91–100 of 560 posts
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$2B divided by 600k employees would be more than $3000, which is actually huge for many people.
If you're making $50k/year, that's a one time 6 percent bonus. Color me unimpressed.
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Speaking as a Seattle resident, and despite my dislike for Bezos, this was a stupid tax - more connected to Seattle's dysfunctional politics than solving our bad homeless problem. Among other things, it was keyed to revenues not profits (specifically to target Amazon) but it ended up burning the likes of grocers who provide decent jobs but don't have a lot of margin even with large revenues. Good riddance to it and a…
As a Seattle resident, what do you think of the argument that Amazon greatly contributed to homelessness in Seattle? I read somewhere that Amazon's explosive growth raised the property values in Seattle, which in turn caused a surge in homelessness. Is that true?
- exploding drug addiction and related mental health issues
- Seattle does a remarkably crappy job of assigning the low income housing we build and/or contract for. Too many people get it who shouldn't qualify. Too many non-profits cherry pick their clients. Etc, etc.
- It's super hard to get coherent services out of the system. Which makes it self-selecting in the sense of concentrating the worst cases.
Amazon, to a certain degree, was/is part of running up the price of apartments and homes. Some homelessness is a consequence, but mostly that pushed people further (or totally out) of the area.
I'm not at all convinced that if we raise 2x the money, we'll spend it intelligently enough to make a difference here.
(1)My partner worked in the area homeless system and I'm getting a lot of my info from that.
I work most days inside Amazon Fulfillment Centers. No one is forced to be there and most are happy they have the jobs they do because every other company out there treats them as bad or worse. If they don't want to be there, they can quit at any time. The problem isn't Amazon, it's a society that doesn't give a shit about the lower class and won't pass any laws to help them. Not if it would mean higher prices. Not if it's the demonized 'socialism'.
Complaining about Bezos feels great, but it doesn't do anything. Lobby your congressman and senator for law changes that force all companies to treat their lowest-paid employees better. Tell them to support Sander's "stop Bezos act" too if you like- I think it's a great idea.
Fight the root of the problems, not the symptoms. And don't complain when someone actually tries to do good for once.
And of course, bias note: I work for Amazon but I don't speak for the company in any capacity. These opinions are my own.
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This means that the public is subsidizing a company owned by the richest man in the world because he refuses to pay his employees a living wage. Doesn't this sound wrong?
But isn't he paying market wages for them? Similar to what the other companies are paying them.
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> Progressives make all kinds of noise and virtue signal for people outside our care, but where the rubber meets the road, they fall short on helping fellow Americans Can you expand on this?
We have homeless, we have veterans, we have addicts, we have people with mental health issues and we have illegal immigrants. The latter gets much more vocal support from progressives over fellow americans. We can have an influence on how we treat compatriots. So while some progressives want to subsidize services out of our tax dollars for people who have not contributed to our society, they don’t fight for fellow Am…
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You aren't anywhere near cynical enough. Taken far enough, programs to "help the homeless" -- instead of programs to reduce homelessness -- are a de facto plot to keep homelessness alive and well. It's a form of oppression of the masses. https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-shirky-...
Given that Bezos envisions, for example, creating a network of preschools in low-income areas, I'd say he's at least thinking about helping people get out of cyclical poverty. Still, I'd also like to see Amazon pay its employees better...
But, no, that he won't do. Which means there's actually a hidden agenda here.
Actions speak louder than words. You can charitably argue that he needs a good therapist to help him root out subconscious bias, but you aren't going to convince me he's somehow doing a good thing here.
For a billionaire who is slowly killing small business (because your margins are his opportunity), forcing people to earn less I find this ironic.
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Speaking as a Seattle resident, and despite my dislike for Bezos, this was a stupid tax - more connected to Seattle's dysfunctional politics than solving our bad homeless problem. Among other things, it was keyed to revenues not profits (specifically to target Amazon) but it ended up burning the likes of grocers who provide decent jobs but don't have a lot of margin even with large revenues. Good riddance to it and a…
As a Seattle resident, what do you think of the argument that Amazon greatly contributed to homelessness in Seattle? I read somewhere that Amazon's explosive growth raised the property values in Seattle, which in turn caused a surge in homelessness. Is that true?
https://medium.com/@15kwhm2a/a-brief-history-of-seattles-ant... is very good. The Mises Institute has come to similar conclusions. When those guys and leftists agree, you gotta think there's something to it.
If Amazon had paid their federal income taxes this philanthropy wouldn't be necessary. Amazon paid no federal income tax in 2017: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/may...
In France we prefer to let homeless people die by freezing than assign them to a female shelter bed. That’s how far we go to protect women from the risk of being raped. Die, men, die.
If the state had more money? They’d simply assign it to the sexism campaigns. Or to one of the 2000 battered woman shelters in USA (and only one for men – hence homelessness?).
Source: I’m a volunteer for a suicide hotline.