Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't spread unfounded, crackpot rumors. Thanks.
You are both a troll and an asshole.
You don't even know what those words mean.
Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person
521–530 of 548 posts
Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person
#522Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Sorry - but you're accusing me of a timeline I had not stated. That was my best guess at a timeline for your conspiracy theory. Would you care to give an alternative? You're also kind of all over the road here. First you say "I simply stated that Gaddafi was murdered for his money" but in the next paragraph you say "Gaddafi got killed for a reason we will never know". And you follow that up with "and his ~$70 billi…
OK - thats a fair comment... I apologize for not being salient in my sentiment. Gaddafi was killed, he MAY have been the richest person alive at the time, the US had many reasons to want him gone... HRC MAY have profited off his death - and we do not know where his money went. Perhaps the people who worked for/with Gaddafi stole it (at least some of it) -- perhaps HRC profited off it. its all out in the ether and we…
I'm starting to believe you took all the money. You're so quick to blame everyone but yourself.
Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person
#523Earlier quoted context omitted.
and Palm Beach has 29 billionaires in a town of 10.5k people.
How do you get to this data? I would like to see the number of billionaires in my town if at all.
Forbes & local Palm Beach news: http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/news/local/island-rich-ter...
Homes in the Bingham / Hunters Island (south of Mar-A-Lago) and Manalapan areas of Palm Beach are some of the most expensive and outrageous in the world.
Fun to fly around there on Google Maps: https://www.google.com/maps/@26.6676348,-80.0368289,548a,35y...
Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person
#524Earlier quoted context omitted.
And yet he's now one of the richest people in the world. As an employee, is Bezos really a million times more valuable than a typical Amazon engineer? That seems almost self-evidently unfair to me. I think in a truly just society, the multiplier on the amount that a single individual could be compensated compared to his or her peers would have a hard cap. It would solve so many societal problems and also incentivize…
It's the reward for past work, not current. Imagine kid A studies really hard during his youth and doesn't get to have any fun because he's working so hard. Kid B likes to slack off and party and do drugs. If Kid A grows up and makes it big, why does kid B deserve half? Why should he deserve any portion? You could tax kid A's wealth but you can't tax kid B's youth and pleasure. Why put a cap on on kid A's wealth if y…
I don't know what system you're defending, but capitalism has nothing to do with getting wealth proportional to your individual hard work. There are plenty of Kid Bs who have much more money and income than Kid As because of they have more leverage in the free market (funds, education, even luck). I know a bunch of them...
In Capitalism, you profit from owning the means of production, not from working hard. Obviously, it can help, but not necessarily. There are plenty of start-up CEOs who worked just as hard as Jeff Bezos their entire lives, but aren't multi-billionaires, or even millionaires.
Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person
#525Earlier quoted context omitted.
Were you forced into having that child in the first place? We don't need children for farm work anymore (in first world countries).
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/02/statuto...
You said "For people paying alimony and child support, you must work or go to jail".
How does that play into rape? I don't understand.
Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person
#526Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, not in terms of buying power, but success in terms of proportion of GDP seems a reasonable measure. It must be harder to make the same amount of money in a smaller market. It also shows how well you did relative to others, and may be a better measure of how much actual power you have over others. Just use the proportion 1/37 instead of converting to dollars, or I agree it's misleading. Also: perhaps, $1500 per d…
> Also: perhaps, $1500 per day today is reflective of our buying power in a way (A little sarcastic, sorry:) Yes, if we ignore all of the things we buy that have gotten more expensive, it's like prices have deflated. Overall inflation measures a collection of consumer prices, the average of which has trended up since that time. It is a general reflection of buying power, dollar for dollar.
Of course you're right that the accepted measures of inflation would have already considered and addressed the issue. And I would guess that fundamentals like food and land/housing have indeed gotten more expensive.
I'm a little intrigued though: shouldn't technological progress and "accelerating returns" have made things cheaper? I do see for land, that location is a monopoly ("they aren't making any more" - at least, in that spot, in that community, with that access). I wonder how much similar market effects have "artificially" kept other prices high? An oligopoly or silent collusion/combination between sellers (e.g. as happened for flat TVs).
Also, I wonder if a different lifestyle is possible, leaning more heavily on those aspects that have gotten cheaper (one e.g. living remotely and working remotely or independently).
Anyway, I'm glad you agreed with my other points, I'm assuming.
Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person
#527Earlier quoted context omitted.
>the sad reality is that unless someone fronts the money, nothing will get done. Its not the natural law of universe which cannot be changed. We humans create the systems of economic organization. So if you agree that profit is not main motivation for many creative jobs, then perhaps the optimization function of the economy should not be to optimize for monetary profits. So perhaps other modes of economic organizatio…
Well, the natural law here is that we need access to resources to do anything. And money is basically a proxy for it. Until we solve the resource problem, I think other economic systems would eventually run into trouble as well. Its human nature to try to game the system.
