The ultrawealthy (Bezos cashes out on Amazon shares)

[fantom]

I just saw that Jeff Bezos cashed out $3 billion in Amazon shares. He still sits on $170 billion worth of stock. And with the pandemic, he really doesn't have to worry about losing customers for now. That had me wondering, how do people feel about this?

To put this in perspective, he already had more than $3 billion in cash. There are 175k warehouse full-time employees. He literally could give them each $500k right now and still have half of his shares. The company employs about 850k people including part time workers. Even giving a $5k bonus to every employee, that's only $4 billion of $170 billion. It's literally a drop in the bucket for him.

Why is this ok as a society to let people hoard this many resources when people are worried about losing their houses and livelihood? What can we realistically do to balance things better? Call it the pandemic or BLM wake up (and my rant about capitalism in the Trump thread with Drew), but something is seriously broken.

Yes, this is a generic question about wealth and the 1%, but what are the options for the 99% to do something about it? I personally try not to use Amazon for other reasons, but at this point, they (with Target and Wal-Mart) really have a the best service to get necessities.

 

[jaxadam]

I have no problem with him doing whatever he wants with his money, and others shouldn’t either.

 

[diagrammatiks]

ya he earned it.
and it's mostly stock. his liquidity isn't any more then a lot of billionaires.

don't like it. stop shopping at amazon and get of your computer that shit is chocked full of aws services.

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

Other than the fact he apparently takes advantage of a shit ton of tax breaks while his customer base has to pay a bunch in sales tax each year (and yet the states it goes to do not seem to improve much), I don't care.

 

[SpaceDock]

No surprise that the resident Republicans say he can do whatever the fuck he wants.

My personal belief is that we need to start recognizing the impact of these oversized corporations. How many jobs were lost to Walmart and now Amazon that undercut their competition and screw over the local businesses? Why would we allow these monopolies to be more powerful than any governmental body? Why would we have a tax code that allows 1 man to amass so much wealth in such a short period of time?

These are the questions we should be asking, not “what should he do with his money?”

In my mind the right wing is just filled with “lotto winners who haven’t cashed their check.” They reinforce the wealthy because they believe they will be rich someday and are special but just haven’t caught their break yet. It’s not recognizing that we are building up a type of American aristocracy that is furthering itself from normal Americans more and more with every passing year.

What will the Republicans say? “Oh if we tax or regulate these people and businesses they will leave the country.” Wake up call, they already moved the jobs out but they themselves stay in the US because it is safe and allows them to get away with all this.

What’s the solution? A basic progressive tax code, closing tax loopholes, breaking up monopolies, enacting anti competitive legislation, stop worshipping and pandering to the wealthy, and finally vote out Republicans and any Democrats that put big business ahead of middle class Americans.

 

[diagrammatiks]

No surprise that the resident Republicans say he can do whatever the fuck he wants.

My personal belief is that we need to start recognizing the impact of these oversized corporations. How many jobs were lost to Walmart and now Amazon that undercut their competition and screw over the local businesses? Why would we allow these monopolies to be more powerful than any governmental body? Why would we have a tax code that allows 1 man to amass so much wealth in such a short period of time?

These are the questions we should be asking, not “what should he do with his money?”

In my mind the right wing is just filled with “lotto winners who haven’t cashed their check.” They reinforce the wealthy because they believe they will be rich someday and are special but just haven’t caught their break yet. It’s not recognizing that we are building up a type of American aristocracy that is furthering itself from normal Americans more and more with every passing year.

What will the Republicans say? “Oh if we tax or regulate these people and businesses they will leave the country.” Wake up call, they already moved the jobs out but they themselves stay in the US because it is safe and allows them to get away with all this.

What’s the solution? A basic progressive tax code, closing tax loopholes, breaking up monopolies, enacting anti competitive legislation, stop worshipping and pandering to the wealthy, and finally vote out Republicans and any Democrats that put big business ahead of middle class Americans.

lol that's me. hardcore republican. you know me better then I know myself.

 

[jaxadam]

No surprise that the resident Republicans say he can do whatever the fuck he wants.

My personal belief is that we need to start recognizing the impact of these oversized corporations. How many jobs were lost to Walmart and now Amazon that undercut their competition and screw over the local businesses? Why would we allow these monopolies to be more powerful than any governmental body? Why would we have a tax code that allows 1 man to amass so much wealth in such a short period of time?

These are the questions we should be asking, not “what should he do with his money?”

In my mind the right wing is just filled with “lotto winners who haven’t cashed their check.” They reinforce the wealthy because they believe they will be rich someday and are special but just haven’t caught their break yet. It’s not recognizing that we are building up a type of American aristocracy that is furthering itself from normal Americans more and more with every passing year.

What will the Republicans say? “Oh if we tax or regulate these people and businesses they will leave the country.” Wake up call, they already moved the jobs out but they themselves stay in the US because it is safe and allows them to get away with all this.

What’s the solution? A basic progressive tax code, closing tax loopholes, breaking up monopolies, enacting anti competitive legislation, stop worshipping and pandering to the wealthy, and finally vote out Republicans and any Democrats that put big business ahead of middle class Americans.

