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Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

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Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#401

Post by FireBeyond »

BryantD wrote: post #84
pinewurst wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a Seattle resident, and despite my dislike for Bezos, this was a stupid tax - more connected to Seattle's dysfunctional politics than solving our bad homeless problem. Among other things, it was keyed to revenues not profits (specifically to target Amazon) but it ended up burning the likes of grocers who provide decent jobs but don't have a lot of margin even with large revenues. Good riddance to it and a…

Let's go back a little bit further in the history. In 2010, Washington took a shot at an income tax for individuals making over $200,000 a year. Bezos spent $100,000 to oppose that (along with a lot of other wealthy Washingtonians). Bezos also didn't support the Seattle income tax, although as far as I know he didn't spend money to oppose it. The head tax was suboptimal and, yeah, stupid. Nobody would have proposed i…

Oh yeah, just like Prop 1 in Olympia WA in 2016/2017.

Prop 1 is an initiative to "help educate the children of Olympia", using a little tax to help pay for college tuition. So noble!

Except: it proposes a levy on households of $200K or more (not constitutional in Washington), is an income tax, also not constitutional in Washington, requires the city of Olympia to fund the administration with no enforcement clauses, and multiple groups have already announced that they intend to sue the City if it's passed (which it will, because it's a 'think of the kids' measure), and the City knows it won't win but could not get the measure struck off so is already budgeting for constitutional lawyers. Hell, the City doesn't have the authority to see these people's tax statements, so it'd rely entirely on self-reporting. It's just a mess.

So you look a bit closer, and who is pushing this bill? A group of locals just concerned about local education?

No. A bunch of multi-millionaires from Seattle who want to use this as a proving ground for their challenges to state taxation law. Of the top ten donors, not one has ever lived in the County, let alone the City, nor does any of them have any children who attended school in either. (Olympia, like most state capitals, is far smaller than the largest city in the state), which makes you wonder why they're not pushing this in Seattle/King County - probably because they don't want their own taxes going to fund the defense of a proposition that's very specifically unconstitutional.

"Think of the kids" at its worst.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#402

Post by sonnyblarney »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #290
sonnyblarney wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really can't compare. London is a large city. SF is just a tiny part of a larger metro area. Do you know what the 'homeless' rate in 'The City of Foster City' is? Probably near 0. I think a better comparison would be Bay Area to London.

He gave figures for the city of San Francisco and the entire country of England .

He compared SF to London. Then threw in some national numbers.

SF to London is not a good comparison because SF is a small part of the greater city.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#403

Post by kazen44 »

thieving_magpie wrote: post #348
lostmsu wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like saying, that industrial revolution killed artisan makers. It did, but it also was a global good. Small businesses must adapt.

If I have this right, the moral of your story is that small businesses will die and amazon-sized corporations are for the global good.

so basically the cyberpunk future we all had imagined in the 80's..

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#404

Post by midwestcode »

lostmsu wrote: post #187
emodendroket wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - exploding drug addiction and related mental health issues I think cause and effect are backwards here. Low wages and high housing prices seem like they'd naturally lead to homelessness and rates of drug addiction and mental illness among the homeless, although very high compared to the general population, are nowhere near as high as people would like to think.

We are talking about sentient people. Wages and housing prices may be an excuse, but they don't shove drugs down people's throats. Mental illness - may be. But one needs to know if it's the cause, or simply an exposing factor.

I think these people are referring to those visible on the streets, and not living out of their car or in the shadows of homelessness. Oftentimes in Seattle the people who are visible are unfortunately in the worst shape, mentally or otherwise.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#405

Post by degrews »

karangoeluw wrote: post #2

I have always wondered which one is better: 1. Contribute early on little by little 2. Contribute nothing to very little for a while amassing huge fortunes (and compound interest magic), then donate big. Pretty much the same question as lump sum vs dollar cost averaging in investing. Have there been studies on this?

The Effective Altruism community has produced a lot of discussion about donating early vs saving and giving later.

This post does a good job of listing some of the trade-offs and includes several links to more discussion: http://effective-altruism.com/ea/4e/giving_now_vs_later_a_su...

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#406

Post by ithilglin909 »

ryandrake wrote: post #393
ithilglin909 wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re not talking about “getting in people faces”, we’re talking about a situation that is extremely unsafe, for everyone , homeless and non-homeless alike. If you’re suggesting more of that, there’s something seriously wrong with you.

Wow, slow down on the insults, cowboy. All I’m saying is if you’re considering group A a more urgent priority for providing help to than group B, then you’re incintivizing group B to be more like group A. Officials need to address the whole problem, not just the visible problem.

That's cowgirl to you.

So, if we prioritize, say, addiction treatment, more people will want to be addicts. Right.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#407

Post by [deleted] »

ithilglin909 wrote: post #158

This isn’t popular, but I’d challenge anyone who thinks homelessness in Seattle isn’t primarily an addiction and mental illness problem to go spend a few afternoons in areas with significant homeless populations (3rd Ave in Pioneer Square is a great place, if you need a suggestion). It’s not that affordable housing isn’t a problem in Seattle. I know people who couldn’t live on their own in Seattle anymore due to rent…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#408

Post by stcredzero »

ithilglin909 wrote: post #158

This isn’t popular, but I’d challenge anyone who thinks homelessness in Seattle isn’t primarily an addiction and mental illness problem to go spend a few afternoons in areas with significant homeless populations (3rd Ave in Pioneer Square is a great place, if you need a suggestion). It’s not that affordable housing isn’t a problem in Seattle. I know people who couldn’t live on their own in Seattle anymore due to rent…

This isn’t popular, but I’d challenge anyone who thinks homelessness in Seattle isn’t primarily an addiction and mental illness problem to go spend a few afternoons in areas with significant homeless populations

Chronic homelessness is at the very least, a huge confounding factor in terms of social work, combating addiction, and treating mental illness. If someone doesn't have a stable address and someone else has to go out to one of several encampments in a dry river bed just to find them to deliver treatment or services, those services are going to be much more expensive. The living conditions themselves are also going to exacerbate the problems to be treated. This is why it's commonly thought that the 20% of the homeless population which falls into the "chronic" category accounts for most of the crisis services expense caused by the homeless.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#409

Post by SurgeonOfDeath »

wwarner wrote: post #400

I think it's good for Bezos to fight homelessness, but funding drug treatment programs from the sale of legal drugs would be a better long term solution. Treatment should be the first, if not the only, spending target of marijuana revenue.

It depends. Like in USA i would agree because there is a lot of mentally ill people on street. In other cases like teaching is better. They spend all day on street. Going somewhere learn it is just much better environment for them.

I don't drink but If was homeless in cold country I would drink and take drugs to forget about cold. It requires so much strong will to live in this environment.

Re: Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless

#410

Post by olivermarks »

opencl wrote: post #334
olivermarks wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By centralizing giant swathes of the consumption economy to run through Amazon, destroying jobs at every step of the way. Sweden have banned Amazon so their local economies can flourish. I think this is good macro business logic for a nation state. https://www.politico.eu/article/sweden-amazon-competition-ec...

Sweden did not ban Amazon. Amazon just doesn't operate in Sweden (yet). People in Sweden can already buy things from the other EU Amazon stores.

I'm not sure that's accurate, I think there has been considerable political and therefore bureaucratic opposition to Amazon in Sweden
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