The Bezos backlash is bigger than Blue Origin’s success • Hacker News Board

Re: The Bezos backlash is bigger than Blue Origin’s success

#41

Post by brokenmachine » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 1:49 AM UTC

crummybowley wrote: post #38

yellowapple wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if we stole 10B from Bezos and gave it out equally to every US citizen... Its ~$30. I mean, obviously it's gonna look small if we fixate on Bezos specifically. If we "stole" a flat $1B from every American billionaire and paid it out equally to every US citizen, that stimulus jumps up to $1,996.70. If we "stole" all the money from every billionaire, that'd jump up further to $12,569.61. We can go further. The t…

lol. If you made the top %1 liquidate all their assets to give to others everything would stop working. You would create more problems than ever. Somebody would have to buy the assets, and because we are doing away with anybody who would have the sort of money to buy the assets, you would likely deadlock long before you would get 34 trillion out of the system. Like its mind boggling what you said. Where would this mo…

>But beyond that, stealing money assets, or even in this case "net worth" is immoral.

100% agree, so lets tax the fucker, and all the other fuckers.

Re: The Bezos backlash is bigger than Blue Origin’s success

#42

Post by brokenmachine » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 1:52 AM UTC

minikites wrote: post #6

jaytaylor wrote: post #4

"My dad got to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. I get to watch the guy who killed book stores ride a giant dick into space." https://ibb.co/t2tcN3p

Imagine if we taxed the enormous wealth of billionaires and used it for the good of many in society instead of inflating the ego of a single person. Our society is sick and I don't think people will stand for this level of inequality much longer.

>I don't think people will stand for this level of inequality much longer.

At the moment it seems like every government in the world is being held hostage by the obscenely rich, while workers with multiple jobs are struggling to even afford rent.

Please give me some hope and tell me how the change might come about? What signs have you seen out there that things are changing?

Because everything I see is just more and more wealth inequality, expanding year over year. Meanwhile the media, also in the obscenely rich's pocket, reports on these billionaire space assholes as if they've achieved something worthwhile, which is sickening to me.

Re: The Bezos backlash is bigger than Blue Origin’s success

#43

Post by missedthecue » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 2:50 AM UTC

alexanderdmitri wrote: post #39

missedthecue wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

World governments spent $35 trillion last year. That's annual spend. Why do people on the internet act like all of our social ails could be resolved if only we could tax Bezos and spend $35.01 trillion instead? It's seems governments have a budgeting problem, not a funding problem.

Assuming the figure is well-sourced, and given the time since the spending occurred, I'd be interested to know where this $35 trillion has ended up (not necessarily just who it directly went to, but where it's parked now and how it got there). I know that's a tall order, but I think governments should be accountable to how they've invested their citizen's money and how those investments are doing. Also should be poin…

I got the figure off of Wikipedia. They list every nation's government expenditures and the total sum is at the bottom of the table. $35.6 trillion. You're correct that covid stimulus had ballooned this figure, but even in "normal" years, it is still between $25 and $30 trillion which doesn't materially change the thrust of my argument.

I'm not even saying Bezos is appropriately taxed. I don't really care how high his tax bill is, but my main point is that the existence of world hunger and poverty isn't his fault even though many people online blame him for it, and secondly, taxing him at 100% wouldn't seem to solve the problem.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governm...

Re: The Bezos backlash is bigger than Blue Origin’s success

#44

Post by ddingus » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 2:54 AM UTC

pylua wrote: post #27

ddingus wrote: post #10

Of course it is. Big successes do not erase equally big failures. And the failure here, not on Amazon alone, is far too many Americans not earning enough from their labor the fund continuing to exist reasonably and show up to work.

The problem is so obvious it’s amazing that people even debate what the real problem is . Maybe the government is too far out of touch.

I do not find it that amazing anymore.

Roughly a third of us have few worries. Media, business, a whole lot of news and opinion bolsters that third, the assumption is things are fine.

Like two different worlds.

Yeah, govt is out of touch, but so are many others, all oh whom dominate the national dialog.

Re: The Bezos backlash is bigger than Blue Origin’s success

#45

Post by btown » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 3:25 AM UTC

> The real shame is that, as Bezos pointed out, hundreds of people worked incredibly hard to design, test, and operate the New Shepard rocket booster and space capsule. Blue Origin has refused multiple requests to interview these engineers and let them share the challenges they surmounted to create this vehicle; no executives joined the crew for a post-flight press conference.

SpaceX very much branded its initial launches as "we are what NASA should have been." Countless appearances and interviews with people who were very clearly "engineers' engineers" excited out of their minds to be working on the project. It was clear that there was overflowing passion given a very "shiny" space to dream, and that was the guiding light. You could disagree with Elon Musk and still admire his ability to build, inspire, and fund such a team. You could see the light in their eyes and want to contribute like them some day.

Blue Origin was very much starting from a disadvantage, not being the first private-industry movers. But - and I think this is critical - they also made an unforced error by insulating the public from the passion their engineers undoubtedly have. It makes it very much the Jeff Bezos Show, which makes the whole venture much more susceptible to public opinion about Bezos personally. His tone-deaf remarks on customers "paying" for the venture dug that hole even deeper.

Setting aside emotion, whoever paves the way for space exploration in the coming decade needs to inspire. I'm going to root for the team that understands what it means to inspire. And that makes it impossible for me to root for Blue Origin.

Re: The Bezos backlash is bigger than Blue Origin’s success

#46

Post by leereeves » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 4:50 AM UTC

brokenmachine wrote: post #41

crummybowley wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol. If you made the top %1 liquidate all their assets to give to others everything would stop working. You would create more problems than ever. Somebody would have to buy the assets, and because we are doing away with anybody who would have the sort of money to buy the assets, you would likely deadlock long before you would get 34 trillion out of the system. Like its mind boggling what you said. Where would this mo…

>But beyond that, stealing money assets, or even in this case "net worth" is immoral. 100% agree, so lets tax the fucker, and all the other fuckers.

