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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

#141

Post by ruleabidinguser »

DamnYuppie wrote: post #134
ruleabidinguser wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, why is it concerning? It seems concerning to me but only if you choose not to really engage with what it means.

Throughout human history there has never been a time where those in power, regardless of how obtained, didn't turn to violence and subterfuge to maintain it.

Have you experienced violence from those in power? Its so easy to spread fear when you haven't used your brain.

And have you considered how much of your lifestyle, the best parts of your lifestyle, is impossible under any system other than capitalism? I can't think of a better vehicle for diversity and indeed there certainly isn't one. It's almost insulting when people so casually dismiss these things.

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

#143

Post by habosa »

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…

This reminds me of Nozick's Wilt Chamberlain example, which I will quote here:

> Nozick's famous Wilt Chamberlain argument is an attempt to show that patterned principles of just distribution are incompatible with liberty. He asks us to assume that the original distribution in society, D1, is ordered by our choice of patterned principle, for instance Rawls's Difference Principle. Wilt Chamberlain is an extremely popular basketball player in this society, and Nozick further assumes 1 million people are willing to freely give Chamberlain 25 cents each to watch him play basketball over the course of a season (we assume no other transactions occur). Chamberlain now has $250,000, a much larger sum than any of the other people in the society. This new distribution in society, call it D2, obviously is no longer ordered by our favored pattern that ordered D1. However Nozick argues that D2 is just. For if each agent freely exchanges some of his D1 share with the basketball player and D1 was a just distribution (we know D1 was just, because it was ordered according to your favorite patterned principle of distribution), how can D2 fail to be a just distribution? Thus Nozick argues that what the Wilt Chamberlain example shows is that no patterned principle of just distribution will be compatible with liberty. In order to preserve the pattern, which arranged D1, the state will have to continually interfere with people's ability to freely exchange their D1 shares, for any exchange of D1 shares explicitly involves violating the pattern that originally ordered it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy,_State,_and_Utopia

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

#144

Post by lapsock »

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…

you're wrong. this shit has gone to shit in the past few years

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

#145

Post by openasocket »

samstave wrote: post #128
astrodust wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you're embezzling money the last thing you want is to reveal enough information about your stash to show up on these lists. Saddam Hussein obviously had tons of liquid assets but the totality of them was never truly known. It was all squirreled away, and likely stolen by the caretakers when his regime imploded and the threat of retribution was removed. How much did Pablo Esbobar have at his peak? We can only gue…

in the /r/conspiracy realm - it is widely believed that the reason for Gaddafi's execution was to go after the billions he had - and to take him down. The idea is that the Benghazi fiasco was let loose by the state dept so that HRC could loot Libya... its not provable - but the fact is that Gaddafi was one of the worlds richest ppl - and the rumor is that HRC and cabal stole all his loot. He was worth a reportable 70…

OK, I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but this is just crazy.

So, in your scenario, HRC wants Gaddafi's money. So she orchestrates an attack on a US embassy nearly a year after he died, as a false flag operation. And then we sent people in get the money. Of course, officially we didn't send anyone in Libya in response to the attacks except some more marines to guard the embassy, so this group that went in to get the money did so secretly. But then why did they need to orchestrate the attack on the embassy? Why not just send spies in under cover? Also, where is the money in scenario? Is there some big fucking safe filled with gold bars in his palace that none of the militants have touched in that last year?

Oh, also you don't think Gaddafi's execution had anything to do with a prolonged civil war and numerous human rights violations? Or did Clinton also invent the Arab Spring and force Gaddafi to be a brutal dictator for decades?

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

#146

Post by enraged_camel »

wozniacki wrote: post #133
sushisource wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, this is the Seattleite party line. Don't kid yourself into thinking people in Seattle are more humble than the people in SV. They're just not as overt about it. I agree with you that the flashy culture of SV doesn't exist as much here, and that's a good thing, but I'd say Seattleites are some of the most arrogant, standoffish, and surface-polite people I've met anywhere in the world.

I'd say Seattleites are some of the most arrogant, standoffish, and surface-polite people I've met anywhere in the world. Could you perhaps expand on this observation? I genuinely find it interesting. This is the sort of thing you don't see measured in those "most-livable cities" indices you see from time to time [1]. Tricky to capture I agree, but doable. It would greatly simplify one's choice when deciding where to…

>>Could you perhaps expand on this observation? I genuinely find it interesting.

Look up "Seattle freeze". It's a real phenomenon sociologists have studied.

Essentially, it's easy to make acquiantences in Seattle, but extremely difficult to make friends. Everyone is polite and friendly on the surface, but any attempt to get to know someone is met with (polite) stonewalling.

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

#147

Post by reddytowns »

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…

For people paying alimony and child support, you must work or go to jail. And buying cheap stuff goes along with that.

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

#148

Post by BeetleB »

loeg wrote: post #42
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #28

With a little math, we are not-too-many years from the world's first US$ trillionaire. Using Mr. Bezos as the example: US$ 72,000,000,000 Annualized gain of, say, 10% on AMZN stock Over a period of 27.6 years 1.1^27.6 * US$72,000,000,000 = ~US$ 1,000,000,000,000 Just in time for his 80th birthday.

Assuming 27 years of 10% compounding is quite the leap.

The S&P 500 index is close to that (inflation contributes a bit) for the last 30 years.

Not at all unreasonable.

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

#149

Post by dougmany »

zvpxdlk wrote: post #137
aaron-lebo wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> any less intelligent or hard working Not necessarily true. Luck plays a big role in things like this but Bezos is clearly in the elite when it comes to effective professionals.

How many times more effective? As the difference between what humans can do and what computers can do increases, we become relatively closer.

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

#150

Post by kolbe »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #28

With a little math, we are not-too-many years from the world's first US$ trillionaire. Using Mr. Bezos as the example: US$ 72,000,000,000 Annualized gain of, say, 10% on AMZN stock Over a period of 27.6 years 1.1^27.6 * US$72,000,000,000 = ~US$ 1,000,000,000,000 Just in time for his 80th birthday.

You should probably use king abdullah or vladimir putin as your baseline instead of gates/bezos
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