321–330 of 879 posts
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Person dies, wealth gets inherited at new cost basis, heirs pay off loans with new (higher) cost basis, tax revenue isn’t collected. At least that’s the model as I understand it.
> tax revenue isn’t collected. If you completely ignore estate taxes, this would be true.
I think that kicks in after $20M?
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> It's how we get to the moon and Mars and how we survive as a species. It's what's next. I find it extremely weird that people are banking on a (almost literal) moonshot for the survival of our species. Isn't trying to stop/lessen the damage we're doing to the place we currently live and which can sustain us better and more optimistic proposition than hoping a metric shitton of things go perfectly after probably mil…
I personally don’t think many people are banking on colonizing another planet, but rather the technologies created as byproducts of that effort. Between energy creation, energy storage, thermal regulation, extraction and refinement of products necessary for life (oxygen, water, etc), and transformation of atmospheric gases, there’s plenty that can help keep our current planet healthy and suitable for human life.
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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…
Define fair share.
> From underpaying workers (who have to use public assistance)
I'll never understand this line of reasoning. Would you rather have people who can't earn enough to support themselves earn $0 and rely entirely on public assistance? That's what will happen if you require employers to pay people more than the value they generate.
> 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.
Presumably Amazon delivery trucks are using gasoline, and fuel/sales taxes should cover some of those repairs. Also, presumably those trucks are using those roads because members of the community are asking Amazon to deliver stuff to them, so I don't see why the community shouldn't bear some of the burden of repairing the roads as well.
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…
> It's how we get to the moon and Mars and how we survive as a species. It's what's next. I find it extremely weird that people are banking on a (almost literal) moonshot for the survival of our species. Isn't trying to stop/lessen the damage we're doing to the place we currently live and which can sustain us better and more optimistic proposition than hoping a metric shitton of things go perfectly after probably mil…
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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…
This is the crux of your argument, and it's the core disagreement. Blue origin does nothing to advance space exploration just by virtue of existing. They are not competitive.
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And he isn't even involved in any arcane minimization schemes. ProPublica showed that he sold ~$4 billion in Amazon stock last year and paid a billion of it to the government.
And made $100B that year. Can I get a 1% effective tax rate too?
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…
He deserves ostracism rather than recognition.
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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?
Expecting a living wage from a full-time job, especially when you're working for one of the most profitable companies in the country headed by the wealthiest man on the planet, isn't a "handout mindset". You'd have to be an absolute doormat to accept poverty in exchange for your full-time labor. "Get a different job" isn't the solution here, because there is clearly a massive demand for jobs at Amazon, and those jobs…
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> 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.