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Jeff Bezos's Net Worth Just Broke $100B

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Re: Jeff Bezos's Net Worth Just Broke $100B

#111

Post by barrkel »

cirgue wrote: post #110
barrkel wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Structure the economy so that ultra-wealthy don't exist. I didn't say I knew how to do that. That's the hard problem.

You misunderstood my question: What should the ultra-wealthy, who exist in the here and now and will not be evaporating overnight, do if they feel like helping other people?

And I keep saying I don't know how. If I knew how to fix these problems, I'd consider becoming a politician or philosopher or finding some other way to influence the debate.

This would be a start: how about ultra-wealthy advocate and lobby for a wealth tax, and stop feeding their gains through tax avoidance schemes?

All I know is that today, there's too much levering power in capitalist structures, that feeds too much surplus to owners of capital. I know all the arguments against alternatives; I want to preserve economic incentives, innovation and investment. But by the same token innovation is definitely reducing the utility of labour, and that's a problem that needs solving too. If every want and need in life could be produced automatically with no labour (the end result of innovation, where innovation has itself been automated), who would want to live? What meaning would there be in life?

At the end of the day the human animal is a tribal, social creature who wants to be useful to his or her neighbours, to make his or her way in the world with his or her head held high, knowing they make a positive contribution. That drive is ultimately not compatible with capitalist economics, which seeks efficiency and encourages consumption (the two, ironically, being in opposition to one another, ensuring that we'll never feel like we have enough, even if we didn't live on a hedonic treadmill).

Re: Jeff Bezos's Net Worth Just Broke $100B

#112

Post by edanm »

barrkel wrote: post #107
Pyxl101 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The charities that Gates tends to invest in don't just distribute goods to needy people. His charities try to tackle core societal problems like fighting malaria in Africa: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Health/Mal... https://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Health/Dis... > Working closely with other global programs at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Discovery & Translational Scie…

The problems are not just agency, but also whimsy. Charity is basically a combination of guilt assuaging, ego food and social proofing. I think we'd be better off with democratically controlled funding, or economically allocated funding, from a self-sufficient demos, for things like the battle against malaria. Charities like Gates's typically turn into long-lived foundations which acquire politics and agency of their…

I think you're wrong. Democracy is also subject to whims, but with the government, you basically have one player. With charity, at least you have "competition".

E.g. look at groups helping promote minority rights (civil rights movement, LGBTQ movement, etc). These were political no-goes, but small groups cared a lot about these issues, so they helped push them through, via charity and other means. If you were only OK with charity being done democratically, i.e. via majority rule, then these movements couldn't exist.

Re: Jeff Bezos's Net Worth Just Broke $100B

#113

Post by edanm »

cityzen wrote: post #102
rukittenme wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeff Bezos having $100bn is no more political than me having $20. Where you draw the line is completely arbitrary. Bezos didn't acquire his fortune by stealing from people. He made it by providing goods at a lower cost than his competitors. Which means everyone that helped make Bezos wealthy are wealthier as a result of that interaction.

I do not know how reliable this is but it looks legit. If it is true, Amazon spending almost $10 million on lobbying and is the 15th highest spender when it comes to spending. Top issue? Taxes. How is Bezos so f’ing rich? Amazon doesn’t pay any real taxes, prob less than 1%. I’m sorry but your $20 is not the same as his $100 billion http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000023883

While you may be completely right about Amazon and tax lobbying, this is only a part of the story of how he's so rich. Parent comment was right in the way that matters, IMO: Jeff Bezos being rich is mostly not at the expense of anyone else, quite the opposite - it's as a result of the value he's created. Even if he's paid less in taxes than he "should have", those taxes would've been 0 if he hadn't created the value and therefore wealth that he's created.

Re: Jeff Bezos's Net Worth Just Broke $100B

#114

Post by edanm »

amelius wrote: post #74
WalterBright wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that what a free market system does? Bezos' net worth is decided by what people freely decide his stock is worth.

No, because it doesn't align with what people feel is right.

I'm not sure you're right. Clearly you don't feel it's right, but it doesn't seem like you're necessarily in the majority here, at least not in a way that is actionable. People may complain, but it doesn't seem most people are actually doing something about this. (Or at least, looking e.g. at the last elections in the US, there isn't necessarily a majority that agrees with you.)

BTW, as to the broader point, I mostly disagree - I think our current systems is pretty good at figuring out how much value each person has created, and letting them capture a portion of it. (That's what the system does, not "decide how much someone is worth")

Re: Jeff Bezos's Net Worth Just Broke $100B

#115

Post by afterburner »

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #71
afterburner wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of history up until modern times is an example of unregulated wealth accumulation. It sucked.

Well, without wealth accumulation we'd still be hunting with sharp stones. But yeah. 'In medio virtus est', etc.

Are you talking about funding research, essentially? That's an example of wealth being spent on the common good. Problem is when it's accumulated without spending it on the common good, or even worse spent only on increasing the accumulator's power.

