Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change • Hacker News Board

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#141

Post by loeg » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

humbledrone wrote: post #74

inerte wrote: post #20

After reading Winners Take All my level of cynicism is through the roof with headlines like this. $10b of his own personal fortune? That won't results in tax breaks / deduction because can be considered a donation? Or does that include money Amazon-the-company is spending on "climate change" efforts, such as buying electric delivery trucks instead of gas ones? Investments in "green datacenters"? Is any of this new in…

I frequently see the "they're just doing this for the tax breaks" sentiment for these kinds of donations (especially when the donor is a corporation or hyper-wealthy individual) but I don't understand the reasoning. From what I understand of tax deductions, a donation of $X basically means that the donor can skip paying taxes on $X of income. This results in a savings of tax% * $X, which is always The tax deduction a…

Personal income tax deductions are additionally capped at 50% of income (and maybe 30% for unearned income? I forget the specifics). So if Bezos' income is $1/year, basically none of this would be deductible if it came from his personal fortune.

That said, I think GP is expressing skepticism that the total $10B figure comes from Bezos' personal fortune rather than being a spending plan for AMZN's business. The article doesn't exactly make this clear.

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#142

Post by Ididntdothis » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

jdminhbg wrote: post #128

rapind wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We shouldn't care because it's better that a billionaire chooses where that money goes instead of a democratically elected government? I'm not poking fun either. That's really what you seem to be saying. Does this still work if he puts this money towards a cause you're not keen of?

The post you’re replying to already explained where the democratically elected government is choosing to spend the money. Billionaire seems to be making better decisions.

“Billionaire seems to be making better decisions.”

Don’t buy into that. Otherwise we’ll soon have a dictator who gets things “done”. Part of the problem with democratic governments not working well is that the system gets manipulated by rich guys pushing their personal agenda.

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#143

Post by loeg » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

inerte wrote: post #20

After reading Winners Take All my level of cynicism is through the roof with headlines like this. $10b of his own personal fortune? That won't results in tax breaks / deduction because can be considered a donation? Or does that include money Amazon-the-company is spending on "climate change" efforts, such as buying electric delivery trucks instead of gas ones? Investments in "green datacenters"? Is any of this new in…

Income tax deductions are limited to a fraction of income. I don't think that's a meaningful complaint there.

The perhaps more interesting complaint is that the fund is still ultimately controlled by Bezos; he can only spend it on some vaguely charitable things, but ultimately he can hire and pay cronies, choose to fund his choice of projects, etc, etc. It's both not his and still his money.

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#144

Post by ericd » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

selectstatement wrote: post #92

jschwartzi wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or eating meat. Or drinking milk. Or eating cheese. or eating corn. Or the thousand and one little things that you can do to vote with your wallet. And remember the point of the exercise doesn't have to be to stop doing it completely, but to do less of it and to consider whether you really want or need that. It's a far cry between maybe ordering the 8 oz instead of the 12 oz steak versus burning your house down and k…

Why can't I just keep doing whatever I want and offset my carbon like these kinds of initiatives do?

Go for it. Just keep in mind that some forms of offsets are more effective than others.

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#145

Post by maximente » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 9:47 PM UTC

theklub wrote: post #22

Couldn't he just buy out the major coal energy companies and force them to become 100% wind+solar+etc within x years.

Spain bought out their coal miners recently:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/26/spain-to...

surprisingly not /that/ expensive considering the early retirement and training for newer miners

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#146

Post by inerte » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 9:47 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #122

inerte wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, three things. First of all, I searched and couldn't find he's actually giving $10b. What I mean is that I don't know if the $10b accounts for any Amazon investments / costs. Second, it's not -$10b if he's getting a tax break for some of this. It's $7.6b as someone else mentioned. I know, still a lot of money! But he's not loosing $10b from his fortune. Third, in this case you happen to think it's a win for soci…

> The lack of accountability for the influence billionaires have in our society should be a concern The thing is, a lot of us like that what people do with their own money is not accountable to the government. I think it's essential that not all of society is under control by a single central power. EDIT: As someone said on Twitter - "Say what you want about billionaires, I doubt any of them would have decided to giv…

This "single" central power is actually 250M potential voters, 130M actual voters, 20M workers, 90k, 50 states, and 20k cities / town / villages.

On the other side, 600 billionaires. Which because they figured out how to earn and keep a lot of money somehow makes them capable of fixing women's issues, racial conflicts, climate change, mass incarceration, homelessness, education, hunger, and healthcare problems. Somehow, they will do all that without influencing public policy, in a sustainable, ethical, morally justifiable and rightful way, so as long as we let them keep getting richer.

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#147

Post by Ididntdothis » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 9:48 PM UTC

I am a little worried that this initiative will only do things that don’t cost Bezos too much money. I feel the same when Silicon Valley guys push UBI. It often seems a way for them to keep their money while pretending to do something.

Maybe I am too cynical but these guys got to where they are by always looking out for themselves first.

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#148

Post by nck4222 » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 9:48 PM UTC

entangledqubit wrote: post #137

klipt wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the donation deduction is just a form of leverage. You effectively pay X but the charity gets 2X (actual multiplier depends on your marginal tax rate). One way of looking at it is that the government is "matching" part of your donation with tax money. But you never make money that way.

You can't make money this way but you can still argue that money that would have gone to taxes has now been redirected by an individual to a cause they solely decided is worthwhile.

Which is the point of the tax deduction in the first place.

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#149

Post by Freestyler_3 » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 9:50 PM UTC

legitster wrote: post #41

beachy wrote: post #34

On one level this is to be applauded. On another, shipping cheap plastic junk from China all over the world, to finish up in landfill a few years later, is the very definition of environmental vandalism and is Amazon's core business model.

Climate change is an order of magnitude bigger deal than plastics and garbage.

Climate change is an unstoppable force.

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#150

Post by tomp » Mon, Feb 17, 2020, 9:50 PM UTC

Znafon wrote: post #117

ocschwar wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normally I'd resent the $2.4 billion tax dodge, but given who receives the money right now, I'm okay with.

I'm not sure it's a "tax dodge", he just won't pay income tax on the money he donated.

Finally someone that gets it.

Feel free to complain about "tax loss" as in the government getting less money than they would otherwise, but it's definitely not a "tax dodge" - tax dodging only makes sense if you actually end up with more money than you would otherwise - i.e. you "earn" $100m but then you "dodge tax" to pay only $10m tax instead of $20m, and end up with $90m after-tax income rather than $80m. Multiple ways of doing that - the obvious one is moving your tax residence to a 0% tax haven, the less obvious one is to artificially inflate the value of an asset (e.g. a work of art) and then "donate it" and write off that from tax (e.g. buy it for $10k, donate it when it's "worth" $10m, write that off as a "loss" and pay only $10m tax instead of $20m).