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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

#381

Post by X6S1x6Okd1st »

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 mean Blue Origin has been running for 20 years and the best we have from them is flights that were accomplished in the Cold War?

Blue Origin's is reusable. That's a huge difference.

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

#382

Post by alttab »

X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #381
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…

> I mean Blue Origin has been running for 20 years and the best we have from them is flights that were accomplished in the Cold War? Blue Origin's is reusable. That's a huge difference.

SpaceX has already done that, in less time, and took humans to the ISS.

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

#383

Post by mucholove »

ramesh31 wrote: post #375
mucholove wrote: post #363

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—f…

>and was able to use his skills, smarts and efforts to achieve the easiest way for me to buy something. And a small loan of $200,000 from his parents. Also that.

You’re supposed to build on the shoulders of giants. His parents went all in on him. That $200,000 was a meaningful amount of money to them. They bet the farm. I personally, want to live in a society which celebrates living on the shoulders of parents. Good for his immigrant father on being able to make this amount of money after having his fortunes erased in Cuba.

At some point, we cant be expecting more rags to riches stories. We need more acrobats, leaping from our shoulders.

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

#384

Post by WalterBright »

Hokusai wrote: post #367
WalterBright wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Good luck doing a Kickstarter for an enterprise that will need billions in investment.

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

#385

Post by tw04 »

prepend wrote: post #370
tw04 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/res…

>Target seems to pay $13.68/hour

You're comparing apples and oranges. The $13.68/hr includes high school cashiers. The average wage for a Target warehouse worker is $17, again from your own link [0] on page 2. The average range for best buy is $15, well north of the $12.61 Amazon is paying.

And AGAIN, far better working conditions. So no, not unsubstantiated. And no, it isn't hard to understand working conditions unless you're intentionally trying to gaslight. Amazon has pretty well known requirements for packages per hour that they brutally enforce to the detriment of employee health. Their competitors do not.

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

#386

Post by what_ever »

alttab wrote: post #382
X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean Blue Origin has been running for 20 years and the best we have from them is flights that were accomplished in the Cold War? Blue Origin's is reusable. That's a huge difference.

SpaceX has already done that, in less time, and took humans to the ISS.

I don't see the point of this comment. The parent comment didn't talk anything about SpaceX.

Also, since SpaceX did it already, in less time, should others just close the shop and not try to do the same?

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

#387

Post by monocasa »

bpt3 wrote: post #365
monocasa wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I would find it hard to believe it's unconstitutional given that the 16th amendment defers the definition of taxable income to US code.

And Amazon's lobbying isn't the only reason, but it is a reason.

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

#388

Post by JulianRaphael »

sgpl wrote: post #340
consumer451 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another reason to temporarily suspend cynicism is that this is a very interesting method of philanthropy. Allowing the recipients to chose their own destinations for the money could lead to a more diverse and disruptive set of expenditures. I am interested to see this award program's effects in 10-20 years. Is this an annual event? I never saw a definitive answer on that.

I mean I'd say Mackenzie Scott (fka: Mackenzie Bezos) is someone who should be lauded more here. Not that it's a competition or that one takes away from the other but she's doing more to chip away at the status quo of philanthropic giving vs others. In 2020, she gave away nearly $6 billion to 500 organizations. And has distributed $2.74 billion so far this year to about 286 orgs. From what I've read, these grants/don…

Agreed! Unfortunately, quite a bit of the money that she donates to some of these organizations goes into the pockets of extremely well-paid executives. That what's always bothered me about giving to charity orgs more widely. Luckily, there are websites that allow you to check how much charity organizations are actually spending on their programs vs. their expenses...

I do think that giving directly to individuals who will make sure that all of the money is spent wisely is an interesting alternative approach.

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

#389

Post by arrosenberg »

bluedevil2k wrote: post #337
arrosenberg wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lobbyists are paid for by private businesses, to win contracts which will be poorly performed by privately owned contractors. OTOH the US Government, with programs run by publicly paid employees: went to the moon, built a ton of dams, including the Hoover and Grand Coulee, electrified the Tennessee Valley, built the interstate highway system, etc.

Can you come up with any projects the US government has done successfully in the last 50 years though?

The Affordable Care Act website, despite the initial difficulties, is a pretty impressive feat. That said, the issue for me is that people parrot Reaganisms blaming the government, without stopping to consider cause and effect or history. The US Government was intentionally stripped of it's capabilities so private sector oligarchs could gorge off the public dole, and that's where we are at today. The solution is to rebuild those capabilities, not to surrender completely.

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

#390

Post by X6S1x6Okd1st »

sofixa wrote: post #219
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…

> 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 don't think people that think about this as their day job consider climate change to be the existential threat we are fixing by going to mars.

It's generally: nuclear war, asteroid strike, super volcano bioweapon/plauge and possibly malicious AI.

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