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Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B

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Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B

#241

Post by koube »

ahelwer wrote: post #159
koube wrote: post #137

This thread is one of the prime examples of Hacker News being terrible when going off topic. You only have to read three comments to get to the most upvoted person saying the rich are at risk of violent revolution. A few more comments and people are discussing logistics of violent revolution, and whether police are too obese to participate or perhaps they act only in the interest of the 1%. Are these educated opinion…

Your synonymous use of "educated" with "neoliberal" is notable. Those who ignore the views of the workers because they are not articulated in language they find acceptable do so at their own historical peril.

I didn't advocate any position besides that violent revolution is improbable. Is the improbability of violent revolution a neoliberal concept? Do I ignore workers when I state that discussions around police obesity are not grounded economic discourse? Is there any universe in which this conversation leads to a reasonable place?

Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B

#242

Post by frockington »

amelius wrote: post #215

Capitalism needs an upgrade. Our current version breaks down in the global internet economy with digital platforms and digital retailers, where simple brands combined with external capital have the ability to turn companies into supermassive black holes for consumer attention. As we know from math, singularities need special care, so we better start thinking about how we could fix the situation.

We are now at a point in history where the average human is better off than ever before. Capitalism has pulled more people out of poverty than any other system. If someone who radically changed the world has a ton of wealth, good for them. Jeff Bezos having money has no impact on my ability to succeed, if anything it has positively affected it as he has created so many new jobs

Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B

#243

Post by retzkek »

ericd wrote: post #111
NeutronStar wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy made 100k$ off of each of his workers while abusing them this year alone, it is fucking outrageous.

He didn't "make" it off them. This isn't from profit that he just didn't share with his workers, it's just the current market value of his stock holdings. Which means it's paper wealth. Which means there's no way he could turn any significant fraction of that into USD or any other form of value without obliterating the value.

This is a really important point I think many people are missing: >96% of his wealth is tied up in AMZN stock.

https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/jeffrey-p-be...

Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B

#244

Post by Rescis »

lagadu wrote: post #182
throwaway37585 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Government is one of the least effective vehicles for charity.

[Citation needed]

Assuming you are asking for him to pay US Taxes:

The largest line item (29%) is supporting the least efficient 1st world healthcare system

The second largest item (23%) is supporting blowing up foreigners

The third item (13%) is just paying accrued interest from previous overspending

The fourth item (7.5%) is the first that may be considered humanitarian, unemployment.

The fifth item (6%) is us paying for thr psychological and physical trauma that blowing up foreign nationals causes our own veterans.

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/interactive-data/taxday/2...

Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B

#245

Post by prolikewh0a »

lev99 wrote: post #229
prolikewh0a wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be terrible to see the military killing its own citizens in defense of a corrupt government that doesn't work for those citizens.

It would be far from the first time that has happened in history.

It certainly wouldn't surprise me if history repeated itself.

Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B

#246

Post by paulie_a »

e12e wrote: post #207
paulie_a wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Americans don't have guns. Gun owners are a minority with a very loud voice.

One in three households or thereabouts. It's certainly not "most" - but not sure "vocal minority" is accurate either? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/29/ameri...

A house hold often includes more than one person. Those other individuals are not gun owners. Gun owners are a fairly small group with a very powerful lobby that needs to be ignored.

Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B

#247

Post by bobwaycott »

e12e wrote: post #207
paulie_a wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Americans don't have guns. Gun owners are a minority with a very loud voice.

One in three households or thereabouts. It's certainly not "most" - but not sure "vocal minority" is accurate either? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/29/ameri...

So that’s 33%—of households, not people—at best. Definitely a minority—a minority that appears to be growing even smaller if the trends continue. They’re definitely vocal.

What part of calling them a vocal minority seems inaccurate?

Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B

#248

Post by NeoBasilisk »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #188
Endama wrote: post #15

I feel that America is in the midst of a new gilded age; instead of Standard Oil, we have Amazon. Like the late 1920s, we saw losses in purchasing power of the average American, the collection of wealth among the top 1%, and disruption of our civic spaces as a result. I think the thing that many Americans aren't aware of was just how violent that time in US history was[1]. The US economy isn't just about how comforta…

> America is in the midst of a new gilded age Why not golden instead of gilded? Per capita incomes are at an all time high, in real terms, and growing; violent crime per capita a historical low; and life expectancy high, though it could be higher. We are on the verge of tremendous technological advances in propulsion, AI, biology and energy. And more people are educated enough to wonder at those advancements than eve…

Do you really not understand how per capita income is not a meaningful statistic in a situation where income inequality is extremely high?

Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B

#249

Post by antonvs »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #217
ralusek wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't their margins like, razor-thin? Obviously at Amazon scale, even razor-thin margins mean huge profits, but that doesn't mean that you have any wiggle room within the profit. Imagine you have 100 people working for you, and off of each person, you make 10 cents a day. Now imagine you grow your business and you have 1,000,000 people working for you. At 10 cents per person per day, you're now making $100,000 a DAY…

Your margins are so thin that you're worth $150,000,000,000. Right.

That's largely the value of his stock, though. Not defending him or the inequality as such, but it's not as if he's got $150 bn in cash that he could just distribute to his employees.

Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B

#250

Post by tjr225 »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #156
mozumder wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

But the democratic establishment does policies that are very similar to republicans, get all their money from the 1% and corporations, and I’d be surprised if progressives manage to break out.

And many Democratic voters find the current, establishment of DNC politicians to be delusionally far right of their constituents. See: Bernie, Ocasio-Cortez, and what I believe will be many more Dems with a leaning towards progressive policy.
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