> so lets tax the fucker, and all the other fuckers

I'm not a fan of Bezos or the other "fuckers", but how are American billionaires going to pay that tax? They'll have to sell assets to someone not subject to the tax, probably a billionaire from another country.

Do you really imagine anything will get better when most big American businesses are owned by foreign billionaires? Will working conditions in Amazon warehouses improve if Amazon becomes a subsidiary of Alibaba?

Re: The Bezos backlash is bigger than Blue Origin’s success

#47

Post by alexanderdmitri » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 5:12 AM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #43

alexanderdmitri wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming the figure is well-sourced, and given the time since the spending occurred, I'd be interested to know where this $35 trillion has ended up (not necessarily just who it directly went to, but where it's parked now and how it got there). I know that's a tall order, but I think governments should be accountable to how they've invested their citizen's money and how those investments are doing. Also should be poin…

I got the figure off of Wikipedia. They list every nation's government expenditures and the total sum is at the bottom of the table. $35.6 trillion. You're correct that covid stimulus had ballooned this figure, but even in "normal" years, it is still between $25 and $30 trillion which doesn't materially change the thrust of my argument. I'm not even saying Bezos is appropriately taxed. I don't really care how high hi…

I agree w/everything you're saying. I'm questioning the ethics of raising taxes if the extra money gets mismanaged and ends up wasted or doubled back to the wealthiest individuals. The people who would be managing this money are the exact ones whose legislation has created this environment.

Raising the deficit and inflating the currency for blind and reckless cash give-aways (imo), only makes it worse and all the more reprehensible and should have everyone questioning why we're not overthrowing the existing parties by rallying around new ones and collectively agreeing to stop voting Dem or Rep altogether. Because if we traced the government (tax) money spent over the past year to where it is now, I bet we'd see it directly widening the wealth gap no matter the party or rhetoric used while misappropriating it.

Anyway, I think the real solutions (to hunger, education, healthcare, &c) would involve breaking down the issues causing the inequality and really working to solve them one by one in good faith with a common vision. Small groups of people can achieve this. It's unfortunate that the idea of that happening on the scale we're discussing is laughably absurd.

Re: The Bezos backlash is bigger than Blue Origin’s success

#48

Post by inglor_cz » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 8:05 AM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #36

crummybowley wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think math can help. Even if we stole 10B from Bezos and gave it out equally to every US citizen... Its ~$30. Is this life changing for anybody in the US? If so what percent. Most beggars on the street clear more than $30 a day, some make $30 a hour! So yeah, common core has failed us, and the inability to understand numbers is a problem. I do this nearly every time somebody is upset somebody else has money. One ti…

> Even if we stole 10B from Bezos and gave it out equally to every US citizen... Its ~$30. I mean, obviously it's gonna look small if we fixate on Bezos specifically. If we "stole" a flat $1B from every American billionaire and paid it out equally to every US citizen, that stimulus jumps up to $1,996.70. If we "stole" all the money from every billionaire, that'd jump up further to $12,569.61. We can go further. The t…

So, you just gave the economy a one-time spending boost while "destroying the billionaires as a class". Let us also say that this action had no effect on purchasing power of the dollar, which is now mostly based on willingness of the rest of the world to trust it. (There are countries where 100 000 units of local currency won't buy you a nice dinner, but the US has never gone down this road, so most Americans just do not take this risk into account when modeling revolutionary changes.)

A year passes. Now what? No more billionaires to fleece, but the population demands some more, because spending windfall money is such a fun. So the next move is to fleece the millionaires...

Already the Ancient Greeks knew quite a lot about populist rule and its consequences. And the 20th century definitely tried it out in much larger dimensions, to much worse outcomes.

Re: The Bezos backlash is bigger than Blue Origin’s success

#49

Post by inglor_cz » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 8:39 AM UTC

btown wrote: post #45

> The real shame is that, as Bezos pointed out, hundreds of people worked incredibly hard to design, test, and operate the New Shepard rocket booster and space capsule. Blue Origin has refused multiple requests to interview these engineers and let them share the challenges they surmounted to create this vehicle; no executives joined the crew for a post-flight press conference. SpaceX very much branded its initial lau…

"Blue Origin was very much starting from a disadvantage, not being the first private-industry movers."

Wasn't BO incorporated in 2000, two years earlier than SpaceX? Whatever delay they incurred is not caused by them entering the field later.

Re: The Bezos backlash is bigger than Blue Origin’s success

#50

Post by skissane » Fri, Jul 23, 2021, 9:25 AM UTC

908B64B197 wrote: post #33

eyelovewe wrote: post #5

I’m personally rather bored with the hobbies and tastes of these modern tech billionaires like Jeff and Elon. A few years back, there was a total global circumnavigation of the world in a solar powered 2 person airplane based in Switzerland, I forget the project name. This thing did not have to land to charge batteries but could stay aloft indefinitely, albeit at a very floppy wing surface area to weight ratio, and t…

SpaceX is a profitable business, especially with StarLink. They essentially got rival satellite operators to buy the rockets they then re-use to launch their payloads. And they managed to underbid everyone in the space launch business for government contracts (Even factoring in R&D costs the Dragon is incredibly cheap). Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are just hobbies for the rich, but SpaceX might bring real benefit…

> SpaceX is a profitable business, especially with StarLink.

Starlink isn't profitable yet, and won't be for several more years.

Parts of their business are definitely profitable today, for example the Falcon 9 launch business. Other parts of their business are being pursued in the hope of future profits, but those future profits are some years away.