> Its human nature to try to game the system
Or is the system is designed to give wrong incentives?
I don't think we have enough evidence for what you take as "human nature". On the contrary the anthropological studies in Debt: The First 5000 Years Book by David Graeber, we have evidence of many primitive societies behaving more communal fashion.The resources though scarce is shared with the commune.
Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person
#528Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not confused I lived in a communist country.
communism as an ideal seems impossible to implement in any way besides the authoritarian state-capitalism way that it has been implemented. that accomplishes the objectives of having a command economy with full employment (even if its monstrously inefficient), but it certainly doesn't come close to creating a just political order where the policies serve the people instead of the owners of the means of production (wh…
>communism as an ideal seems impossible to implement in any way besides the authoritarian state-capitalism way that it has been implemented.
>the Mondragon Corporation[1] is one of the few interesting experiments with a Communism-inspired system that does not immediately degenerate into authoritarian state-capitalism.
So there is no logical inconsistency in what you believe?
Mondragon Corporation is a worker syndicate , which is not a "communism inspired system", but a system aspiring for communism. If worker ownership can work in Mondragon, then saying that "communism is impossible without authoritarianism" is flawed.
Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person
#529Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can vote, just as everyone else :) So, the problem here is that I don't understand why you think Jeff Bezos is a "leech" exactly. The guy built a business and became very successful. What the heck is wrong with that? I'm building a house for me and my family. I mean literally building it myself, not hiring people to build it for me. It's fun - sometimes. Other times it's hard and frustrating. I've also been involve…
Absolutely! And in most likelihood, such a system will never be put in place, so you can sleep soundly. Amazon could run very well without Bezos, at this point, solely through workers. Bezos at this point serves nothing but effectively leeching the wealth produced by employees. But appropriation of the means of production is not the subject. Bezos being successful is not the issue. However, he is effectively an annui…
Sorry for the long time to reply, this is one of the best conversations I've had on HN yet. It's always fascinating to talk to someone with a radically different opinion on things! Thank you for that!
Your argument seems to be that amazon could and would have run just as well without Bezos. The counterargument for that is - why isn't any other company in the same line of business nearly as successful as Amazon then? Clearly, if the concrete people don't matter and the only contribution of the leader is capital, then there is no particular reason why another, as-well-capitalised company shouldn't be as successful as Amazon? Yet none are. Why?
My argument is that a good manager can bring 10 people who separately would each be capable of making 1 abstract thing per month together into a team and create 100 abstract things per month.
There is a saying - a person is smart, crowds are dumb. What Bezos and other leaders bring is the ability to make crowds smart and work together towards a goal.
So, if a good leader can effectively make the difference between a successful company and a broke company, then I do think he deserves 100x or a 1000x more than some guy who's looking for every possible opportunity to slack off and do as little as possible.
Also, you argue that he has already contributed all he can and is now just reaping the rewards from his previous efforts. Doesn't the same apply for any pension scheme though?
Re: Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person
#530Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Also: perhaps, $1500 per day today is reflective of our buying power in a way (A little sarcastic, sorry:) Yes, if we ignore all of the things we buy that have gotten more expensive, it's like prices have deflated. Overall inflation measures a collection of consumer prices, the average of which has trended up since that time. It is a general reflection of buying power, dollar for dollar.
Of course you're right that the accepted measures of inflation would have already considered and addressed the issue. And I would guess that fundamentals like food and land/housing have indeed gotten more expensive. I'm a little intrigued though: shouldn't technological progress and "accelerating returns" have made things cheaper? I do see for land, that location is a monopoly ("they aren't making any more" - at leas…
> And I would guess that fundamentals like food and land/housing have indeed gotten more expensive.
>
> I'm a little intrigued though: shouldn't technological progress and "accelerating returns" have made things cheaper? I do see for land, that location is a monopoly ("they aren't making any more" - at least, in that spot, in that community, with that access).
Healthcare and education costs have increased hugely, housing costs moderately (moreso in the big cities). Overall inflation is somewhat offset by food and electronics getting much cheaper.
> I wonder how much similar market effects have "artificially" kept other prices high? An oligopoly or silent collusion/combination between sellers (e.g. as happened for flat TVs).
The healthcare marketplace is pretty terrible. Perverse incentives, no pricing transparency, etc is at least part of rapidly increasing costs. Oddly education has gotten much more expensive as well, including K-12, and there doesn't seem to be an obvious reason there.
> Also, I wonder if a different lifestyle is possible, leaning more heavily on those aspects that have gotten cheaper (one e.g. living remotely and working remotely or independently).
Yeah. If you can swing a remote tech job living in a low or moderate cost of living area, you can save enough to retire (in that LCOL location) in a couple years. It can really be single digit years if you can keep your saving rate above 90%.