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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

#211

Post by arn »

ohgodplsno wrote: post #124
ironrabbit wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question because I'm out of the loop: it looks to me like the "Bezos doesn't pay taxes" argument is just pointing out that most of his wealth sits in unrealized gains in amazon stock. When he sells stock, he pays taxes. Is there more to it that I'm missing? Is the prevailing argument that we should be paying taxes on unrealized capital gains?

Bezos doesn't sell stock. What little he does goes into Blue Origin and is written off again. When Bezos needs cash, he just borrows from the bank using his shares as collateral. No taxes.

This is not true. He realized $4 billion in gains in that ProRepublica article people referenced, and he regular sells shares.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2021/05/11/jeff-b...

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

#212

Post by LukeShu »

boringg wrote: post #186
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…

Just a minor correction here- SpaceX has been around for 20 years as well.

Unless it's been edited, the comment says that SpaceX has been around "for two years less"; as in 2 fewer years than Blue Origin, which is essentially true (Sept 2000 vs May 2002; so really more like "a year and a half less").

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

#213

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

sweetheart wrote: post #171
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…

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.

It’s maybe a bit silly to argue about inspirational slogans from TV presidents, but constructing “we have always been exploring and we will continue to explore” as a defense of the status quo is… quite impressive, actually?

To rephrase it: “we need to shake things up! I propose we do so by stopping to change”.

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

#214

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

weare138 wrote: post #24
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 We already did that. Why not just support NASA?

NASA is the one making those Moon/Mars missions actually happen. Companies like SpaceX or Blue Origin are just vendors that help NASA to have greater flexibility and do more with less. It's the same reason your company is able to move faster by leveraging pre-built solutions like Stripe/Twilio/Okta/etc. instead of re-building every one of those services in-house.

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

#215

Post by [deleted] »

zapnuk wrote: post #185

If billionaires entrust their money to more or less random people for philanthropic objectives I rather have them be taxed higher and let a (somewhat inefficient) government decide how to invest the money. At least I had a role in electing the government and can change my vote based on their performance.

[deleted]

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

#216

Post by aeternum »

sweetheart wrote: post #171
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…

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.

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

#217

Post by jonny_eh »

pb7 wrote: post #102
peakaboo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how to put this in a polite way... Let's just say your brain seems to have gotten too much TV entertainment. These billionaires made many billions on covid, while you got a 1400 dollar check so you could survive. These billionaires pay their workers minimum wage every day. People can't get toilet breaks at amazon warehouse without being harassed. This guy is a world class parasite. There is nothing "we"…

>These billionaires made many billions on covid, while you got a 1400 dollar check so you could survive. They made billions from excellent businesses on which the world relied during a time of crisis. What would people have done without the likes of Amazon and fast delivery of nearly everything? >These billionaires pay their workers minimum wage every day. No one makes minimum wage at Amazon. >People can't get toilet…

> They made billions from excellent businesses on which the world relied during a time of crisis. What would people have done without the likes of Amazon and fast delivery of nearly everything?

They've been rewarded enough already. Sometimes enough is enough, it's obscene.

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

#218

Post by pb7 »

whymauri wrote: post #206
pb7 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a product of the leadership elected by the people of Florida.

Which is a product of the design of government in the country, so no: it doesn't get to be ignored when comparing the reality of COVID relief in the US compared to other countries.

The design works just fine for states that look out for the wellbeing of their populace. No point in discussing COVID relief in states that don't believe in the dangers of COVID.

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

#219

Post by sofixa »

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 millions of man-hours and trillions of dollars in order for a privileged few to go live on Mars in underground settlements with artificial everything to sustain life there? Ffs, all the rocket tests create enormous amounts of CO2 emissions, among other things, actively helping to make the Earth less habitable.

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

#220

Post by MikeHolman »

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…

They definitely aren't all at the same level right now, but I'm happy for the competition. Hopefully it will drive innovation.
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