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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

#281

Post by geocrasher »

superfrank wrote: post #271
hemloc_io wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's really fair to lump Bezos, Branson, and Musk into the same bucket. Musk, for all his flaws, started an actual rocket company with new and frankly insane tech. Bezos and especially Branson's ventures feel much more like personal vanity projects than something that will actually push space exploration. I mean Blue Origin has been running for 20 years and the best we have from them is flights that wer…

> Bezos and especially Branson's ventures feel much more like personal vanity projects than something that will actually push space exploration. I'm not sure why people feel this need to draw this weird line in the sand and say that SpaceX is okay because Musk built a business, but Blue Origin and Virgin are bad because... reasons? Technology advances for all sorts of reasons. Lamborghinis exist because a farmer was…

  Even Bezos and Branson stopped right now, they've still proven that it's possible for a company other than SpaceX to put a man in orbit and dumped billions of dollars back into the economy.
False. I hate to be "that guy" but neither Bezos or Branson made it to orbit. Those were sub-orbital flights with parabolic trajectories. To use your analogies: If Tesla were the Ferrari, then Virgin Galactic and friends would be the kit cars that look like a Ferrari but have a typical muscle car under the skin.

That's not to say that neither is impressive. They are definitely impressive. But they're also just carnival rides for Billionaires, and that's what gets on peoples nerves.

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

#282

Post by edmundsauto »

ljm wrote: post #221
edmundsauto wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is wealth being redistributed, or are the Bezos’ simply slurping up the new money that have been so abundant? It matters, I think. Because if people are only getting relatively poorer when compared to the top 1%, it’s not as bad as if they are losing their standard of living. There are other issues about how excessively rich people can distort our society, but that’s not so much about the redistribution but the distr…

It's fair to say there is redistribution at play when wages have stayed stagnant for over 10 years (at least since the 2008 crash) while executive salaries and payouts have skyrocketed at an unbelievably disproportionate level. It's effectively a global aristocracy as a handful of people amass an amount of wealth that would be impossible to conceive of not even 50 years ago. They can't soak it all up from new money,…

For many workers, wages have stagnated but total compensation hasn’t, when you account for increased costs of benefits. I support universal healthcare, but it’s important to realize how much it costs employers has gone up.

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

#283

Post by asciimov »

cactus2093 wrote: post #166
cassac wrote: 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.

This line of argument is so completely unhinged. Bezos paid roughly $1B in taxes in 2018, and Amazon warehouses pay well above the minimum wage. I understand progressives wanting to raise taxes and raise minimum wage, but why in the world would you blame someone personally for just paying the going rate? That's what we all do for the taxes and service providers we pay.

Bezos makes an easy identifiable target, much easier to call out Bezos than any of the Walton's of Walmart.

The real issue is that major corporations aren't paying their fair share of the costs of running this country. From underpaying workers (who have to use public assistance) to getting sweetheart deals to build in your area.

Thanks to amazon I have more heavy delivery trucks running up and down my street. Meaning that street wears out faster, meaning my tax money is gonna have to repave it.

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

#284

Post by superfrank »

geocrasher wrote: post #281
superfrank wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bezos and especially Branson's ventures feel much more like personal vanity projects than something that will actually push space exploration. I'm not sure why people feel this need to draw this weird line in the sand and say that SpaceX is okay because Musk built a business, but Blue Origin and Virgin are bad because... reasons? Technology advances for all sorts of reasons. Lamborghinis exist because a farmer was…

Even Bezos and Branson stopped right now, they've still proven that it's possible for a company other than SpaceX to put a man in orbit and dumped billions of dollars back into the economy. False. I hate to be "that guy" but neither Bezos or Branson made it to orbit. Those were sub-orbital flights with parabolic trajectories. To use your analogies: If Tesla were the Ferrari, then Virgin Galactic and friends would be…

You're correct, but that doesn't really change the point I was trying to make

Since you've edited your post, I'll respond to the rest.

> But they're also just carnival rides for Billionaires, and that's what gets on peoples nerves.

If Bezos or Branson had sent someone else up in their place, does that really change anything?

Sure, it's expensive and only the super wealthy can afford to go into space right now, but there are plenty of technologies in our past that only the wealthy could afford at first, but as time went on, they became more affordable.

