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Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities

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Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities

#71

Post by OtherShrezzing »

JimtheCoder wrote: post #28
boeingUH60 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bezos’s annual reported income during these years of $832 million put him only at number 15. He paid an effective tax rate of 23.2% ; as we’ve previously reported, Bezos had so little income in a couple of recent years that he was able to pay $0 in federal income taxes in those periods. https://www.propublica.org/article/americas-top-15-earners-a...

I always like how good old Warren Buffett is calling for high earners to be taxed more, yet he never seems to show up on any of these high earner lists...

He doesn't tend to show up in the lists because he pays himself relatively little (compared to other billionaires). Between 2014-18 he had income of $125m, and paid tax of $23.7m[1]. That's still lower than the average American absolute tax rate, but way higher than most other billionaires. So he's a bit less of a sensational headline than his contemporaries.

His wealth growth of $24.3bn is untaxed through those years, he presumably left those assets in Berkshire Hathaway where he'd personally not generate a tax bill for them. Eventually Buffet, or more likely his inheritors, will sell the Berkshire Hathaway assets, and should pay a monumental tax bill on them.

[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trov...

Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities

#72

Post by pb7 »

axlee wrote: post #49
NickM wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because they could afford to give more doesn't make this money meaningless. I'm not saying we need to like, bow down and praise Bezos over this, or that it erases any other bad things he may have done...but let's try to acknowledge that hundreds of millions toward this kind of charity is an actual good thing and not just a pointless PR stunt.

I'd prefer if Amazon et al paid their taxes and society as a whole could decide how to spend it to better itself, through the democracy that we are supposed to live in.

What taxes do they not pay? Have you contacted the IRS about this tax evasion? They have a whistleblower program so you could pocket some cash!

Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities

#74

Post by adventured »

bluefishinit wrote: post #22

> The Greening America’s Cities initiative launches with $50 million for urban greening efforts in five cities–Albuquerque, Atlanta... This is ironic given that Atlanta currently has 85 acres of prime greenspace that the city is spending $90M+ to turn into a police training center: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cop_City

> given that Atlanta currently has 85 acres of prime greenspace that the city is spending $90M+ to turn into a police training center

You mean the not prime green space that was a prison farm and illegal waste dump site for seven decades?

Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities

#75

Post by TulliusCicero »

ch4s3 wrote: post #37
hackncheese wrote: post #25

[flagged]

It boggles my my that any time there is an attempt to invest in the built environment of poor communities, someone always cries gentrification.

They're not entirely wrong: if you make some area nicer, people with more money still start outbidding people with less money to live there.

The solution is to fix the situation with housing:

* Enable vastly more housing supply so there's less direct 'competition' with people competing for housing slots

* Protect tenants' rights to housing stability; if you haven't broken any rules, you should generally be able to stay in your home

Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities

#76

Post by floren »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #59
bluGill wrote: post #45

Albuquerque is a desert, as such greening the city by planting anything is bad. They can still use parks, but parks there need to respect nature and that means very little grass or trees. (not zero of either, but the ground needs to be mostly bare). Hopefully they don't try to force what would be the correct green for the climate of one place on another. We have too much of that already.

A quick look on Google Maps shows some forested hills like right next to Albuquerque. Seems like some greening is viable while respecting the climate and environment.

You have to climb quite a bit to get to true forest. Albuquerque is in scrubby desert, although you get cottonwoods down by the river. Go a few thousand feet up the Sandia Mountains and you'll get pines, cedars, aspens.

Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities

#78

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

deanCommie wrote: post #23
23B1 wrote: post #17

Greenwashing. $400M is about what AMZN spent on the totally-unwanted LOTR reboot.

It's bigger than that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Carnegie => https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Corporation_of_New_Yo... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller => https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Foundation And now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos => https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos#Philanthropy (not significant enough yet to warrant it's own page) A classic move by e…

> But what's the alternative?

Taxing the crap out of them in some way that passes constitutional muster, and if necessary changing the constitution?

Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities

#79

Post by dannyobrien »

phatskat wrote: post #58
bluefishinit wrote: post #22

> The Greening America’s Cities initiative launches with $50 million for urban greening efforts in five cities–Albuquerque, Atlanta... This is ironic given that Atlanta currently has 85 acres of prime greenspace that the city is spending $90M+ to turn into a police training center: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cop_City

Never attribute to irony what can be attributed to fuckery. I don’t know Bezos or Amazon’s stance on cops but I do know that corporations loooooove police - it’s where cops came from. I wouldn’t be surprised if this infusion is specifically to detract from the bad press of Cop City. Oh wait, I do know Amazon’s stance - I was lying, you see. Amazon, via Ring, has really cozied up to law enforcement. The terms of what…

Do you have any pointers to the history of cops coming from corporations? In the UK, they came out of a government response against the inefficiencies of volunteer enforcement groups in the 19th century, and were mostly opposed by civil liberties groups (including the City of London, which was, I believe, was an institution dominated by merchant interests even then).

Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities

#80

Post by Evidlo »

phatskat wrote: post #58
bluefishinit wrote: post #22

> The Greening America’s Cities initiative launches with $50 million for urban greening efforts in five cities–Albuquerque, Atlanta... This is ironic given that Atlanta currently has 85 acres of prime greenspace that the city is spending $90M+ to turn into a police training center: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cop_City

Never attribute to irony what can be attributed to fuckery. I don’t know Bezos or Amazon’s stance on cops but I do know that corporations loooooove police - it’s where cops came from. I wouldn’t be surprised if this infusion is specifically to detract from the bad press of Cop City. Oh wait, I do know Amazon’s stance - I was lying, you see. Amazon, via Ring, has really cozied up to law enforcement. The terms of what…

What does it mean to attribute something to irony?
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