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

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

#321

Post by gramstrong »

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.

Sometimes you give up a Queen to get to the King :/

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

#322

Post by ahh »

Bezos pays the Danegeld. I'm disappointed in him. I'm also not sure what political player he's paying off...he didn't seem to need much influence with Seattle politicians lately.

Bezos is smart enough to know that the problem with Seattle homelessness has nothing to do with access to money. The city spends like water on the homeless, and we see nothing from it (which makes the spending a complete success for its intended beneficiaries, the bureaucrats in charge of the money.) We need a new policy to deal with them, and with this we won't get it.

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

#323

Post by abalone »

ithilglin909 wrote: post #158

This isn’t popular, but I’d challenge anyone who thinks homelessness in Seattle isn’t primarily an addiction and mental illness problem to go spend a few afternoons in areas with significant homeless populations (3rd Ave in Pioneer Square is a great place, if you need a suggestion). It’s not that affordable housing isn’t a problem in Seattle. I know people who couldn’t live on their own in Seattle anymore due to rent…

That is actually a very popular opinion, and also very poorly informed. Your reasoning is entirely anecdotal and a trivial exercise in confirmation bias.

Here's one article (among many) exploring why "Seattle's homeless population went up 44% in the last two years."[1] Spoiler: it's not because addiction and mental illness went up 44%.

[1] https://q13fox.com/2017/12/06/seattles-homeless-population-w...

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

#324

Post by corysama »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #293
corysama wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

:/ 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 t…

How is increasing inequality a net win? The situation you've presented is even somewhat zero-sum, i.e. the first family's gain comes at the expense of the second. That's exactly what we should be trying to prevent .

It's not zero sum. One family makes more than before. The other makes the same as before. Net win. The extra money in the pocket of the first family is not coming out of the pocket of the second. It's coming out of Amazon's pocket.

The alternative is that no one gets raises. That's would be loss for a large number of families and no change for others.

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

#325

Post by chillacy »

mothsonasloth wrote: post #39

Curious to know if there is an Amazon killer company(ies) that will emerge in the future?

There are so many options out there today but the customer experience isn’t as good as amazon. Fact is amazon’s customer obsession is a real thing, and so they’re deservedly winning customers right now. If they ever slipped, Walmart is definitely eyeing their spot.

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

#326

Post by old-gregg »

baddox wrote: post #251
CydeWeys wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not seeing all the other homeless people though who were displaced by high housing prices and who aren't spending all their time drugged out in highly visible urban areas. There are many homeless people living out of cars or shelters, or in tents. Many of them even still have jobs, they just can't afford housing. See: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ucla-anderson-forecast...

I'm not in Seattle (I live and work on some of the most conspicuous blocks in San Francisco for homeless drug users), but I'm sure that both groups exist in both cities. I think what's important is for policy proposals to treat the groups differently, rather than bundling them together into a proposal to "solve homelessness." In my experience in SF these proposals usually only focuses on one set of issues, like minim…

> to treat the groups differently, rather than bundling them together into a proposal to "solve homelessness."

I agree. Add the absence of a healthcare system to that too. Personal anecdote: a homeless man offered to wash my car for money. He seemed intelligent and nice, so I agreed. He told me the story of him becoming homeless. Both he and his wife worked and rented an OK place in OK part of SF. His wife got into a car accident and their crappy insurance couldn't handle it, the deductibles were astronomical because, as usual, some of the "independent businessmen" who "provided care" were out of network, as if the unconscious victim had any control over who touched her.

So they had to drop their income below certain level to qualify for free healthcare. Now he didn't have enough for rent and moved to under a highway bridge and was visibly embarrassed by it.

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

#327

Post by mywittyname »

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…

Let's say you paid $1,000,000 for a home that would fetch $200,000 in most other parts of the country.

What would you do if someone proposed a law that you figured would half the value of your home? Eat the loss or oppose the law?

Property owners in CA are being rational. They don't like the poop, commutes and homelessness. But they aren't willing to take a half-million dollar bath on their real-estate investment.

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

#328

Post by emodendroket »

chillacy wrote: post #320
emodendroket wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taken to its logical conclusion, this idea means we shouldn't have any government at all.

Not sure if that’s the line of reasoning. A well known danger of democracy is rule by mob. For instance a tough thing to get right is protecting rights of minority groups. If everyone voted for their own direct benefit, we’d just be locking minorities up and taking their assets with power of the majority. Luckily doesn’t seem to happen much.

If the government taking things by force, or by the implied threat of force, is bad, then taxation is bad, and if you don't have any kind of taxation you don't have a government in any meaningful sense.

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

#329

Post by woodrowbarlow »

clort wrote: post #256
fjsolwmv wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in a car is homeless.

What is it about the car, that it doesn't actually have living accomodation or that it is not a house and has no address? For example, does living in an RV mean you are homeless?

speaking from experience, even a short gap during which you do not have an official address can create tremendous hurtles to getting housing, insurance, and employment.
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