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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

#231

Post by prolikewh0a »

andrepd wrote: post #62
dgacmu wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time for Bezos to endow a university and some libraries? An earlier major technical university endowed by the richest person of the time is a pretty awesome place... (he says with no bias whatsoever. :-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Carnegie

Nah, he says the only worthwhile end for his money would be space travel. The man who pays his employees so little that 40% of them are subsidised by the taxpayers (food stamps). The man who gained 50 billion dollars in less than a year. This system simply does not work.

Agreed. Where are the Bezos donated schools, parks, hospitals, fire departments in Seattle? He has done nothing for Seattle except replace its citizens, driving them out into surrounding towns/cities/counties, and drove so many into homelessness that Seattle now has one of the largest homeless populations in the USA. It makes me absolutely furious when he says there's nothing he can do except build rockets.

Mary's Place is really his only contribution to Seattle. It houses a whole 65 families.

Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B

#232

Post by frockington »

CamTin wrote: post #76
whack wrote: post #8

> "Gates would have had a net worth of more than $150 billion if he’d held onto assets that he’s given away, largely to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation." Sorry Bezos, you've still got some catching up to do. Lifetime earnings are what really count, even if you give it all away to charity.

Why not simply avoid making billions so you don't have to give it all away to assuage your guilt and come out close to neutral?

Because with billions you can have such a greater impact... I really don't follow this argument

Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B

#233

Post by ThirdFoundation »

matte_black wrote: post #58
lostlogin wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To that point, perhaps Bezos has decided to live by Andrew Carnegie's dictum?

"-To spend the first third of one's life getting all the education one can.

-To spend the next third making all the money one can.

-To spend the last third giving it all away for worthwhile causes."

Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B

#234

Post by jamestimmins »

drinkzima wrote: post #127
tzs wrote: post #108

OT: I've always wondered, if some multi-billionaire became personally offended by some lesser multi-billionaire and decided to destroy them, what could they do? Assume that they don't want to do anything illegal enough to get themselves into serious trouble. For example, suppose Bezos decided he really hated Rupert Murdoch ($15B). If Bezos decided he could happily live on a mere $100B, that would leave him $50B for t…

Carl Icahn [sort of] just did this to Bill Ackman: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/24/how-carl-icahn-came-to-join-...

Wow, that was so much more dramatic than I realized. These public fights (esp where normal people's jobs are at stake) are almost certainly a bad thing, but they're just fascinating to watch in real time.

Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B

#235

Post by JustSomeNobody »

ttoinou wrote: post #230
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ... I wasn't really suggesting...

so Bezos could buy a house for roughly 1 in every 330 adults in the U.S. Looks like you were. J. Bezos does not have 150 billions baguette and cannot buy 150 billions baguette with what you think his wealth is

No, "could" doesn't mean "should". Saying someone "could" do something is speaking in the hypothetical which is most certainly not suggesting they do that something.

Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B

#237

Post by jsweojtj »

badpun wrote: post #47
seiferteric wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But he can borrow against his stock holdings at very low rates I am sure, so its effectively as good as cash.

Can he borrow a hundred billion?

I bet Buffett would underwrite it w/ AMZN stock as collateral.

Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B

#238

Post by Maybestring »

irrational wrote: post #75
FussyZeus wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Back in the day, most people grew up working on a farm/ranch/etc. and actually knew how to use a pitchfork. I'm trying to imagine today's obese generation trying to physically overthrow the government and can't help thinking that it wouldn't go so well.

I'm not sure why you think a mob of fat people won't be able to over power people. A fat man can torch a mansion as well as a skinny man.

Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B

#239

Post by ambicapter »

throwaway37585 wrote: post #93
CamTin wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not simply avoid making billions so you don't have to give it all away to assuage your guilt and come out close to neutral?

Assuage your guilt?

> 1. To make (something burdensome or painful) less intense or severe: assuage her grief. See Synonyms at relieve.

> 2. To satisfy or appease (hunger or thirst, for example).

> 3. To appease or calm: assuaged his critics.

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/assuage

Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B

#240

Post by TangoTrotFox »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #70
0xmohit wrote: post #28

Reminds one of a couple of related posts: > When I worked at Amazon we had to run around the warehouse, bc if our pick rate fell below a certain number we stopped getting paid. There were bottles & bins full of piss at odd points, bc you were penalised for toilet breaks. A co-worker attempted suicide on-site bc of the stress Source: https://twitter.com/OwennnThomas/status/1007957414577090560 > Workers at Amazon wareh…

You'd think with all that cash Bezos could afford to pay his minions a humane rate. But he just doesn't care.

Amazon has 566,000 employees. We have to guesstimate their hours, but let's say it's about 1500 per year. That's probably really lowballing it, but even there that's 849 million manhours per year. Put another way, a raise of $1 would cost around a billion dollars. Don't forget that employers pay additional taxes and fees that scale against employee compensation meaning they get double tapped when increasing compensation. A one-off $1000 bonus for one year would cost more than half a billion dollars.

So exactly how much more do you think they should be paid?

This is the thing I think many people miss. Many companies operate on pretty thin margins. And while Amazon is well known for reinvesting their profits right back into the company, that's also the reason that they can afford to hire hundreds of thousands of people and pay them quite well for what is some of the most unskilled labor there is. You're looking at $13/hour for literally moving boxes.

Another way of looking at this is that we'd agree that America, as a whole, is quite a rich nation. Yet the surprising thing is that the entire GDP for this nation doesn't actually work out to be all that much. The GDP is of course just the sum value of the market value for all goods and services in this nation. If we completely split all proceeds from the sale of these goods and services up and divided it equally between each person, it'd only be about $60k. So exactly how much would be a fair share for a box mover in your view? Amazon has them hitting just below 50% and again I think it's quite remarkable that that's even possible.

And one final point here, keep in mind these values I've been mentioning here are averages. Talking about $15/hour for flipping burgers in [expensive city] is not really meaningful due to what is invariably localized price inflation. Many of Amazon's fulfillment centers are in areas where $13/hour is worth much more than $15/hour is in [expensive city].

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