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

#285

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

BingoAhoy wrote: post #201
agorabinary wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of the decisions that determined whether Amazon would become worth >$1T or yet another mediocre web store were made by warehouse workers? Jeff is primarily responsible for Amazon's success. For making Amazon what it is, him being worth ~10% of the whole company is a totally reasonable compensation

He's entitled to more than your average amazon employee, warehouse worker, and probably any other employee: YEAH sure. But I do not agree on paying such a high premium for simply being a decision maker. I'm merely making an argument that it's hard to objectively determine how much more one employee is entitled to the corporations stock pie than another based on merit. Amazon and it's 800,000 employee base built Amazo…

>simply being a decision maker.

This right here shows you don't understand what it takes to make a trillion dollar company.

They were a book seller that eventually expanded into an online Walmart, that ended up becoming the largest cloud provider in the world.

Just look at Borders/Barne's and Noble if you want to see two companies that were actually in a better position in the same industry 25 years ago. That's the difference between 'simply a decision maker' and an average CEO.

> I'm willing to bet even if Jeff Bezos is a super employee, one thousand times more productive and smarter, than the next best employee he still couldn't amass 207 billion himself.

This is actually just false. He essentially just proved you could. [0]

[0] Reality

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

#286

Post by tester756 »

Ostrogodsky wrote: post #160
pb7 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These billionaires made many billions on covid, while you got a 1400 dollar check so you could survive. They made billions from excellent businesses on which the world relied during a time of crisis. What would people have done without the likes of Amazon and fast delivery of nearly everything? >These billionaires pay their workers minimum wage every day. No one makes minimum wage at Amazon. >People can't get toilet…

> They made billions from excellent businesses on which the world relied during a time of crisis. What would people have done without the likes of Amazon and fast delivery of nearly everything? And the people earning the low wages were all doing crappy jobs? Did Bezos personally deliver all the packages? I mean you can be as capitalistic as mr Moustache (or whatever he is called) from Monopoly,but you have to agree t…

> College, medicine have increased 5-10 times

I think you should be mad on your govt, not Bezos.

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

#287

Post by monocasa »

pb7 wrote: post #178
monocasa wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And made $100B that year. Can I get a 1% effective tax rate too?

His equity appreciated and will be taxed appropriately when it is sold.

Except it doesn't get per se, loans are taken out and paid back on a schedule smaller than the appreciation of the stocks which were used as collateral.

That's what that $1B was, and is relative scales we're talking about.

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

#288

Post by fbelzile »

hemloc_io wrote: post #138
Zelphyr wrote: 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…

I don't think it's really fair to lump Bezos, Branson, and Musk into the same bucket. Musk, for all his flaws, started an actual rocket company with new and frankly insane tech. Bezos and especially Branson's ventures feel much more like personal vanity projects than something that will actually push space exploration. I mean Blue Origin has been running for 20 years and the best we have from them is flights that wer…

I agree, Blue Origin at least was thoughtful enough to use fuel that doesn't emit CO2.

Branson is more likable but does seem like he's just trying to defend his title of being the eccentric billionaire, rather than thinking too hard about the future.

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

#289

Post by kylestlb »

staunch wrote: post #226
hemloc_io wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's really fair to lump Bezos, Branson, and Musk into the same bucket. Musk, for all his flaws, started an actual rocket company with new and frankly insane tech. Bezos and especially Branson's ventures feel much more like personal vanity projects than something that will actually push space exploration. I mean Blue Origin has been running for 20 years and the best we have from them is flights that wer…

There's no reason to get into comparisons, except to the extent that it helps push them to compete harder, and make more progress. A public space race of billionaires is exactly the kind of thing we should all be hoping for. They can leverage their relatively small funding to push much larger government funding in productive directions. They're better than most government administrators and don't have as many constra…

"Almost all progress is connected to selfish goals"

[citation needed]

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

#290

Post by monocasa »

cactus2093 wrote: post #169
monocasa wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And made $100B that year. Can I get a 1% effective tax rate too?

Yes you can, just don't realize your capital gains.

"Don't be poor"

Like to hit 1% effective just living on $20k/yr is $2M/yr in capital gains.

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