Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#261

Post by toasterlovin » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 5:48 PM UTC

ageitgey wrote: post #222

dmode wrote: post #101

Finally someone realizes that there is a problem. There is no justification in the biggest economy of the world to have this much poverty and homelessness. I am amazed every time I travel to Europe, how few homeless people there are, despite their economic growth lagging the US. And it is inherently a solvable problem with adequate resources. We have $1 trillion for the military. Surely, we can spare a few billions a…

Agreed 100%. I live in California which has the same massive homelessness issues as Seattle. I also travel to Europe frequently and have noticed the same stark contrast where they seem to do much better at this. To try to understand why homelessness feels so much worse an California than in Europe, I did some very basic research (which I also posted on a similar thread once before). The numbers are shocking: San Fran…

Curious if you've accounted for issues like metro area vs. city limits. It could very well be the case that the London contains more of it's metro area within city limits than San Francisco, thus increasing the divisor vs. the numerator.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#262

Post by 1053r » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 5:48 PM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #186

1053r wrote: post #118

Homelessness in the USA in most places is an emotional or mental problem, but in some parts of the country, it's actually an affordability / NIMBYism / price control problem. For example, in the San Francisco Bay Area, there is a broad swath of folks who work full time (or more!) who have three choices: 1) Live with roommates, often exceeding the legal limits on the dwelling on the number of occupants, or live in ill…

I'm a clueless foreigner [0], and HN is my only window into the Bay Area (and, in a more general sense, into America), so I appreciate your writeup. On HN my impression that absolutely everybody agrees that SF and the cities near it should just build more and higher. It appears to solve all the problems (insane rent, extreme commutes, homelessness, poo), so why is it politically untenable? Who exactly is pro insane r…

In many parts of the bay area (SF, Berkley, East Palo Alto), the incentives of large swaths of renters are neutralized on this issue through extremely severe rent control laws. Between rent control and Proposition 13,* the vast majority of residents in most jurisdictions have incentives to either not care, or to actively oppose anything that would lower home values, either by improving transit, or densification.

* Proposition 13 is a law which is effectively "rent control for property taxes." It was passed through a direct democracy provision in the CA constitution, which prevents it from being undone by anything other than another direct vote by the residents of CA. It allows people to own homes worth many millions of dollars, while only paying a few hundred dollars a month on property taxes. This tax rate is inheritable, effectively creating a "landed gentry" class in CA. The tax rate is lost in most cases if the owner moves or does renovations beyond a certain extent, leading to numerous seemingly insane behaviors: for example, tearing down an entire house except for a single small wall, and then building a new house around that wall, or continuing to live in a 5 bedroom home long after all the children have moved out, crowding out a new family from being able to use that space. Worst of all, however, it has created incentives to vote for any and all proposed laws that make new building more difficult, leading to numerous follow on laws.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#263

Post by corysama » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 5:49 PM UTC

lev99 wrote: post #148

NeonVice wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Amazon creating more homeless people?

Increasing home prices in Seattle, where the median rent is $2,400 [0]. By bringing in people from out of state with high salaries Amazon is making the housing market in Seattle much more expensive as more people compete for a mostly static stock of housing. Zoning laws, mandatory parking, improved public transportation, affordable housing regulations, and new development could all improve the current situation so lo…

:/ The math you are presenting is “One family gets a large raise. Another gets a slightly harder time finding affordable housing”. Multiply that by a large number and you get a large number of families cannot find affordable housing. But, a similar number got large raises. It’s not a universal win, but it’s still a net win. It’s not even a horribly skewed distribution.

If I could make a genie wish, it would be that there was a bunch of luxury condo&apt construction for the new residents so that none of the old residents would have any pressure to move. But, I can’t blame the lack of construction on Amazon.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#264

Post by emodendroket » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 5:49 PM UTC

hfdgiutdryg wrote: post #190

emodendroket wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - exploding drug addiction and related mental health issues I think cause and effect are backwards here. Low wages and high housing prices seem like they'd naturally lead to homelessness and rates of drug addiction and mental illness among the homeless, although very high compared to the general population, are nowhere near as high as people would like to think.

rates of drug addiction and mental illness among the homeless, although very high compared to the general population, are nowhere near as high as people would like to think. Probably because nobody notices the clean, sane person living out of their car. We probably need better terminology, like functional vs. dysfunctional homeless, or something.

I feel like the reason it's so prevalent is less a question of terminology and more a question of absolution -- if, after all, the homeless have some immutable characteristic that makes them homeless, there's nothing society could have done for them.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#265

Post by asdkhadsj » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 5:50 PM UTC

fixermark wrote: post #232

asdkhadsj wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is really frustrating when a man makes that much and does so little. Like, I don't think/know if it should be law. I'm not talking about being Robinhood with our taxes or whatever. I don't know any of that. All I know is it's frustrating . Look at all the good Gates is working towards. There's just so much room for people with that much wealth to strive for. Honestly.. I think what's most frustrating is I can't ev…

FWIW, it used to be law. Tax rate on the top-1% of earners in the US was much, much, MUCH higher until the recent four or so decades.

