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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#61

Post by nevinera »

ch4s3 wrote: post #50
dontlaugh wrote: post #2

Bill Gates pledged the same and yet his wealth hasn't reduced. Worse, the philanthropy has been targetted ideologically (like encouraging private schools) and somehow keeps ending up favouring companies he has ownership in.

I really don't get the animus against private schools. Surely a one size fits all public school can't possibly best serve the interests of every possible student. Furthermore in a pluralistic society, shouldn't we tolerate people's different preferences in education, especially those who opt for more religious education?

Most of us don't have a problem with _private schools_, just with state money or charity being aimed at them. Private schools are fundamentally capitalistic - they serve their (generally wealthy) patrons, not society.

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#62

Post by debacle »

ada1981 wrote: post #43
debacle wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The global income distribution model (farmers in India -> Jeff Bezos) is problematic. But it's such a chaotic system that anyone claiming to have the solution (similar to anyone claiming there is no problem) is likely lying. The only solution (to me) that even starts to make sense is some sort of forced worker ownership, but lord knows what the details of that might look like.

We know pretty well what forced worker ownership looks like. Hundreds of millions of people dead. Needs to be opt-in. The next wave of famous business people will likely be the Platform Coop-ists. Activists building unicorns not for the $$$ but for the Klout of taking on the status quo model.

I'm not talking about socialism, I'm talking about worker coops.

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#63

Post by fy20 »

malfist wrote: post #40
eloisant wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you're not the only one, plenty of people think like that which is why they keep capturing most of the value created by their employees and getting away with it.

I totally agree. They also overlook that this wealth isn't entirely "earned" by the billionaire. After all, wage theft is the most common form of theft. For a comparison, an amazon warehouse employee making $15 an hour, would have to work 40hrs a week, 52 weeks a year for almost 4 million years to accumulate the wealth Jeff has. Personally, I don't think that's equitable.

Honest question: What is the alternative?

We could apply a really high tax rate to billionaires, but that has its own set of problems and doesn't guarantee anything will change for the warehouse workers. Governments are much less efficient than private companies at spending; a lot of the taxes will go towards 'defense'; which government should tax global companies like Amazon?

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#64

Post by chadash »

tyingq wrote: post #41
chadash wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that mean his wealth hasn't reduced? Any money that he's given away (and he's given away a lot) has reduced his wealth. He'd be worth more if hadn't given it away.

The commitment was "commitment to give the majority of their wealth" . https://givingpledge.org/about

Yes, he has committed to give most of his wealth. And he has also already given a bunch of his wealth.

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#65

Post by toomuchtodo »

ch4s3 wrote: post #55
toomuchtodo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who have the skills to accumulate wealth at this scale don’t have the skills to give it away. They are extraction minded, and philanthropy is a direct contradiction to this mental model. Keep some to stay comfortable of course, but you have to be comfortable with your status, influence, and wealth substantially declining as a second order effect of the distribution logistics, and that’s just not who these…

Building a business that provides useful products and services isn't "extraction minded." Most of the people I've know over the years who start businesses do so because they want to be the one making decisions and having the ultimate responsibility. A lot of them are very community minded.

We are talking different scales. Billionaires vs your run of the mill millionaires.

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#66

Post by Workaccount2 »

nicoburns wrote: post #42
gavinray wrote: post #13

Quoted post unavailable.

I don’t understand how you can possibly think that someone’s contribution to the world is so outsized as to be worth millions of times that of say a teacher or a care worker. Would the world really be that much a worse place without bezos? I actually think there’s a decent argument to be made that it would be better… Have you just swallowed the idea that the market value of something is equal to its value to society?…

They deserve their wealth because you keep buying and using their products. If everyone who hated billionaires stopped using amazon tomorrow, Bezos would be in serious trouble.

But alas, Bezos offers a service that enormous amounts of people seemingly can't quit using, which to me (and the market that prices it), is infact worth hundreds of billions.

I haven't used amazon in 2 years. I'm sick of sitting in peoples apartments listening to them cry about billionaires while I'm tripping over prime boxes to get to the bathroom. Wake up.

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#68

Post by zie »

fallingfrog wrote: post #3

Billionaire philanthropy is mostly just another tax shelter. https://thehighasia.com/private-charity-just-another-scam-fo...

Once the money is in the foundation or DAF, you can't get it back out again to use for personal gain, and you really can't use it to pay yourself.

If you make a foundation, you can pay people to run it, and they can be friends of yours, even family members, but it's not like you can pay them ridiculous amounts of money compared to other foundations. That would be illegal.

That's not to say some people don't try that, I'm sure. But if they abuse it to much, they will likely get caught eventually. Certainly some probably pad just a little, and nobody raises a fuss, but it's not like some instant magic hide from estate tax thing. It's more like, hire your kid that's to stupid/lazy to work for a living. Sure it can be a totally cushy job. It's not any different than mom and pop's grocery store back in the day hiring their idiot kids to make sure the back wall of the store doesn't fall over. Sure it's a mostly pointless job, but it's not illegal to do that.

Since it's their money to control, they can of course use it to prop up some particular viewpoint, but it mostly washes out, since both aisles of the political camp can and do stuff like that.

So that article is mostly just uninformed crap, sorry.

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#69

Post by pmoriarty »

fy20 wrote: post #63
malfist wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. They also overlook that this wealth isn't entirely "earned" by the billionaire. After all, wage theft is the most common form of theft. For a comparison, an amazon warehouse employee making $15 an hour, would have to work 40hrs a week, 52 weeks a year for almost 4 million years to accumulate the wealth Jeff has. Personally, I don't think that's equitable.

Honest question: What is the alternative? We could apply a really high tax rate to billionaires, but that has its own set of problems and doesn't guarantee anything will change for the warehouse workers. Governments are much less efficient than private companies at spending; a lot of the taxes will go towards 'defense'; which government should tax global companies like Amazon?

"We could apply a really high tax rate to billionaires, but that has its own set of problems"

What problems?

For whom?

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#70

Post by pmoriarty »

ada1981 wrote: post #43
debacle wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The global income distribution model (farmers in India -> Jeff Bezos) is problematic. But it's such a chaotic system that anyone claiming to have the solution (similar to anyone claiming there is no problem) is likely lying. The only solution (to me) that even starts to make sense is some sort of forced worker ownership, but lord knows what the details of that might look like.

We know pretty well what forced worker ownership looks like. Hundreds of millions of people dead. Needs to be opt-in. The next wave of famous business people will likely be the Platform Coop-ists. Activists building unicorns not for the $$$ but for the Klout of taking on the status quo model.

There's a difference between brutal totalitarian regimes in which an elite exercise absolute power over millions of people and actual ownership by workers themselves.

It's the elites of those countries which owned everything and controlled everything.

If you weren't part of the elite you had to follow orders.

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