned economies will be more performant than market economies, especially for high value industrial captal equipment. No need for Gosplan to decide on your candy bars and craft breweries.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

Salgat 11mo ago

> That's $2.4 trillion of value created for other shareholders plus trillions more for employees, customers, suppliers, governments, and other stakeholders. That's not Bezos' doing alone, that's Bezos plus over a million workers that did that. If Bezos never existed in history, someone else would have filled in that market. We need to stop this myth that a few men alone create all this value and that without them we'd still be dragging plows through the mud for our farms.

wslh 11mo ago
This is a two-edged discussion. On one extreme, there’s an interesting Marxist idea that value creation is largely the product of historical and social forces, not just individual effort. However, I don’t think it’s fair to single out AI, or any billionaire to fit that narrative while ignoring other factors, such as the idea that nations should not exist since they can be thought in the same terms. On the other side, Jeff Bezos is clearly an outlier. Even if we agree that ecommerce would have existed without him, we don’t know whether someone else would have created the same scale of value.
- Salgat 11mo ago
  Neither do we know if things would have turned out better without him.
  - wslh 11mo ago
    But we know that there are few winners and past competitors like eBay faded out. It is more extreme with Microsoft: they have survived more market shifts than anybody else, there is no doubt they have something special and at that business level it is difficult to argue that competitors have not tried everything, and the idea of good and bad behaviors is naive at that level. For example, a "good" company such as Sun Microsystems was involved in bribes to gain markets.

gortok 11mo ago

One thing to point out that is lost in these arguments of “they create value for the shareholders”. Folks that own a vast amount of stock do not pay taxes on that stock. They own the shares, and they take out loans against those shares. At some point they rollover or pay off those loans by selling some shares, but the shares have increased in value significantly in that time, or they’ve been granted new shares. When we say “<business> has created value for shareholders”, it’s said in a way that implies that somehow that wealth creation makes its way into the tax system by virtue of the fact the wealth was ‘created’. It does not.

overrun11 11mo ago
First, taxes still get paid when the individual dies as estate tax. Second, increased shareholder value typically means more corporate profit which is also taxed. Third, dividends are taxed. So your claim that the shareholder value never makes its way into the tax system is plainly false. This is all aside from the fact that increased shareholder value means a more abundance society regardless of the increase in taxes. We could quibble over the exact distribution of who gains from the enlarged pie but it's certainly not the case the 100% of it goes to capitalists so consumers and employees also benefit.
- semiquaver 11mo ago
  > taxes still get paid when the individual dies as estate tax Almost no one in the US pays the estate tax. It only applies to estates over $14MM and most large estates get reorganized into trusts with estate tax avoidance as a primary motive.
  - overrun11 11mo ago
    > It only applies to estates over $14MM Yes this entire conversation is about the ultra wealthy not paying their "fair share". A $14MM exemption is practically irrelevant here. > most large estates get reorganized into trusts with estate tax avoidance This isn't so simple. Transfers to a irrevocable trust count against your lifetime 14mm estate and gift tax exemption and a trust in excess of the 14M exemption is subject to gift tax. Also, this discussion was about "Buy Borrow Die" strategy. Irrevocable trusts don't make much sense in this context because trusts aren't subject to stepped up basis.