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What to do about Jeff?

Bob001

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Jeff Bezos is personally worth $150 Billion bucks. This writer contends that that illustrates failures of tax and social policy. Discuss.
This is a credit to Bezos’s ingenuity and his business acumen. Amazon is a marvel that has changed everything from how we read, to how we shop, to how we structure our neighborhoods, to how our postal system works. But his fortune is also a policy failure, an indictment of a tax and transfer system and a business and regulatory environment designed to supercharging the earnings of and encouraging wealth accumulation among the few. Bezos did not just make his $150 billion. In some ways, we gave it to him, perhaps to the detriment of all of us.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/08/the-problem-with-bezos-billions/566552/
 
As I recall Amazon get substantial tax breaks in Europe by being based in Luxembourg, so that should be fixed.

Capitalism always 'supercharges the earnings of and encouraging wealth accumulation among the few'.
 
You know why Seattle has 2 of the richest men in the world? No state income tax. The state also rolls over and gives corporations astounding tax breaks on a regular basis. That's why Seattle's in such a state. Bezos is flooding the city with new hires (who have an average 2-year lifespan as Amazon employees) but there's not enough money to keep the infrastructure in good shape, much less expand it to match growth.
 
Successful parasites are those that are, ironically, not too successful: if they leech too much from the host, the host dies, or kills the parasite. It's key to a parasite's survival to limit its take.
 
deadrose said:
You know why Seattle has 2 of the richest men in the world? No state income tax. The state also rolls over and gives corporations astounding tax breaks on a regular basis. That's why Seattle's in such a state. Bezos is flooding the city with new hires (who have an average 2-year lifespan as Amazon employees) but there's not enough money to keep the infrastructure in good shape, much less expand it to match growth.
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Which employees have the two year lifespan? Just curious since Amazon has widely different employee categories.
 
Related to the broader issue:
As I noted recently in The Daily Beast, the kind of capitalism that has been practiced in this country over the last few decades has made socialism look far more appealing, especially to young people. Ask yourself: If you’re 28 like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York congressional candidate who describes herself as a democratic socialist, what have you seen during your sentient life?

You’ve seen the United States go from being a country that your parents — or if you’re 28, more likely your grandparents — described as a place where life got better for every succeeding generation to a place where for millions of people, quite possibly including you, that’s no longer true.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/05/opinion/what-are-capitalists-thinking.html

If you are an upper-middle-class parent, as I am, you must have noticed that the real world isn’t playing according to script. Among many young Americans, there is downward mobility. The children aren’t achieving what they (and their parents) expected. Even when they have (and many have), the gains could be eroded in the future. The trajectory is not inevitably up. Parents worry about their children’s fate.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...0e80e1fdf43_story.html?utm_term=.86dbd4972dd1
 
If his company can get to me, next day more often than not, the item I want at a click of a mouse then I couldn't care less about he much he is worth and I cannot see how this reflects upon me?
 
bluesjnr said:
If his company can get to me, next day more often than not, the item I want at a click of a mouse then I couldn't care less about he much he is worth and I cannot see how this reflects upon me?
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On you ? I agree it doesn't reflect on you.

I do think that governments (international, national and local) need to look at the large businesses they attract and the way in which they attract them. If Seattle (and therefore by extension the taxpayers thereof) are indeed subsidising Jeff Bezos and not getting adequate recompense, then perhaps they need to review that support. For sure, the employer will threaten to move jobs away, but for most businesses large-scale relocation is an expensive, time-consuming and risky process.
 
bluesjnr said:
If his company can get to me, next day more often than not, the item I want at a click of a mouse then I couldn't care less about he much he is worth and I cannot see how this reflects upon me?
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If they are not paying a fair whack back into the society that they are part of then it means other areas of society are being impoverished. So the local library may have to close because they use their muscle and loopholes in legislation etc. to avoid paying tax that would usually go back in society via government.

My objection to amazon is the very anti-capitalist way they became the size they are, it was done by deliberately losing money therefore no one could actually compete with them. Bill & Ben's Bookshop couldn't go to their bank manager and say "look we will eventually drive everyone else out of business and then make a shed load of money but you have to fund us trading at a loss for 10 years or so".

ETA: Article with figures: https://qz.com/987559/charted-amazo...h-to-world-domination-over-the-past-20-years/
 
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The Don said:
On you ? I agree it doesn't reflect on you.

