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

Post by ryandvm » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 5:15 PM UTC

beardyw wrote: post #58

I am with Jesus on this one: Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to t…

Post by Mistletoe » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 5:46 PM UTC

ch4s3 wrote: post #56

wfleming wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He can give the shares away directly. Start a charitable foundation, give the shares to the foundation, and then the foundation can liquidate slowly (over decades if need be) to access capital.

Wouldn't the effect be basically the same, except the ownership changes? I can't imagine he'd have no involvement in such a foundation.

Post by Sir_Son_Son » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 6:34 PM UTC

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?

Post by frumper » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 7:08 PM UTC

whatwherewhy wrote: post #106

frumper wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then your net worth is $110 and when you give away $10 your net worth goes down $10.

Gates pledged to give his wealth away before he dies, not immediately. And that's good - the world will be getting much more money than it'd get if Gates just gave away all his money the moment he announced it. > Then your net worth is $110 and when you give away $10 your net worth goes down $10. Gates' wealth fluctuates all the time. There was a time when he was rather low due to his donations - multiple 10s of bill…

Post by zie » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 7:16 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #86

zie wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

"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." They can direct their foundations to give billions of dollars to corporations controlled by their friends, who use that money (after taking a cut, of course) to do whatever it is the foundat…