Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B • Hacker News Board

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

#341

Post by lixtra » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 1:45 AM UTC

fullshark wrote: post #151

vlunkr wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are average Americans losing purchasing power? This is a real question, I don't know where to look that up.

Goods are cheaper, Rent + College Education + Healthcare is much more expensive.

I agree that certified education got more expensive. Education price in general got much cheaper with the Information Age. Just look at the body of knowledge that is available to everyone through scihub but also through legal venues. With enough of drive you can pick up a lot of knowledge for free.

If you’re smart you can self-educate yourself in many areas to a better level than 80% of the ivy-league alumni. What you don’t get is: - certificates with prestige - network - extrinsic motivation

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

#342

Post by sjg007 » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 1:58 AM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #323

sjg007 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure to some extent. But.. Say Bezos buys Fox News to wipe it off the map. Another billionaire or two would just start another version of it. The market is still there.

It's not that easy. Television and radio licenses are a legally-fixed supply. Someone who buys the broadcasting side of Fox would be able to start dragging its content hither and yon. Whether that would prompt somebody to try a takeover of a different network is anyone's guess.

Fox News is a cable channel.. Murdoch is selling off Fox entertainment. And only a few of the Fox broadcast affiliates are owned by Fox. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Fox_television_affilia...

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-42329731

Hell you could start an Internet TV channel and still be successful.

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

#343

Post by Denzel » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 1:59 AM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #293

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At Amazon's scale you cannot simply turn tens of billions of dollars into economically meaningful growth. If you could, and expect proportional increase in valuation, then nearly every company would be doing the exact same thing. Take for instance Apple. They are netting some $48 billion a year with much more than that on hand. They clearly desperately want to move beyond just the iPhone and have been trying all sort…

If they have no use for their money they should give it back to the shareholders who then invest it into companies that actually need it.

That's sort of what a stock buyback is. Think about it.

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

#344

Post by irrational » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 2:37 AM UTC

gremlinsinc wrote: post #308

soared wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An overthrow would look entirely different today. The masses wouldn't carry pitchforks, they'd use computers. (I don't know how, but assuming people today wouldn't use computers is definitely wrong)

if I were to overthrow the government, I'm assuming many peers would be involved too, probably Anonymous, a lot of the tech community, etc.. (if it was down party lines, or even 99% vs 1%... Assuming the revolting army was full of tech geeks, the best we could hope for is a drone/robotic army that uses technology. Because jocks most of us are not. LOL.

I have to assume that the government has the ability to shutdown the Internet at will. Perhaps even the ability to physically destroy the networks at key locations at will. They certainly have the ability to take the electric grid offline at will which would render most technology moot within a short period of time unless you have solar panels and battery backup.

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

#345

Post by gremlinsinc » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 3:29 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #320

gremlinsinc wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key is passing anti-corruption acts that get money out of politics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhe286ky-9A If it's illegal for lobbyists, corporations, etc to donate to politicians, then we can make politics more fair/ethical. This is a bipartisan group working to get these passed. Anti-corruption benefits everyone.

> If it's illegal for lobbyists, corporations, etc to donate to politicians It is illegal for corporations to donate to politicians. But independent expenditures that aren't donated are another matter, which you can't eliminate without taking a big whack to the first amendment and core political speech.

It is not illegal for corporations to donate to political campaigns. It's also not illegal for corporations and lobbyists to offer jobs, to politicians after they retire from congress. Howard dean once a politician is now a lobbyist.

See: https://act.represent.us/sign/the-problem/

Corruption in America is perfectly legal, and the 1% carry a much larger voice than the bottom 90%, if politicians did what voters wanted it'd be a different story, see the video on that link for evidence that politicians vote 0% of the time with what the people want, and follow a more normal curve with the elites/corporations.

Money shouldn't = speech. This gives certain people more access to free speech, tips the tables, makes the country an oligarchy not a republic or democracy.

Imagine if all federal offices gave each person running $1 million dollars. Media stations gave each person 30 minutes/month during primaries and general elections for ads. No donations were allowed from corporations, and nothing from an individual exceeding 1000.

Imagine if lobbying were completely illegal. The anti-corruption laws (see represent.us link above) would fix this. It's a bi-partisan movement to fix corruption on BOTH sides of the aisle.

