So what would you consider a "humane rate" to pay someone to work in inhumane conditions? $20/hr? $100/hr?
Why don't they just pay a humane rate and have humane conditions? Bezos is the only one demanding inhumane conditions and it doesn't have to be that way at all, it's an entirely contrived problem he invented to be a tiny little bit richer.
>it's an entirely contrived problem he invented to be a tiny little bit richer.
That would be why.
Amazon exists to make Jeff Bezos and the shareholders as rich as possible, full stop.
Back in the day, most people grew up working on a farm/ranch/etc. and actually knew how to use a pitchfork. I'm trying to imagine today's obese generation trying to physically overthrow the government and can't help thinking that it wouldn't go so well.
I'm not sure why you think a mob of fat people won't be able to over power people. A fat man can torch a mansion as well as a skinny man.
It depends on whether or not the mansion is located on the top of a hill.
It makes no sense for Amazon to turn a profit. They invest everything back into growth. This way the stock keeps going up, Bezos and co sell their stock and pay long term capital gains tax instead of income tax. This way Bezos can get a better tax rate than his secretary.
At Amazon's scale you cannot simply turn tens of billions of dollars into economically meaningful growth. If you could, and expect proportional increase in valuation, then nearly every company would be doing the exact same thing. Take for instance Apple. They are netting some $48 billion a year with much more than that on hand. They clearly desperately want to move beyond just the iPhone and have been trying all sort…
If they have no use for their money they should give it back to the shareholders who then invest it into companies that actually need it.
If its combined with inhumane conditions as a requirement to stay employed, yes.
Even with better conditions, if the rate of pay isn't enough for an employee to earn a living (food, shelter, amenities) even when employed full time, it's inhumane.
Putin tops him. At these levels the dollar value is not a good measure. Bezos owns shares. If he started selling them their value would quickly drop. Monarchs (Putin) are different. They own things outright, or have such influence that they effectively own things that are legally in other people's names. The Saudi royal house has more wealth under their king's control, although not all in his name. What is scary is t…
How much of those assets could a Putin or the House of Saud liquidate before risking a coup? If we're playing speculator, shouldn't we consider risk of "devaluation" for both?
That's why so much of it, and so much of the ruling family, stays outside the country.
You'd think with all that cash Bezos could afford to pay his minions a humane rate. But he just doesn't care.
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…
Amazon’s net income per employee is 33,000 USD [0]. This means every Amazon employee could get a 30,000 USD raise and Amazon would still be profitable.
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…
Except we actually had a functioning federal government during the last gilded age, so we ended up with things like the Sherman Antitrust Act, and eventually the New Deal. I doubt we'll be so lucky this time around. Things are about to get absolutely brutal for the 90%.
Today we have a military industrial complex supported by both parties and our most vital student loans (championed by our "left" party) come with no bankruptcy protection. We do have a very strong Federal government, but it's designed to funnel money to various interest groups. By making compute infrastructure affordable and by making consumer review data available for all products, Bezos is a champion of the little…
I have no rebuttal here, but I'm curious what your thoughts are regarding Bezos's well-documented mistreatment of workers. Why would he do that?
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…
Except we actually had a functioning federal government during the last gilded age, so we ended up with things like the Sherman Antitrust Act, and eventually the New Deal. I doubt we'll be so lucky this time around. Things are about to get absolutely brutal for the 90%.
Our government was barely functional from the end of the Civil War until Teddy Roosevelt's presidency.
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…
Amazon’s net income per employee is 33,000 USD [0]. This means every Amazon employee could get a 30,000 USD raise and Amazon would still be profitable. [0] https://csimarket.com/stocks/singleEfficiencyeit.php?code=AM...
Net income, like the cost of their rent, inventory, infrastructure, R&D, advertising, acquisitions are all taken into account before coming to this figure? Or is it just employee costs like salary and benefits? I find that hard to believe, but if it's the case, then they clearly don't have razor thin margins, and what I said before simply doesn't apply to Amazon.