Re: Jeff Bezos's Net Worth Just Broke $100B

#116

Post by barrkel »

edanm wrote: post #112
barrkel wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problems are not just agency, but also whimsy. Charity is basically a combination of guilt assuaging, ego food and social proofing. I think we'd be better off with democratically controlled funding, or economically allocated funding, from a self-sufficient demos, for things like the battle against malaria. Charities like Gates's typically turn into long-lived foundations which acquire politics and agency of their…

I think you're wrong. Democracy is also subject to whims, but with the government, you basically have one player. With charity, at least you have "competition". E.g. look at groups helping promote minority rights (civil rights movement, LGBTQ movement, etc). These were political no-goes, but small groups cared a lot about these issues, so they helped push them through, via charity and other means. If you were only OK…

The government is the people. It's a particular disease of the American public to believe otherwise.

Yes, bureaucracy isn't efficient. But ultimately its decisions reflects the demos. If the people don't believe in positive government, it will be poor, like the US. But it isn't always that way (but it is usually still inefficient).

Lobby groups for minority interests are orthogonal to charity, or should be, otherwise money will buy more political influence than the demos warrants. That is, minority influence should be proportional to people involved, not money spent.

Re: Jeff Bezos's Net Worth Just Broke $100B

#117

Post by edanm »

barrkel wrote: post #116
edanm wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're wrong. Democracy is also subject to whims, but with the government, you basically have one player. With charity, at least you have "competition". E.g. look at groups helping promote minority rights (civil rights movement, LGBTQ movement, etc). These were political no-goes, but small groups cared a lot about these issues, so they helped push them through, via charity and other means. If you were only OK…

The government is the people. It's a particular disease of the American public to believe otherwise. Yes, bureaucracy isn't efficient. But ultimately its decisions reflects the demos. If the people don't believe in positive government, it will be poor, like the US. But it isn't always that way (but it is usually still inefficient). Lobby groups for minority interests are orthogonal to charity, or should be, otherwise…

"The government is the people. It's a particular disease of the American public to believe otherwise."

1. I'm not sure it's a great move to decide that people who disagree with you are wrong, or "diseased". (Obviously you're using the word disease metaphorically. Still, I think it's a bad attitude).

2. I'm not American.

As for the rest of your comment, I didn't say anything about the efficiency of bureaucracy. I'm not sure anything you said refutes anything I said.

"That is, minority influence should be proportional to people involved, not money spent."

I'm not sure that's a great measure. Minorities are by definition smaller groups of people than the majority. If the minority wants something the majority disagrees with (e.g. civil rights movement), then if we're weighting simply by the size of groups, then the civil rights movement probably wouldn't work. We should be also weighting by how much each group "cares", and money is, to some extent, a measure of that. Not that it's a perfect system, but is there a better one?

Btw, this is why democracy isn't just about majority rule - it's considered fundamental to democracy to also have minority protection and similar. Otherwise minorities would always lose.

Re: Jeff Bezos's Net Worth Just Broke $100B

#118

Post by quickthrower2 »

jacobush wrote: post #11

Not spending nearly enough on rockets.

Is building rockets the most important thing? How about climate change, famine, education etc? I imagine the trick is to spend money on lobbying rather than solving the problem, to leverage tax payers money.

Re: Jeff Bezos's Net Worth Just Broke $100B

#119

Post by amelius »

edanm wrote: post #114
amelius wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because it doesn't align with what people feel is right.

I'm not sure you're right. Clearly you don't feel it's right, but it doesn't seem like you're necessarily in the majority here, at least not in a way that is actionable. People may complain, but it doesn't seem most people are actually doing something about this. (Or at least, looking e.g. at the last elections in the US, there isn't necessarily a majority that agrees with you.) BTW, as to the broader point, I mostly…

> I think our current systems is pretty good at figuring out how much value each person has created, and letting them capture a portion of it.

You are basically saying that Jeff Bezos has created more than 100x the value of, say, Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Guido van Rossum, and Donald Knuth combined?

I think you forget how achieving near monopoly status is like gambling, and how much it depends on being first to market, and about convincing investors (for years Amazon has run on a loss, not sure how they do now).

Re: Jeff Bezos's Net Worth Just Broke $100B

#120

Post by edanm »

amelius wrote: post #119
edanm wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure you're right. Clearly you don't feel it's right, but it doesn't seem like you're necessarily in the majority here, at least not in a way that is actionable. People may complain, but it doesn't seem most people are actually doing something about this. (Or at least, looking e.g. at the last elections in the US, there isn't necessarily a majority that agrees with you.) BTW, as to the broader point, I mostly…

> I think our current systems is pretty good at figuring out how much value each person has created, and letting them capture a portion of it. You are basically saying that Jeff Bezos has created more than 100x the value of, say, Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Guido van Rossum, and Donald Knuth combined? I think you forget how achieving near monopoly status is like gambling, and how much it depends on being first…

"You are basically saying that Jeff Bezos has created more than 100x the value of, say, Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Guido van Rossum, and Donald Knuth combined?"

An interesting point. I think most of the above people have created a lot of value as well. It's hard to quantify, so I think it's possible that Amazon has created more value.

However, I think it's far more likely that, while they created lots of value, they haven't captured most of it back. Arguably, that's because they didn't try to, which is a totally reasonable decision for them to have made.

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