At this rate I'd be happy if they simply paid as much as everyone else (percentage wise). Rather, that they didn't find as many legal tax avoidance methods.

I don't know if they should be taxed more than the 99%, I'll let someone who knows economics tell me what is best.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#266

Post by seltzered_ » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 5:50 PM UTC

forapurpose wrote: post #198

BryantD wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's go back a little bit further in the history. In 2010, Washington took a shot at an income tax for individuals making over $200,000 a year. Bezos spent $100,000 to oppose that (along with a lot of other wealthy Washingtonians). Bezos also didn't support the Seattle income tax, although as far as I know he didn't spend money to oppose it. The head tax was suboptimal and, yeah, stupid. Nobody would have proposed i…

> Bezos also didn't support the Seattle income tax, although as far as I know he didn't spend money to oppose it. He did; Amazon was among the primary opposition (if we're talking about the same tax): https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/12/technology/seattle-tax-am...

The nytimes article you linked is about the 2018 head tax. There were earlier initiatives:

- 2017 - Seattle approved an income tax for high incomes, but was removed six months later after a court dispute - https://www.mossadams.com/articles/2017/december/seattle-inc...

- earlier years - there have been Washington state income taxes proposed over the years, which have been usually shut down. googling shows the last might've been Senate Bill 6559 in 2016 - https://www.theolympian.com/news/politics-government/article...

The inability to pass a city income tax or a state income tax has been part of the arguments for why a head tax was proposed in 2018 - it's not ideal, but everything else in the past has been rejected.

Yanis Varoufakis (fmr greek minister of finance) gave a talk in Seattle a few months ago talking about the head tax: https://youtu.be/Z0M24CEEMFk?t=2m16s

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#267

Post by syn0byte » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 5:50 PM UTC

fjsolwmv wrote: post #223

asdfman123 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel people like Jeff Bezos, who already have all the money in the world, are more interested in winning/power and money is only a way of keeping score. Bezos is probably interested in growing Amazon into the biggest business in the world, and part of that strategy is cutting costs to the bone. What I'm trying to say is he's looking for a way to maximize Amazon's growth rate, not necessarily pinch pennies (pinch bi…

That is contradictory. If money is how he keeps score than he isn't going to give any way.

Not at all; He already scored. He already got the headlines. Whatever he does with it after the fact makes little difference.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#268

Post by Domenic_S » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 5:51 PM UTC

asdkhadsj wrote: post #252

Domenic_S wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frustrating? I can understand why you would feel like it's a shame, or feel disappointed, or even ashamed of tech/bezos/humanity, but why frustrated ? Is it that you're upset that you can't change the way someone else spends their own personal fortune?

> Is it that you're upset that you can't change the way someone else spends their own personal fortune? I haven't thought too much about it honestly, but it seems so, yes. I'm frustrated by a lot of things. It doesn't mean I think I should be trying to change Bezos' mind, but I think being frustrated in this scenario just means you feel a level of personal responsibility for the world around you. Even if you're not i…

> I'm frustrated by a ton of things I'm not personally able to change.

It's a matter of perspective, which is why I asked the question in the first place. Can you personally change how Bezos spends his money? No. Can you personally help the homeless and disadvantaged? YES!

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#269

Post by civilian » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 5:52 PM UTC

wnkrshm wrote: post #74

civilian wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flip it around. These people needed government support, and Bezos is giving them a job, so now they need less government support than they did before. Bezos is helping to give money to people who would have otherwise been totally on welfare.

Turn it around again, Amazon has underrun the competition that was paying living wages before and destroyed the jobs those people had before, by not paying taxes.

Their competitors were not paying "living" wages. Brick and mortar retail, especially mom&pop stores, were notorious for paying low wages.

Destroying jobs is a good thing. It means that Amazon can pass on the savings to consumers. I know that Amazon is disliked in Seattle & the bay area, but if you go around the rest of the country, people love amazon.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#270

Post by amadeuspagel » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 5:55 PM UTC

capdeck wrote: post #160

CodeSheikh wrote: post #130

I dont't care if this is a PR stint to ward of recent criticism Bezos is getting from Bernie et al but if this fund goes and actually help and make a real life impact on the lives of homeless people, then I am fine and I will hold back my criticism of Amazon. I mean clearly I have not done enough to mitigate homelessness in this country who am I to question others motives trying to solve the same problem?

Looks like this was cheaper than upping the salaries of warehouse workers to get them off food stamps and provide healthcare. For Bezos this is just another calculation, nothing more.

Bezos owns 16.4% of Amazon. Donating $ 2 Billions of his own money costs him about as much as donating $ 12 Billions of Amazon's money, which would likely result in him getting replaced.