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Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers

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Re: Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers

#251

Post by lmm »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #246
lmm wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That tax incentive was set up deliberately. It's socially valuable for people to have retirement savings, so the rest of us are happy to subsidise you in that saving. Buybacks are an accident of tax law and ought to be taxed the same way as dividends.

> Buybacks are an accident of tax law and ought to be taxed the same way as dividends. The problem is it's really the other way around -- reinvested dividends should be taxed like buybacks, i.e. taxed when the purchased shares are sold. By contrast, taxing buybacks like current dividends would create a really grisly incentive for corporations to hoard a giant pile of money, since that would be the remaining way to de…

I'd actually go the other route: tax investment gains like any other income, at the time when they happen, and then the incentive to do buybacks or cash hoarding goes away.

Re: Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers

#252

Post by fragmede »

taurath wrote: post #65
tlrobinson wrote: post #60

One of the more worrying things to me is how this pandemic (and/or our response to it) will disproportionately affect small businesses and individuals. As Amazon hires 100k workers how many jobs are being lost by small businesses failing?

Amazon is now the only store open. This will clearly accelerate the death of retail, to the point that I'm not even sure it will survive. We must have a rent holiday if those businesses and their workers are to survive.

That's not true. at the very least, Walmart is open, does deliveries, and doesn't charge a monthly fee, unlike Amazon Prime!

Re: Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers

#253

Post by mirimir »

Amygaz wrote: post #185
rblatz wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a bit confused why would an anti-parasite drug be used now for covid-19

It should help alleviating the symptoms, but is in no way a antiviral. There's a phase 3 trial for treating pneumonia associated with coronavirus. This is based on prior work showing anti-inflammatory response in rheumatoid arthritis ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8278823 ). Note that the trial is happening in China ( https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04261517 ), where the barriers of entry and approval a…

> After randomization, subjects take hydroxychloroquine 400mg per day for 5 days, also take conventional treatments.

Huh. I'm on 200mg/day for rheumatoid arthritis.

I wonder if I ought to double dose for a while.

Re: Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers

#256

Post by ecommerceguy »

From what I'm seeing: Grocery Health and Beauty way up; everything else way down. If I were a RA person I'd be buying buying children's games from Walmart and hope the input warehouse can handle the influx of shipments. RA is still alive and well for the hustlers. I'm rooting for them!

Re: Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers

#257

Post by AnthonyMouse »

lmm wrote: post #251
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Buybacks are an accident of tax law and ought to be taxed the same way as dividends. The problem is it's really the other way around -- reinvested dividends should be taxed like buybacks, i.e. taxed when the purchased shares are sold. By contrast, taxing buybacks like current dividends would create a really grisly incentive for corporations to hoard a giant pile of money, since that would be the remaining way to de…

I'd actually go the other route: tax investment gains like any other income, at the time when they happen, and then the incentive to do buybacks or cash hoarding goes away.

Then you have two new problems, because a lot of investments (e.g. real estate, small businesses) aren't liquid, and you don't necessarily know the value at any given time.

If you own a restaurant and a sports stadium opens next door which causes the value of the land to double overnight, you'd suddenly owe $50,000 in capital gains tax, but what if you don't have $50,000 in cash? You'd have to sell your restaurant to pay the tax on it.

If you write some software for your small business and start to license it to people for $50 each, how much is your corporation which owns the copyright now worth? Ten thousand dollars? Ten billion dollars? It depends how many copies you expect to sell. But the government would have to appraise it. What do you do if they appraise it as worth tens of millions of dollars? You'd immediately owe more than a million dollars in capital gains tax, but it's on the appraised value of an asset that may not turn into that much revenue for years -- or at all. And with no guarantee you could even find anyone willing to pay you that much for the business.

There are good reasons not to collect the tax until the investment is converted to cash.

Re: Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers

#258

Post by Mountain_Skies »

learc83 wrote: post #210
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My neighborhood has eight houses per acre. We've had no problems with stolen packages even when left out overnight. This is the exurban fringe of metro Atlanta.

You're on the exurban fringe and you're at .125 acre lots?

Surprisingly yes. There are also townhouse and apartment complexes. Most homes are on bigger lots but I was surprised by the diversity of housing choices out here.

Re: Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers

#259

Post by ehnto »

Marsymars wrote: post #173
ksec wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

The tech industry has plenty of companies with laughable revenue compared to their investment capital, I'm sure those will be fine.

Re: Amazon to hire 100k warehouse and delivery workers

#260

Post by swivelmaster »

hirundo wrote: post #68

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)

What do you think this is, Reddit? No silly comments allowed on Hacker News!

(kidding)

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