This is kind of obscene. Even more so since Bezos shuns the kind of charity work through which other multibillionaires like Gates and Buffet shoulder their noblesse oblige.
In fairness to Bezos, did anyone think Gates would turn out like this?
Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B
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Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B
#52Putin tops him. At these levels the dollar value is not a good measure. Bezos owns shares. If he started selling them their value would quickly drop. Monarchs (Putin) are different. They own things outright, or have such influence that they effectively own things that are legally in other people's names. The Saudi royal house has more wealth under their king's control, although not all in his name. What is scary is t…
I don't think that Putin cares about money. All he cares about is power. Many people can't tell the difference, but Frank can[1].
Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Amazon is trying to do the same, but they haven't done so yet. They are not wildly profitable (if at all). They haven't monopolized online retail (and may never be able to do so). Please tell me you're being sarcastic. They're hiding profits and just plowing all the revenue back into the business while undercutting both competitors and their own employees.
I'm ex-Amazon and no, I'm not being sarcastic. It's an open question if Amazon will ever be able to raise prices and reap those promised profits without losing marketshare to the many players that would love to take them down. Right now I view Amazon as a very profitable web hosting company and a retail non-profit. Google and Microsoft, for comparison, were both much faster to get to monopoly-level marketshare. Amazo…
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Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is an interesting way to compare wealth between time periods but I'm not sure it's the most valid method.
You spoke my mind. For one, Rockefeller grew rich quickly coz there wasn’t as much regulation as compared to what Bezos had to face. On the other hand, Rockefeller wasn’t in the Internet age and Bezos banker on the exponential rise of internet. I am sure there are many more variables.
"For one, Rockefeller grew rich quickly coz there wasn’t as much regulation as compared to what Bezos had to face."
Eh, Bezos got rich off of not having to pay state sales taxes while his brick and mortar competitors did.
But AWS makes up for that IMO.
Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B
#55most of it is virtual money... He could be worth $50B tomorrow if his company crashes. Still a lot of money though, but $150B don't mean anything. It would be interesting to see when/if bitcoin reaches $1 million USD. That Forbes list would get totally disrupted.
What is anything other than virtual money though?
AMZN stock is currently not legal tender and government agencies and the like are not required to accept it as a form of payment. Can't pay for food with AMZN shares.
The US dollar is backed by the "full faith and credit" of the US, which makes it "real" in some sense
Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B
#5633% of that $150B came to him in 2018 alone (he started the year around $100B) and some people still claim that "we're not in a bubble".
I don't see how the wealth of one person, who's wealth is mainly shares in probably the most successful company in the US right now, indicates that we are in a bubble.
Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B
#57In theory, If you are a CEO, and you knew your stock is in bubble, could you have leverage it and borrow as much as you could for low rate, say $200B or more for 2%, and use that buy whatever business when the bubble burst?
Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B
#58This is kind of obscene. Even more so since Bezos shuns the kind of charity work through which other multibillionaires like Gates and Buffet shoulder their noblesse oblige.
In fairness to Bezos, did anyone think Gates would turn out like this?
Not at all, there was a time where people thought Gates was a worthless little shit who made too much money.
Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B
#59Putin tops him. At these levels the dollar value is not a good measure. Bezos owns shares. If he started selling them their value would quickly drop. Monarchs (Putin) are different. They own things outright, or have such influence that they effectively own things that are legally in other people's names. The Saudi royal house has more wealth under their king's control, although not all in his name. What is scary is t…
Putin's wealth can't be accurately measured by anyone except Putin himself and presumably his financial advisers. It's all just speculation.
This makes it worse. Reading up on the more high profile poisoning’s he has been implicated in, he is downright scary.
Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B
#60I feel that America is in the midst of a new gilded age; instead of Standard Oil, we have Amazon. Like the late 1920s, we saw losses in purchasing power of the average American, the collection of wealth among the top 1%, and disruption of our civic spaces as a result. I think the thing that many Americans aren't aware of was just how violent that time in US history was[1]. The US economy isn't just about how comforta…
Except we actually had a functioning federal government during the last gilded age, so we ended up with things like the Sherman Antitrust Act, and eventually the New Deal. I doubt we'll be so lucky this time around. Things are about to get absolutely brutal for the 90%.
Or the 1%. Something Rich people tend to forget is that the system of law and order we have now prevents armed uprising of the lower classes, which has a history of cropping up during very hard economic times.
Not advocating, and I doubt I'd be one of them holding a pitchfork, but it is something to keep in mind.