541–550 of 560 posts
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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.
But with Amazon you don't have to build your own storefront, or online site at all. Just make a listing, and ship to FBA. I imagine that alone creates more businesses.
I dont't care if this is a PR stint to ward of recent criticism Bezos is getting from Bernie et al but if this fund goes and actually help and make a real life impact on the lives of homeless people, then I am fine and I will hold back my criticism of Amazon. I mean clearly I have not done enough to mitigate homelessness in this country who am I to question others motives trying to solve the same problem?
It's not his money to use this way. He stole it from the workers he underpaid.
He also has made goods generally cheaper and much more easily accessible to the world.
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If that is the case, nothing stops him from creating a Bezos Amazon foundation and making every Amazon employee below a certain salary threshold eligible for grants/help etc etc. With all the accounting jugglery they have access to, I'm sure there are multiple ways to making the employees financially happier while satisfying the shareholders thirst for squeezing the last drop from the last penny.
I've never heard of any precedent, do you know of one? In any case, why should Bezos use his personal money to improve Amazon workers' salaries vs. trying to fix a problem for needier people who don't have a job at all? Or trying to make humanity a space faring species (which he spends $1B/year on, IIRC)?
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That isn't taxing a "minority group." It's just progressive taxation, an idea almost everyone accepts to some extent. "Taxing billionaires out of existence" could be achieved simply by increasing marginal tax rates.
billionaires are literally a minority group. they certainly don't need protected status, but, whether or not it is "good" to take their money, they can't effectively oppose this just by voting.
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Suffice it to say you're demonstrably incorrect.
Funny, I think that about your opinion. Which is what both of our statements are, except that I actually admit it while you and others assert it as fact.
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I've never heard of any precedent, do you know of one? In any case, why should Bezos use his personal money to improve Amazon workers' salaries vs. trying to fix a problem for needier people who don't have a job at all? Or trying to make humanity a space faring species (which he spends $1B/year on, IIRC)?
Why should there be expectation of precedent? Isn't he supposed to be a pioneer (like doing things such as trying to make humanity a space faring species)? Also, charity begins at home and Amazon is his home.
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Funny, I think that about your opinion. Which is what both of our statements are, except that I actually admit it while you and others assert it as fact.
I am making an assertion of fact. If you refuse to treat it as such, that's on you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
billionaires are literally a minority group. they certainly don't need protected status, but, whether or not it is "good" to take their money, they can't effectively oppose this just by voting.
The argument for preventing one person to amass that much wealth is at least in part that it gives them tremendous political influence. The preferences of Sheldon Adelson arte far more consequential than an average voter living in the same district, for instance. Appropriating the language of "minority" discrimination, which traditionally refers to marginalized groups, to talk about people who are very rich strikes m…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The argument for preventing one person to amass that much wealth is at least in part that it gives them tremendous political influence. The preferences of Sheldon Adelson arte far more consequential than an average voter living in the same district, for instance. Appropriating the language of "minority" discrimination, which traditionally refers to marginalized groups, to talk about people who are very rich strikes m…
one could just as easily make the argument that academics and social theorists have appropriated a word that has a commonly understood statistical meaning. no one objects to calling the alawites of syria a "minority group", even though they are relatively privileged and literally control the country. especially in the context of a (putative) democracy, it makes sense to use the word in the statistical sense.