81–90 of 560 posts
Call me cynical, but shouldn't this $2B go towards compensating his employees well enough to not have to use government welfare programs? [0] [0]: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-takes-walmarts-spot-w...
Call me cynical, but shouldn't this $2B go towards compensating his employees well enough to not have to use government welfare programs? [0] [0]: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-takes-walmarts-spot-w...
$2B divided by 600k employees would be more than $3000, which is actually huge for many people.
I don’t agree with Bezos on a few things, but this is big. It’s about time companies care for their down and out compatriots. Progressives make all kinds of noise and virtue signal for people outside our care, but where the rubber meets the road, they fall short on helping fellow Americans—this is a nice start. Let’s see where it goes. Wonder if he’ll get Bernie to contribute (tongue in cheek)
> Progressives make all kinds of noise and virtue signal for people outside our care, but where the rubber meets the road, they fall short on helping fellow Americans Can you expand on this?
All hail to Bezos... Earlier this year, under pressure from Amazon and other large employers, Seattle’s City Council repealed an employee head tax designed to provide housing and services for the homeless. In a statement, Amazon called the vote “the right decision for the region’s economic prosperity. We are deeply committed to being part of the solution to end homelessness in Seattle and will continue to invest in l…
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…
The head tax was suboptimal and, yeah, stupid. Nobody would have proposed it if Seattle didn't have a regressive tax system. Compare us to Texas, another state with no income tax -- our property taxes are substantially lower. Seattle's infrastructure problems will continue because the city is underfunded to deal with them.
Anyhoo, I'm glad Bezos is spending this money on the homeless. I would recommend that he divert some of it to a deep dive into Seattle's problems. I think that committing to solve the problem in one city would yield insights that would be very valuable when he expands the program elsewhere.
I hope this works and is successful. Still I can’t help but be reminded of the saying that roughly goes “the people who are paid to solve a problem end up having a vested interest in the problem not being solved.” Specifically with regards to homelessness, the problem seems to be the critical shortage of housing for people in general, leading to a total crisis of affordable housing, rather than a specific problem of…
Good deeds must be applauded, not shamed for not being better. Especially if the definition of "better" is made up randomly on the spot.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
$2B divided by 600k employees would be more than $3000, which is actually huge for many people.
If you're making $50k/year, that's a one time 6 percent bonus. Color me unimpressed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This means that the public is subsidizing a company owned by the richest man in the world because he refuses to pay his employees a living wage. Doesn't this sound wrong?
We can argue until we're blue in the face about whose fault it is and who should be responsible for ensuring workers are paid a livable wage, but I would hope that we can all agree on this: If you work full-time and you do a good job, then you should earn a wage that you can live on.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They use them because they aren’t paid enough to live on. Therefore, the government and thereby our taxes subsidize the company.
Why don't they quit and find other better paying job?