221–230 of 338 posts
If this were a Bond movie, Bezos would be cackling in his secret lair about how his viral plan was coming to fruition. Bond (played by Idris Elba) would then cough on Bezos, who would whip out his antidote, which Bond would grab, escape, and release to the world before being killed by Thanos. (Pitch Meeting, call me)
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I wish they'd treat their warehouse workers better, and pay a fair tax, so until they do I'm not buying anything from Amazon . I use alternative, usually local or national rather than multinational, suppliers.
Can you clarify what you mean by "pay a fair tax"? I would assume that Amazon (like most publicly traded companies) pays all the taxes that it's required to by law. > “Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that…
Amazon has a huge business in the UK with offices, staff, stock and warehouses, but Amazon UK doesn't sell stuff. You are actually buying UK goods from UK warehouses with UK delivery etc but the money goes straight to Amazon EU Sarl in Luxembourg, where it has a sweetheart tax deal.
So Amazon exploits the whole UK social system of education, health services, roads, police etc etc without paying the UK government for the benefits. This is really bad for the UK and other countries except Luxembourg.
Meanwhile, Amazon EU Sarl reduces its taxes by paying Amazon Europe Holding Technologies SCS - a "non-resident" company -- hundreds of millions of euros for "intellectual property" rights that are basically untaxed (Amazon is paying itself), and the money gets spirited back to the USA.
The cost of "intellectual property" is really just a made-up number. What is Amazon charging itself vast amounts of money for when its UK website and business processes are basically the same as its American and other websites?
The whole thing may be legal but it's basically a fraud, and the EU ordered EU ordered Amazon to repay €250m in “illegal tax advantages”. Which is still chickenfeed for a company of Amazon's size and wealth.
It's highly likely that European countries will introduce a "digital tax" on turnover to stop this kind of cheating. I expect Americans will get angry if or when that happens, but in the long run, we don't have an alternative. Infrastructure is expensive, and the money should come from the people who are benefiting from it.
In the US, of course, Amazon gets tax breaks from people who want Amazon investment. New Jersey offered $7bn of tax incentives in its bid for Amazon's "second headquarters".
If companies like Amazon actually paid the taxes required by law that would be nice. Instead they have armies of people finding wholly artificial ways to legally avoid paying those taxes.
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Such a simple and reassuring answer, why can’t we have that in America?
Just to play devils advocate... this has the potential to cause an absolutely massive liquidity crunch. All debt is an asset - all payments on debt are a positive number in some investment portfolio/banks/etc balance sheets (eg a bond). If everybody stopped paying debts and rent, the financial industry could crash overnight as suddenly nobody has the cash flow to pay each other any more. And that would trickle down i…
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>Even if they had that $10.4Bn, they could not get through Coronavirus. Airlines have HIGHLY volatile margins on INSANE amounts of revenue. None of them could withstand a 70% decrease in air traffic for a year. Ignoring Tech industry, most companies on earth could not withstand a 70% drop in revenue. The world we are in today is that everyone is trying to go for Big Revenue and Slim Profit Margin. A side effect from…
> Ignoring Tech industry, most companies on earth could not withstand a 70% drop in revenue. How many tech companies have withstood a 70% drop in revenue? BlackBerry comes to mind.
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I have an old Windex spray bottle that ive filled with rubbing alcohol and I've been blasting everything with extreme paranoia. Honestly statistically speaking in most areas out chances of coming into contact with the virus are still quite low. There's 300MM+ people here and even if 1MM are infected, those are good odds.
> those are good odds You are presuming that you are meeting people at random - however you are most likely to meet people with a high number of social interactions, and they are far more likely to catch the virus. Depending on the social graph, your chances vary, but the chance will clearly be far worse than a crude estimate.
Well, those who are willing to comply.
At some point even Amazon workers will have to stop working to contain the virus. How Amazon if going to provide safety to workers when even doctors with all protection still gets the virus?
People who get the virus and recover will be able to go back to work without risk of being infected.
If this were a Bond movie, Bezos would be cackling in his secret lair about how his viral plan was coming to fruition. Bond (played by Idris Elba) would then cough on Bezos, who would whip out his antidote, which Bond would grab, escape, and release to the world before being killed by Thanos. (Pitch Meeting, call me)
If Bezos needs an evil villain lair for his secret headquarters, I know a fortress in the American desert with three-foot-thick stone walls, solar and diesel electricity, and its own water facilities, perched on a mountain ridge for maximum visibility 150 miles from anywhere meaningful. Last I saw, it was for sale for $750k.
[0] https://www.geekwire.com/2020/jeff-bezos-wants-curb-climate-...
[1] https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/take-a-look-ins...
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We need taxes on vacancies. Encourage people to let property go to people who can put it to some use. Prevent blight and crime, etc, too.
Ah yes, the California solution to everything - tax it.