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Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

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Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#91
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It deserves cynicism. If he wasn’t a jerk he’d just pay his employees more and maybe pay some taxes. When everyone is fair upfront they don’t need to give us free turkeys on thanksgiving we can buy our own.

His employees are free to seek a better paid employment if a jerk they work for underpays them. What's up with this nonstop handout mindset lately?

So its alright for rich CNN contributors to get handouts from Bezos, but unacceptable for average Americans?

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#92
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It deserves cynicism. If he wasn’t a jerk he’d just pay his employees more and maybe pay some taxes. When everyone is fair upfront they don’t need to give us free turkeys on thanksgiving we can buy our own.

His employees are free to seek a better paid employment if a jerk they work for underpays them. What's up with this nonstop handout mindset lately?

> His employees are free to seek a better paid employment if a jerk they work for underpays them.

So, people have options to stop being poor, people have options to not have to pee in a bottle at work, but they chose to do it, why?

Poverty removes many options, lack of good education removes many options, abusive corporations keep options far away. The system is the problem, people is just living in a system manipulated for the benefit of others.

It's not a handout, it's asking for growth to be shared fairly. It's about taking care of our fellow humans. It's about creating a society that works for everyone and not just the few.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#94
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Previously he's been known for being openly communist (i.e. not just a regular socialist). As an aside, I still find it odd how we've rightfully shunned other totalitarian and mass murdering political ideologies, but we've completely whitewashed communism. I couldn't imagine another newscaster openly identifying as a nazi.

The difference is that communism is an economic idea, which was used by regimes that did brutal things. Whereas the Nazi ideology drove the violence. In one case, it was correlated. In another, causative.

Lol

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#95
post #9

All the critics lobbing cynicism against Bezos, Branson, and Musk saying, in essence, that their money is better spent here at home reminds me of a wonderful scene from The West Wing when one character asks why we have to go to Mars: "'Cause it's next. For we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill, and we saw fire. And we crossed the ocean, and we pioneered the West, and we took to the sky. The history of…

We literally got to the moon before any billionaires bought joy rides to lower orbit, so what you’re saying is proven false already by history? It’s so insane to me that people honestly believe that we need billionaires to fund all their hedonic desires in order to achieve anything good and useful as a society. It’s provably false and frankly an absolutely pessimistic view of society and humanity.

What’s hedonistic? this is a business. There’s money to be made on space, be it via a fancy rollercoaster now or mining or who knows what else in the future. It is inevitable.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#96
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a tax write-off.

I'll explain why that comment almost never makes sense. Let's say your tax rate is 50% and your taxable income is $1,000,000, so you'll owe $500,000 in taxes. If you donate $100,000 to charity as a "tax write-off", now your taxable income is only $900,000 and you'll only owe $450,000 in taxes, but you lost $100,000 to save that $50,000 . At the end of the day, you'll have $50,000 less than if you didn't donate anythi…

Bezos' taxable income isn't $1,000,000. Only an idiot billionaire would structure their day to day processes in ways that were taxable. He likely operates like other extremely wealthy people do[1]: take a small salary to cover the interest on extremely low-interest loans made possible with his massive stock holdings as collateral.

1. https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trov...

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#97
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It deserves cynicism. If he wasn’t a jerk he’d just pay his employees more and maybe pay some taxes. When everyone is fair upfront they don’t need to give us free turkeys on thanksgiving we can buy our own.

His employees are free to seek a better paid employment if a jerk they work for underpays them. What's up with this nonstop handout mindset lately?

What's up with this complete lack of empathy mindset lately? We hear this all the time "if you don't like it, leave". Quite often employees have very few options and their only leverage is to leave but not many people have large amounts of cash available to be unemployed.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#98
post #81
post #2

There will be a lot of cynicism on this post from the HN crowd, but these are unbelievably good recipients. I have interacted with Jose Andres many times, and go to his DC restaurants when I visit, and he is truly a wonderful soul who spends all his effort helping others. I don’t know much about Van Jones beyond what I see on TV, but if he’s of the same character as Jose Andres, that is stellar and they will both do…

It deserves cynicism. If he wasn’t a jerk he’d just pay his employees more and maybe pay some taxes. When everyone is fair upfront they don’t need to give us free turkeys on thanksgiving we can buy our own.

He pays all of his employees no less than what Bernie Sanders considers a living wage. At what point would people be satisfied that Bezos pays enough?

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#99
post #9

All the critics lobbing cynicism against Bezos, Branson, and Musk saying, in essence, that their money is better spent here at home reminds me of a wonderful scene from The West Wing when one character asks why we have to go to Mars: "'Cause it's next. For we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill, and we saw fire. And we crossed the ocean, and we pioneered the West, and we took to the sky. The history of…

We literally got to the moon before any billionaires bought joy rides to lower orbit, so what you’re saying is proven false already by history? It’s so insane to me that people honestly believe that we need billionaires to fund all their hedonic desires in order to achieve anything good and useful as a society. It’s provably false and frankly an absolutely pessimistic view of society and humanity.

You are 100% right. A million people can own $1000 in a corporation, or 1 person can own $1,000,000,000. The company has the same capital but wealth is distributed differently.

Even if we needed big corporations, we still do not need billionaires.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#100
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It deserves cynicism. If he wasn’t a jerk he’d just pay his employees more and maybe pay some taxes. When everyone is fair upfront they don’t need to give us free turkeys on thanksgiving we can buy our own.

His employees are free to seek a better paid employment if a jerk they work for underpays them. What's up with this nonstop handout mindset lately?

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