I do think that governments (international, national and local) need to look at the large businesses they attract and the way in which they attract them. If Seattle (and therefore by extension the taxpayers thereof) are indeed subsidising Jeff Bezos and not getting adequate recompense, then perhaps they need to review that support. For sure, the employer will threaten to move jobs away, but for most businesses large-scale relocation is an expensive, time-consuming and risky process.
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I mentioned myself because the quote in the OP questions whether what we've "given" (?) to Bezos might be to our detriment. I've only ever benefited from my, somewhat removed, relationship with him. I don't really understand what the author means by that.

Darat said:
If they are not paying a fair whack back into the society that they are part of then it means other areas of society are being impoverished. So the local library may have to close because they use their muscle and loopholes in legislation etc. to avoid paying tax that would usually go back in society via government.

My objection to amazon is the very anti-capitalist way they became the size they are, it was done by deliberately losing money therefore no one could actually compete with them. Bill & Ben's Bookshop couldn't go to their bank manager and say "look we will eventually drive everyone else out of business and then make a shed load of money but you have to fund us trading at a loss for 10 years or so".

ETA: Article with figures: https://qz.com/987559/charted-amazo...h-to-world-domination-over-the-past-20-years/
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To be fair, the field was level when Bezos set up his online book store from his garage. We can hardly blame him for wanting to be successful and for the fact that Bill & Ben never capitalised on their (hypothetical) advantage of a High Street presence back in the day.

According to Amazon (I know you'll be aware they've managed to reduce their UK tax bill recently) they;

“...pay all taxes required in the UK and every country where we operate."

I'll assume that to be correct and I'm sure you are not suggesting that they should pay more tax than they actually owe?

As to Mr Bezos himself (which, strictly speaking, is what the thread is about) he seems to me to be very generous philanthropist, even if he did get to it somewhat later in life, so he's giving something back. A rough count puts it at currently around $106,800,000 to good causes.

Bezos supports his philanthropic efforts through direct donations, non-profit projects funded by Bezos Expeditions, and other charitable organizations
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bluesjnr said:
According to Amazon (I know you'll be aware they've managed to reduce their UK tax bill recently) they;

“...pay all taxes required in the UK and every country where we operate."

I'll assume that to be correct and I'm sure you are not suggesting that they should pay more tax than they actually owe?
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Which, although it is technically true, is taken so far out of context as to be effectively a lie.

Amazon.com does not pay taxes in the US, aside from payroll and a few other minor taxes. Bezos does not pay taxes in the US. He and others like him have managed to work loopholes, funded PACs to convince politicians to enact favourable legislation, abused employees, and otherwise worked hard at not paying a single cent they can possibly avoid.

Yes, they pay all the taxes they're "required" to, but they also work very hard to ensure that they're not required to pay much of anything. And Trump's latest tax breaks make that even more true.

Amazon, like WalMart, and many others, also relies heavily on the federal and state governments to fund their employees. They have lobbied hard against minimum wages and engaged in virulent union-busting activities; and as a result, a huge percentage of their employees in the lower ranks depend on government subsidies for their survival -- food benefits, government-provided healthcare, and so on. They not only pay little in taxes, they depend on the taxes of people who make considerably less than they do in order to stay in business at their grossly inflated profit margins and force out competitors.

They've used these practices and government subsidies to destroy local businesses and smaller corporations.

As to Mr Bezos himself (which, strictly speaking, is what the thread is about) he seems to me to be very generous philanthropist, even if he did get to it somewhat later in life, so he's giving something back. A rough count puts it at currently around $106,800,000 to good causes.
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No, he's not. He's very very good at PR, and knows the value of publicly-visible charitable contributions both for his image, and his tax write-offs. I can guarantee that if he wasn't getting tax breaks from them, he wouldn't be giving very much to these causes.

If he was a true philanthropist, he'd be paying all of his employees a living wage and not working them to death with insane amounts of mandatory overtime.
 
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Diablo said:
Capitalism always 'supercharges the earnings of and encouraging wealth accumulation among the few'.
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Capitalism remunerates individuals in proportion to their societal contribution, yet state-funded propaganda centers brainwash our children into wanting to become teachers rather than businessmen.
 
Feel free to string him up, Seattle!! My A Prime packages take three daze to get here!!
 
Some endeavours that humanity are beginning to engage in - space flight, for example - pretty much require that they be funded privately by hyper-wealthy people. There's little or no interest by most governments in pursuing new technologies in space flight.

You could say that one benefit of rampant capitalism is that it creates people who can fund the more expensive human endeavours.
 
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