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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

#401

Post by doug1001 »

baursak wrote: post #236
mjfl wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crimes aren't inherited.

So if I kill you and take your house, and somehow escape justice before dying myself and passing said house to my son, your son forfeits any claim to the house? Correct?

no. (with a lot of statutory exceptions, i'm quite sure) i believe the applicable common law rule is this:

if there's a (prior) theft in the chain of title, then you do not have good title.

hence the market for title insurance and the market for title searches.

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

#402

Post by terryf »

efaref wrote: post #387
sudhirj wrote: post #375

I just don't get this complaining about wealth concentration - for every person capable of complaining on an online forum that some people have 100 to 1000x the wealth they do, there are also likely to be more people that exist who have 1000x less than you. How exactly am I any more entitled to the wealth of those richer than me, than are those poorer than me entitled to my (relative) wealth? It seems to me that the…

The problem isn't that Bezos has 1,000x my net worth. He has 1,000,000x my (approximate) net worth. One millionth of my net worth is seven cents, so Bezos:me is me:$0.07. The graph isn't logarithmic. It's shaped like this: | | | ____________|

What difference is there between 1000x and 1,000,000x ? Should there be a cap somewhere? I just completely fail to see how this is anything other than being jealous of someone elses's success. Please do explain.

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

#403

Post by bsbechtel »

dwaltrip wrote: post #172
habosa wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 popu…

As in many of these discussions, this hinges very heavily on the notions of "free exchange" and "consent". How do we account for the effects of power or leverage imbalances on free exchange or consent? If you consider violent force and the like as just one extreme on the broad spectrum of potential leverage between two parties, then we see that a primary focus of most governments is to limit or prevent leverage of ce…

>>How do we account for the effects of power or leverage imbalances on free exchange or consent?

If it's financial leverage not gifted by regulatory protection, why do we necessarily need to?

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

#404

Post by OJFord »

houst0n_ wrote: post #198
badosu wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry for sidetracking on this, but I need to understand why I am reading so much 'loose' here on HN. Is this error being used with intent? I have no interest in shaming grammar errors, it's just that I am seeing this too often here, in the same place where I read great arguments. English is not my native language, so maybe this is a colloquial use of the word?

Me too!! Nah its an error.. I don't know why it's made so often.. Maybe it was happening all the time and we only started noticing it? It irritates me far less than your/you're tho ;)

Your write, its an error made all to often. Many people are loser with spelling and grammer online than is you and me.

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

#405

Post by andrepd »

sumedh wrote: post #265
Retra wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was far less risky for Bezos to start his business than most of his current employees. He was wealthy before he started.

If you believe in your idea get a loan from family, friends or banks or get a high paying job save money and then start your business. Starting and running a successful business is not easy which is why the rewards should go to the risk taker.

> If you believe in your idea get a loan from family, friends or banks or get a high paying job save money and then start your business.

I don't understand if this is supposed to be a joke or you are really that sheltered and clueless. Just get a loan from your family and get started? You are aware that for the vast, vast, vast majority of people this is not an option that's available to them, right? Get a high paying job and save money? Jesus Christ, but how?? How do you do that if there are no such jobs for you, either because of your location or because of your lack of education? Surely you would tell a 14 year old working 12h a day making cheap sneakers in Bangladesh to either ask his parents for money or to save his 0.25$ an hour salary and start a company, without an education. After all, this is perfectly feasible and if you don't so it you deserve to stay poor.

It's frightening.

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

#406

Post by andrepd »

sumedh wrote: post #382
viuduib wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeh, because creating a startup is a breeze isn't it ? And most anyone could simply drop every commitment in their lives and like 4 years later they're rich! Why doesn't everyone do that, given they're free to do it ? Well, because they're not free to, not at all. 90% of people are strapped into financial obligations and have families. None of these people can afford to risk starting a business, even if they would…

> 90% of people are strapped into financial obligations and have families. So they have to prioritise what is important, if they feel that starting a business is more important, they will avoid getting financial obligations and starting a family. This is also part of the overall risks, you might be better off just being an employee with a normal life instead of being a failed entrepreneur.

They don't have to choose to prioritise, they don't have a choice! Which brings your entire argument down.

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

#407

Post by OJFord »

houst0n_ wrote: post #198
badosu wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry for sidetracking on this, but I need to understand why I am reading so much 'loose' here on HN. Is this error being used with intent? I have no interest in shaming grammar errors, it's just that I am seeing this too often here, in the same place where I read great arguments. English is not my native language, so maybe this is a colloquial use of the word?

Me too!! Nah its an error.. I don't know why it's made so often.. Maybe it was happening all the time and we only started noticing it? It irritates me far less than your/you're tho ;)

Serious comment to compensate for my silly comment: loose/lose actually bugs me more than your/you're errors - because it disrupts my reading of the sentence, especially if read aloud. In most cases the latter error can be glossed over like nothing happened.

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

#408

Post by viuduib »

gambiting wrote: post #368
viuduib wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeh, because creating a startup is a breeze isn't it ? And most anyone could simply drop every commitment in their lives and like 4 years later they're rich! Why doesn't everyone do that, given they're free to do it ? Well, because they're not free to, not at all. 90% of people are strapped into financial obligations and have families. None of these people can afford to risk starting a business, even if they would…

Absolute nonsense. People start companies in extremely difficult positions in life and only some of them succeed. No one said it's easy. But that doesn't change the fact that every single one of Amazon employees is free to leave the company and start their own tomorrow. You don't have to have complete financial security to be "free" to do something.

you are living in a dream world

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

#409

Post by pnut »

sumedh wrote: post #381
dredmorbius wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're begging the question (and yes, that's proper use): why should all the rewards go to those who've taken some risk? What of the risks taken by others? Are there uncompensated risk-bearing activities? Are there activities with low risk but high return? Suppose, say, dropping a drill bit next to the guy who's just blown in a gusher? Or securing control of the pipelines, railroads, and refineries by which that oil…

> What of the risks taken by others? What risks do employees take, they are getting a salary. If they are not happy they can leave and get another job. The founder has to put everything in it, his money, time, relationships, reputation. This is not "some risk", he cannot just walk away.

What prevents a founder from walking away and getting a job exactly?

I did it, so I know it can be done.

Founders reap rewards of their risk-taking almost immediately, and it accelerates exponentially from there.

This really cuts to a major point of contention in modern politics - exaggerated pity party for the hardships of the most powerful people in society.

It is a privilege to take such risks, and if you are in doubt, go get a soul-crushing treadmill job and watch the fruits of your labour flow elsewhere.

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

#410

Post by mdpopescu »

dougmany wrote: post #149
zvpxdlk wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Two people move their finger forward one centimeter.

One of them made a hole in the ground; he's going to put a seed in it, which will hopefully grow into something useful.

The other one pushed a button which started an automatic lathe which created an engine piston worth a hundred thousand dollars.

The difference in the productivity of two people is practically limitless.

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