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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

#361

Post by eloff »

dahfizz wrote: post #326
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…

> If this is all a massive dick measuring contest, I honestly couldn't care less. It's advancing space exploration and providing competition in the space. 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.

I'm not sure that's true. Even if they are never competitive with SpaceX you can't employ that many people and spend that much money without advancing the industry. The benefits are just second order effects.

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

#362

Post by dumbfoundded »

WalterBright wrote: post #336
lefrenchy wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Government did indeed put man on the moon. But they did it at an insane and unsustainable cost, which is why the moon was then abandoned. Musk/Bezos/Branson are making space travel a paying proposition, which makes all the difference.

Musk is creating a constellation of satellites that can provide global internet. His technology seems like the only viable way to and back from Mars. Bezos/Branson made a rollercoaster for the super wealthy.

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

#363

Post by mucholove »

Dudes and dudettes. Before you ask for higher taxes—hear me out.

First, recognize the trajectory.

Bezos is the definition of someone living out the American dream.

The corporate interest may be trending towards a monopoly—but this is a guy who was abandoned by his biological father, adopted by an immigrant, and was able to use his skills, smarts and efforts to achieve the easiest way for me to buy something.

Second—for all the taxes paid directly and indirectly in the US, the CDC and the FDA could not respond to this pandemic with any sort of competence.

Do I trust these people with money? No.

They could have spent 800 million dollars and avoided a pandemic—but once it started up again they just find it so easy to spend money like gangbusters.

This is a complicated issues. But before asking for higher taxes, ask for better constitutions.

PS-for my money, your tax rate should be based on lifetime earnings. I would love to know how to switch from yearly, to lifetime.

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

#364

Post by pb7 »

Salgat wrote: post #353
bluedevil2k wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares if he had parents invest in his company?!? Why do people jump to that immediately trying to prove what an “evil” guy he is. Guess what...Bezos’s parents paid their taxes on their incomes and saved the money and chose to invest in their son. Why is that a negative? Right place at the right time - there were millions of people in their 20’s in the late 90’s, thousands had $250,000 in cash to start a business,…

I'm not saying he is evil or that he doesn't deserve his success, I'm addressing his point that Bezos isn't just a product of his own talents, but that of his situation and the opportunities he was provided by our society.

That's the case for literally everyone in our society. Can I take your money then, since you're a product of a society I contributed to?

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

#365

Post by bpt3 »

monocasa wrote: post #335
bpt3 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He only has a 1% effective rate if you change the definition of effective rate. I assume you're fine with making that change, but the federal government isn't currently.

The federal government that Amazon spends millions lobbying. I'm well aware that what they're doing is legal; I'm saying it shouldn't be.

Taxing unrealized capital gains isn't happening because Amazon is lobbying the federal government, it's a fundamental premise of the US tax code and starting to tax them is arguably unconstitutional (I'm not arguing it is or isn't, but I've seen arguments that it is unconstitutional from reasonable sources).

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

#366

Post by ModernMech »

aeternum wrote: post #216
sweetheart wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is total fallacy, I'm sorry. "We do this thing because we have always done this thing" isn't actual any justification whatsoever. It's whats leftover when realizing you're having a hard time actually justifying why it needs to be done. "It's the way things are" are perhaps in all seriousness the 5 most dangerous words in the English language.

We need to go to space because if we don't, all of humanity will go extinct. The earth won't last forever and also tends not to fare well when it goes 1:1 with asteroids or nukes.

We're talking a timescale of millions of years before that happens, right? Have you you thought this all the way through? All the possible scenarios?

If we send humans out to the stars, our civilizations will diverge. First there's a hop to Mars, then Titan, then then next solar system over, then a galaxy or two. Soon enough you've seeded the universe with human civilizations that have no concept of what Earth was like. Maybe they've heard stories, seen videos or pictures, but what will they really know about Earth in 100k years?

It's not like we're going to be one happy galactic human family. We can't even do that here on Earth, how are we going to maintain peaceful relationships across the universe? So now all you've done is seed the entire universe with a race of petty, greedy, selfish, war-prone primates; living on barren planets, underground or in habitats; who have stories about a mythical homeland filled with a breathable atmosphere, rivers of drinkable water, abundant lifeforms that roam the surface freely, where no one has to live like hamsters (what even are hamsters?) in a habitat. What if they start talking about a better future for themselves on another planet, and they come right back here to conquer it?

I guess what I'm saying is, if all we're doing here is using science fiction to project out millions of years into the future, why are we only projecting positive scenarios where humanity heads to the stars and saves the human race from obliteration? What if instead of inventing the United Federation of Planets, all we do is invent the Reavers from Firefly, and we end up the authors of our own demise?

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

#367

Post by Hokusai »

WalterBright wrote: post #343
Hokusai wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Countries without billionaires are mired in poverty. Billionaires can make high risk investments. A million people won't.

A million people can invest $20 in high risk/high reward investments similarly to a venture capitalist, meanwhile investing $800 in some less risky investment.

Kickstarter exists.

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

#368

Post by Channel11 »

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…

You're a disrespectful troll.

The board admins here suck to tolerate these kinds of sh!t posts.

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

#369

Post by bpt3 »

bluedevil2k wrote: post #346
bpt3 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Bezos (and the wealthy in general), the interest rate on the loan is lower than your capital gains, so you can just keep rolling the loan forward forever.

And the interest is sometimes tax deductible

Yep. It's a great setup if you can get it (for yourself at least).

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

#370

Post by prepend »

tw04 wrote: post #136
prepend wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pay his employees more Doesn’t Amazon pay highest in its industry? I suppose people always want more, but it seems like they are already among the best. Of course pay varies by location and what’s good in one state is good in another. But it seems the average warehouse worker pay is $12.61 [0] with states ranging from $9.66 for North Carolina (holy cow) to $14.84 in Washington [1]. Amazon pays $16/hour [2] so that’…

Your own link [0] shows they aren't even close to the highest (Sysco - $30.99). At $16/hr they don't make the top 25. And knowing people who work warehouse for Best Buy and Target ($19.33), the working conditions are so much better as to be incomparable to what Amazon does to warehouse workers. Ignoring the fact they get paid more.

So not the highest, but above average.

It’s cool you know people who make $19.33 but I was referencing average pay.

Target seems to pay $13.68/hour [0] and BestBuy $13.69 [1] so they pay substantially worse than Amazon.

It’s hard to systematically understand working conditions though so hard to compare.

But again, the claim that Amazon employees aren’t paid well seems unsubstantiated.

[0] https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=Target_Corpora...

[1] https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=Best_Buy/Hourl...

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