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Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

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Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#111

Post by tucaz »

_cairn wrote: post #96
andrepd wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Did this person work more or does he have more merit than 100.000.000s of people? It's absurd.

Not saying that what you are implying is wrong, but empirically speaking working hard/relative merit do not correlate to proportionate monetary rewards in our current system. The idea of a pure meritocracy is an interesting one, I wonder what some of the outcomes would be.

There is also the fact that money (and value) is not a zero sum game.

Bezos making billions doesnt mean that the money was taken from someone else in the sense that that person cannot have it anymore.

The opposite is also true. If he was poor it doesn't mean that I would have more money.

Value creation is a weird but beautiful thing.

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#112

Post by gnicholas »

antaviana wrote: post #74
samfisher83 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the reasons Bezos picked Seattle was due to Microsoft having a lot of software engineers he could get. So MSFT is a big reason that Bezos is in Seattle. Also it was close to one of the biggest book distributors. Amazon was originally a book store.

I read somewhere that it was related to tax optimization. That is, if you sell a book from California, you have to apply state tax to California residents (38M) but if you sell it from Washington, you don't. So the fact that Washington had fewer potential customers than California (or New York, where Jeff Bezos was working previously), meant a smaller tax bill for its country-wide customer base.

I've heard this also, and it makes sense. Although Amazon is now finally going to charge sales tax everywhere, it undoubtedly helped their growth that they could undercut others in large markets like NY and CA by not charging sales tax. I'm sure this wasn't the only factor, but if it meant a 9% pricing advantage in CA, it could have been a real consideration.

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#113

Post by aaron-lebo »

mjfl wrote: post #100
_m8fo wrote: post #84

Everytime I see these types of articles I wonder if we're still in feudalism. Should we really be celebrating that a single individual is worth more than hundreds of millions of people[1]? I dunno, it seems dystopian , like we're enslaved to the system. [1] https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/...

I think that's a little hyperbolic. In feudalism the balance of power is enforced by violence, whereas Jeff Bezos got rich because you gave him money in exchange for products. Like, "Hey, here's this cool electronic device called the Amazon Echo for $50." is a markedly different from "Farm here or I'll decapitate you." The fact that you harbor a resentment as if the former is anything like the latter is slightly terr…

There's a lot of ways you can look at it.

Feudalism was a hierarchical system. Not all nobles went around hacking off heads - they could farm that out to higher ups who kept order. What's the difference between Amazon's reliance on national governments? The business model only works because the US enforces peace on parts of the world and because the Chinese government allows its workers to be used for pennies on the dollar. Within Amazon's kingdom, good luck getting the authorities to help you if you aren't a big player.

Meanwhile the average worker who isn't any less intelligent or hard working is seen as worth a fraction of a percentage of Bezos. Sounds like feudalism, serfdom, slavery, or whatever you'd like to call it. That we can celebrate such disparities of human value and even worse in some places this kind of rampant greed is seen as something good is what is truly terrifying.

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#114

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe »

perseusprime11 wrote: post #99
andrepd wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Did this person work more or does he have more merit than 100.000.000s of people? It's absurd.

Perils of capitalism in it's absolute form. We celebrate these people for becoming rich and we will celebrate again for giving back their money like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.

Are you suggesting we shouldn't thank them? Now that's a perilous idea.

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#116

Post by paulddraper »

andrepd wrote: post #87
_m8fo wrote: post #84

Everytime I see these types of articles I wonder if we're still in feudalism. Should we really be celebrating that a single individual is worth more than hundreds of millions of people[1]? I dunno, it seems dystopian , like we're enslaved to the system. [1] https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/...

Absolutely. Did this person work more or does he have more merit than 100.000.000s of people? It's absurd.

"Merit" could refer to many things, but yes, I think he directly/indirectly added more utility to people's lives than 100,000s of other people.

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#117

Post by tucaz »

nier wrote: post #103

Would it be possible for a guy like Jeff to sell all his stock and convert his wealth to, let’s say, gold? The motivation for my question is my doubt that the different sources of wealth are comparable. So this ranking is hypothetical. Wouldn’t the stock price drop if someone was to sell so many shares?

I believe you are correct. In theory he would be able to turn all his assets into money, but probably he would loose huges amount of it in the process due to the effect you mentioned.

I guess these rankings are just rankings. It's an abstract way to value what someone have (or could potentially have) with no relationship to absolute truth.

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#118

Post by Keyframe »

Kudos to him, hopefully he will go all in on some crazy idea eventually. I still have this feeling amazon (as in online store) isn't all that big outside of US/english-speaking world.

I do have a question though. When you have that much net worth and you get plastered all over the press about how much you have... What do you do then? What's your life then like? Seems like a nightmare, especially if you have kids and family. Do you become a prisoner of your own wealth then, guarded by people - never be able to just roam about, take a random tourist tour with your spouse, a road trip or whatever? Money is nice to have, but there are things you definitely lose, it seems. Is it worth it to be at that level?

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#119

Post by SquirrelOnFire »

nier wrote: post #103

Would it be possible for a guy like Jeff to sell all his stock and convert his wealth to, let’s say, gold? The motivation for my question is my doubt that the different sources of wealth are comparable. So this ranking is hypothetical. Wouldn’t the stock price drop if someone was to sell so many shares?

Would it drop? Yes.

Would just about any bank be willing to write a multi-million dollar loan to Bezos? Also yes, so there's no need for him to sell. He can take out a loan and collateralize it with AMZN stock and thus spend as much as he likes without selling the stock.

Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person

#120

Post by gozur88 »

andrepd wrote: post #87
_m8fo wrote: post #84

Everytime I see these types of articles I wonder if we're still in feudalism. Should we really be celebrating that a single individual is worth more than hundreds of millions of people[1]? I dunno, it seems dystopian , like we're enslaved to the system. [1] https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/...

Absolutely. Did this person work more or does he have more merit than 100.000.000s of people? It's absurd.

Neither. He had money which he risked. Capitalism isn't about working harder, it's about getting a return on risk.
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