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

#346

Post by gremlinsinc » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 3:32 AM UTC

irrational wrote: post #344

gremlinsinc wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if I were to overthrow the government, I'm assuming many peers would be involved too, probably Anonymous, a lot of the tech community, etc.. (if it was down party lines, or even 99% vs 1%... Assuming the revolting army was full of tech geeks, the best we could hope for is a drone/robotic army that uses technology. Because jocks most of us are not. LOL.

I have to assume that the government has the ability to shutdown the Internet at will. Perhaps even the ability to physically destroy the networks at key locations at will. They certainly have the ability to take the electric grid offline at will which would render most technology moot within a short period of time unless you have solar panels and battery backup.

Not at all -- not with satellite tech/internet (who's side will Musk be on?) -- what about mesh networks? Musk could also supply energy/electricity if he joined the 90%, I'm sure some billionaires might come join the lowly poor people fighting against Oligarchy.

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

#347

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 4:07 AM UTC

gremlinsinc wrote: post #345

dragonwriter wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's illegal for lobbyists, corporations, etc to donate to politicians It is illegal for corporations to donate to politicians. But independent expenditures that aren't donated are another matter, which you can't eliminate without taking a big whack to the first amendment and core political speech.

It is not illegal for corporations to donate to political campaigns. It's also not illegal for corporations and lobbyists to offer jobs, to politicians after they retire from congress. Howard dean once a politician is now a lobbyist. See: https://act.represent.us/sign/the-problem/ Corruption in America is perfectly legal, and the 1% carry a much larger voice than the bottom 90%, if politicians did what voters wanted…

> It is not illegal for corporations to donate to political campaigns

The FEC, who actually enforced election law, disagrees: https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate...

“Campaigns may not accept contributions from the treasury funds of corporations, labor organizations or national banks. This prohibition applies to any incorporated organization, including a nonstock corporation, a trade association, an incorporated membership organization and an incorporated cooperative.”

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

#348

Post by mrb » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 4:33 AM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #191

mrb wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

« They are not wildly profitable (if at all). » Often repeated, but wrong. Their financials might show almost no net income (just $3B) but that's just because they choose to reinvest every dollar of gross profits into themselves to grow. Just look at their income statement: in 2017 they invested $23B into "R&D". These are profits they could have just taken. Obviously, reinvesting in themselves has been a fantastic ch…

You can expect that these RnD expenses just being regular opex. Classic dotcom era trick

Highly doubtful. You don't even have to trust the word of their financial auditors to get convinced. Just knowing that AMZN's growth over the last 10+ years was entirely self-funded is clear evidence they have cash laying around to reinvest into the company.

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

#349

Post by TangoTrotFox » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 6:01 AM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #324

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At Amazon's scale you cannot simply turn tens of billions of dollars into economically meaningful growth. If you could, and expect proportional increase in valuation, then nearly every company would be doing the exact same thing. Take for instance Apple. They are netting some $48 billion a year with much more than that on hand. They clearly desperately want to move beyond just the iPhone and have been trying all sort…

The bulk of Amazon's "investments" are leaving profits on the table and thus undercutting competitors and in essence buying market share.

"Undercutting competitors" and "buying market share" is literally what defines competition. And this is phenomenally good both for the consumer and for the companies that are able to slim themselves down enough to succeed.

Comcast, for instance, isn't really a monopoly. There are numerous other big players in that industry. But the thing is that instead of "undercutting competitors" and "buying market share" the competitors all agree to cooperate and split up the market. The result is when you buy something from Amazon, you're hitting quite close to the wholesale cost of that item. And when you pay your high speed internet bill to Comcast, what you're paying is some large multiple of the real cost of service.

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

#350

Post by alecco » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 7:09 AM UTC

fullshark wrote: post #151

vlunkr wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are average Americans losing purchasing power? This is a real question, I don't know where to look that up.

Goods are cheaper, Rent + College Education + Healthcare is much more expensive.

Just for the sake of argument:

Rent can be fixed by moving. A lot of people move out of California and NY for a better life. Companies will follow.

College and education are being disrupted. Hopefully online courses and independent certification can fix the problem soon.

Healthcare is expensive because people in US are obese and unhealthy. And there is a lot more treatment for previously untreated problems but at a very high price. Go walk around a hospital to see where your insurance money is spent.