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Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

nytimes.com

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

#161

Post by oh_sigh »

inerte wrote: post #146
BurningFrog wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Someh…

You can whittle those 130M actual voters down into 25M voters in important swing states.

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

#162

Post by BurningFrog »

inerte wrote: post #146
BurningFrog wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Someh…

The US federal government is absolutely a single central power. That its leadership is selected democratically is good, but doesn't change that.

I don't expect billionaires to be perfect, but so far none of them has invaded countries for mistaken reasons, killing hundreds of thousands of people, or locked up millions in a War on Drugs.

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

#163

Post by 0x1221 »

inerte wrote: post #96
planetzero wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does this matter? If he truly is pledging $10B, it can only be a win for society and the future of humanity. It shouldn't really matter if he gets a tax break or not.

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…

> Second, it's not -$10b if he's getting a tax break for some of this. It's $7.6b as someone else mentioned

No. It's $10 billion. 10 billion that he won't pay tax on. But he gives $10 billion and the cause receives $10 billion. The $2.4 billion is money that the government won't get in taxes.

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

#164

Post by yardie »

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…

You should read the book the OP mentioned. Most of the charities these billionaires donate to are also under their control. So the beneficiary and the benefactor are one and the same. Sometimes the moons align and the billionaire, the charity, and the public good are all served. Other times you get the Trumps' version of charity. And in some cases they can be harmful, such as the founder of Mozilla donating to charities that were anti CA Prop 8.

These charities are a way to bypass the democratic method of funding public goods. I don't believe the US military budget should be as big as it is. Yet I pay taxes that fund it whether I agree to it or not. If I was a millionaire I could fund a religious school that taught white Jesus as the one true religion instead of funding secular state schools.

The bigger problem is the people who have created many of these problems now want to be in control of the solutions.

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

#165

Post by loeg »

phillc73 wrote: post #79
legitster wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the worst polluters are state owned coal plants. There are some private energy producers, but from what I understand, most energy companies just act as interstate brokers between local agencies.

Then, buy the biggest coal mining companies and shut them down (or convert to renewables). In 2016, Australia was the world's biggest net coal exporter[1] with 32% of global exports and the fourth highest producer. As far as I know, all coal mining in Australia is undertaken by private companies who hold a mining lease. The $10billion could be used to buy controlling interests in some of the 10 biggest listed coal mi…

Australia also might not be keen on a foreign alien buying up all of their natural resource extraction infrastructure, private or not.

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

#166

Post by mediaman »

soVeryTired wrote: post #71
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.

Presumably the minor coal energy companies would quickly become new major companies in the vaccuum left behind.

Not really. Coal is not economic to make new plants. New plants are generally natural gas or renewable. So shutting down old plants shifts demand to NG or solar/wind.

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

#167

Post by ukoki »

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.

> You can't make money this way

Are you sure? What about something like this:

1. Buy art for $1M

2. Get your friends to bid up the price of the art by selling other works from the artist to each other at inflated valuations

3. Donate art to art gallery with a valuation of $10M

4. Deduct $10M donation from your taxes

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

#168

Post by viburnum »

legitster wrote: post #63
viburnum wrote: post #52

Be smarter to just back a political movement, but that would actually work, and diminish Bezos's own power.

I don't understand this. Backing a political movement is probably the worst thing he could do. He's completely distrusted politically, and polls terribly with the general public. He would only taint any movement he backed.

Nobody trusts or likes oil companies or drug companies or media monopolies either but they are extremely successful at achieving their political goals.

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

#169

Post by toomuchtodo »

maximente wrote: post #145
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

It’s really not expensive at all, but you have to have policymakers with the will to implement these policies.

Arby’s has more employees than there are coal miners in the United States, for example. The problem is there’s an enormous amount of investors and entrenched interests who are going to have trillions of dollars in stranded assets from these policies. Those folks should not be made whole for bad investment decisions.

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

#170

Post by wmf »

loeg wrote: post #151
chki wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But actually the state (society) decides which donations are tax deductible.

Well, elected officials decided that very early in the US's history of personal income tax. It's not like we have direct democracy and 2020 society has voted to approve this policy. We didn't have a federal income tax before 1913, and the government added the charitable deduction during the 1917 WWI revenue act, which also raised the personal income tax rates. As far as I know it's simply never been touched since 191…

The IRS still makes case-by-case decisions about which organizations are legally charities so there is oversight.
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