TLDR

 

[SpaceDock]

lol that's me. hardcore republican. you know me better then I know myself.

sorry, I wasn’t including you actually

TLDR

yep, typical of your posts

 

[jaxadam]

lol that's me. hardcore republican. you know me better then I know myself.

SpaceDock thinks that if you aren’t voting for Che Guevara you’re a far right Republicrap Trumptard who doesn’t deserve to breathe.

 

[narad]

Systems that optimize for efficiency and cost rarely do so without compromising on robustness. If anything, it should be immediately apparent today in covid times how optimization of product manufacturing and distribution has given Americans what they want -- low cost, convenient things -- while basically off-shoring all manufacturing, and having supply lines that can't withstand any perturbations. The poultry supply lines are so brittle that any delay creates a situation where tens of millions of birds are slaughtered to rot.

This is what Amazon has done, and because this is in line with what Americans want, it has been very successful and profitable. If any situation occurred where we would actually need to rely on the more local shops that have all been wiped out through competition with Amazon, we'd be shit out of luck. That's the problem -- if you were top-down designing this structure, you'd be aware of the risks of big systems failing, and you'd probably diversify or take some precaution to help you out in a catastrophe. But within the context of capitalism, give me what I want when I want it, and we'll just not think of the negative consequences now, and if they come to pass, Amazon disappears but the people behind it are still rich.

So I think it's funny in a sense to act like Bezos "earned" the money. His only contribution is being a figurehead in moving the needle a little further towards low-cost convenience and away from having robust systems, pushed there by American consumer interests.

 

[SpaceDock]

SpaceDock thinks that if you aren’t voting for Che Guevara you’re a far right Republicrap Trumptard who doesn’t deserve to breathe.

I am actually very moderate and do not agree with a lot of mainstream democrat ideologies, but I do believe the republicans have just become a terrible party of Trump that is just hell bent on dividing our nation and repeatedly bailing out the richest segments of our society.

 

[vilk]

I say we build a guillotine and start chopping heads. I'll even pull the cord; I need the work.

Proletariat mob executioner sounds like a gig I might feel passionate about. I wonder if you gotta know someone.

 

[fantom]

I have no problem with him doing whatever he wants with his money, and others shouldn’t either.

If you think the point of my post had anything to do with how Bezos should spend his money, you really missed the point.

ya he earned it

Did he? To make $170 billion, he has been making on average $350k every hour since the moment he was born, not including his expenses like losing a shitload of wealth in his divorce. Did he really earn it?! Hell no. Other people earned it for him. He probably worked his ass off, I won't discredit him for building a successful business, but no one is capable of earning that much without a lot of help.

For anyone who thinks this is a Republican vs. Democrat topic, please consider the scale of this amount of money. This isn't about trickle down economics. If we were talking millions of dollars and taxes and such, I would likely be arguing most Republican talking points (no more taxes, deregulate more, etc.). But we are talking about over $100 billion. Imagine having $850k in liquid assets and spending 1 penny on a decent house (something around $200-400k). That is literally how ridiculous the numbers are here. Most people will never have so much capital, let alone be able to buy assets for such a small amount compared to their worth.

Edit: fixed a math error

 

[KnightBrolaire]

oh dis gon be gud

 

[diagrammatiks]

sorry, I wasn’t including you actually



yep, typical of your posts

already bought so many maga hats.

 

[diagrammatiks]

If you think the point of my post had anything to do with how Bezos should spend his money, you really missed the point.



Did he? To make $170 billion, he has been making on average $350k every second since the moment he was born, not including his expenses like losing a shitload of wealth in his divorce. Did he really earn it?! Hell no. Other people earned it for him. He probably worked his ass off, I won't discredit him for building a successful business, but no one is capable of earning that much without a lot of help.

For anyone who thinks this is a Republican vs. Democrat topic, please consider the scale of this amount of money. This isn't about trickle down economics. If we were talking millions of dollars and taxes and such, I would likely be arguing most Republican talking points (no more taxes, deregulate more, etc.). But we are talking about over $100 billion. Imagine having $850k in liquid assets and spending 1 penny on a decent house (something around $200-400k). That is literally how ridiculous the numbers are here. Most people will never have so much capital, let alone be able to buy assets for such a small amount compared to their worth

he only has like 6 billion in cash reserves.
stocks aren't real money man.

 

[fantom]

he only has like 6 billion in cash reserves.
stocks aren't real money man.

Ya, they are actually better than real money because at the level of wealth it cuts your income tax liability in half. If you think liquid assets aren't real money, you likely just don't have any. And if you do, I will gladly take all of your stocks for some imaginary money.

 

[fantom]

oh dis gon be gud

Ya I was generally curious... Starting to think that my judgment failed here lol.

 

[diagrammatiks]

Ya, they are actually better than real money because at the level of wealth it cuts your income tax liability in half. If you think liquid assets aren't real money, you likely just don't have any. And if you do, I will gladly take all of your stocks for some imaginary money.

sorry going to mcdonalds to directly exchange my stocks for a big mac.

 

[jaxadam]

If you think the point of my post had anything to do with how Bezos should spend his money, you really missed the point.

Ya I must have because your first line literally leads with Bezos cashing out 3 billion.