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Jeff deserves it and the reason is he is providing good jobs and a livelihood to 1,000,000 people who are earning by working for Amazon and they are using that money to provide for another 5 mn people (their family).
If Jeff liquidates all that and uses it spend it all on himself then that is being selfish.
If he further builds more businesses and creates more jobs that provides livelihood to 1 mn more people then that is better than you earning only for yourself and your family to buy 2 more houses that you don't need to accumulate more wealth! Elevate others through your work.
Create more jobs even if you hire a helper, someone to do your yard, a plumber, a website designer - that money is elevating others lives.
Pro
Yea. How about instead of paying $$$$ to the medical industry cabal we all crowdfund a common fund, and whoever needs to go to the doc can use that. Same for college.
Anyone can be a billionaire just like Bezos. You too can be worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Its easy: Come up with an idea for a killer business, develop a vision to make the business critical to nearly every human on earth, work 24/7/365 to flawlessly execute your vision, demand excellence from everyone around you and do not tolerate mediocrity.
Unfortunately most people on FB are consultants who complain about getting an email from a partner at 9pm or having to work on a client deck over the weekend. Most people on FB are angry about COVID because they miss their weekly team happy hours. Most people on FB jump to a new job for a 5% pay increase. Therefore most people on FB have no right to even comment about a successful person's net worth.
Not for nothing, if I was building my own dream business from the ground up, I’d WANT to work 24/7/365. Working for big business is just a different kind of work IMO
Billionaires shouldn’t exist
Money’s gotta go somewhere. Better with people who worked for it than governments controlled by elected officials, IMO.
Chief
Who are you to say what the limit of "need" is? Why does anyone "need" $1M? $500k? $100k? What should be done with excess wealth over your subjective limit? Force liquidation? Dole out to the masses (at a substantially lower value because of the forced sale)? Discourage philanthropy and innovation?
A real question... would the Gates Foundation and all the good things they've done exist if billionaires were "prohibited"? What about SpaceX and the advancements they're making, or Blue Origin, and the jobs they're creating? Or TSLA, and Musk's advancement of green energy and forcing competition in that space?
Repeat after me. Communism 👏 will 👏 never 👏 work 👏. Capitalism 👏 is 👏 good 👏
EY2 ‘s comment around communism never works or taking the direction of discussion to communism is like how McCarthysism emerged earlier. EY2, can you shed some light on your background , schooling and upbringing. We need to be careful when we enter into discussion with people like you.
You realize the vast majority of that wealth is tied to his ownership stake in Amazon et al.
Accenture1I never said there is a “cap” that anyone should have. Bezos had a great idea and he should be monetarily compensated for that, of course. I’m not asking for big bad men with guns to rob him of his billions so stand down😂
As I mentioned, the system works for them. And Partner1 really broke down all sub pieces into detail. To me what it really comes down to is taxes. Tax him (and others like him) fairly and at the very least proportional to the way lower tax brackets are taxed. Even taxing him at 50% would still leave him the richest man in the world. There’s no reason the government should let them sit on those billions, or better yet, hide it all in off shore accounts.
Oh and because I’ve been seeing comments like this throughout this post, people love to say how much billionaires do for our society “oh so-and-so donated 5 million dollars how nice!!” Do you know what 5 million dollars is is to a multi billionaire?? Chump change. Let’s stop pretending like these people actually give a shit and they didn’t get to where they are by exploiting cheap labor, and taking a majority of jobs outside the US.
I’ll leave this here
My advice to all ... stop bitching about “income inequality” and focus on “economic mobility”
Equal income and equal wealth just means we are ALL poor and a few oligarchs (politicians usually) are rich ruling over their economic slaves.
Economic mobility is the mechanism for how you can start with net zero assets and in 1 lifetime, generate enough wealth to rise up into a different wealth class (call it tax bracket if you want to). This is by definition the root of economic freedom.
Agreed $10,000,000,001 is also where I draw the line
Based on its actually super funny 😂 🤣
He has warehouse employees that urinate in bottles as a result of unscrupulous labor practices and actively suppresses labor unions. Not to mention the exploitation by proxy of the workers who produce the products in the vast supply chain and selling platform.
I know a single mom that got fired from a warehouse on Christmas Eve after they made her work a 12 hour shift. If that is the free market, then f*** that.
Not sure what the deal is with all the worship of people like him and capitalist bootlicking, but I’m definitely not going to kiss the ground this guy walks on and I definitely don’t shop at Amazon until they find a way to operate more ethically.
Well said thank you
Rising Star
People who say billionaires shouldn’t exist don’t understand how money (and equity in a company) works.
Tbh really shocked how many dumb, working professionals are on FB....
Pro
What an edgy, cool take. You really showed them.
Ignoring the liquidity aspect, I don't see why this is complex. The money he has was obtained through voluntary transactions. The involved parties decided to use some of their finite resources in exchange for goods and services. I have personally benefitted from the outputs of the organization he started in a number of ways - I've had countless items delivered to my door at a price I thought was fair including groceries, occasionally watch shows on Amazon Prime, ask Alexa for the weather in the morning, have had my retirement account increase thanks to the stock's performance, plus many more I'm not even thinking of. He has had to personally pay taxes on these earnings and things he has purchased in an amount society has agreed to. If he chose to not comply with paying this cut of the earnings, he does so under threat of being taken by people with guns and having many of his freedoms taken away.
Director 1, choosing insults rather than offering a rebuttal to the logic does nothing to weaken my argument.
His idea, his hard work, his 💰 🤷🏻♂️
His parents financial contribution, his exploitation of labor 🤷♂️
A4, just to be clear, using monopolistic power to put small businesses out of business, enslave workers so they have no alternative source of employment largely funded by other people’s money, enabled by ownership of news foundations miraculously singing his praises and paid for government lackeys enforcing a lockdown that scientists agree is bad but somehow is the policy of a bunch of knob heads
None of that is free/fair trade and capitalistic.
Amazon is a monopoly, Google is a monopoly, Twitter is a monopoly. They need to be broken up and regulated immediately.
AC1 and D4, 100% agree. This is the conundrum of our generation.
Most can see the benefit of Amazon and the simultaneous harm to individual economic liberty and business ownership it causes.
It is the Great White Rhino of our time.
Just remember when we talk about eating the rich and stuff, income tax started as a tax on people like Rockefeller and fast forward a few decades and now I’m paying 35% of my income to the government
VP2, That we agree on. 100%
Thanks so much for the thoughtful exchange.
To flex when junior can’t flex for you no more
Well he “needs” it to do what he wants to do. He has ideas he wants to realize, and 10b is not enough for that.
He’s allocating capital. It’s not that hard.
Rising Star
Curious how many amazon packages a week the "billionaires should exist" crowd have on their doorstep
Chief
At least 1 a week. For the record, I'm not necessarily out here saying that billionaires should exist, but I also resist the idea that they shouldn't. They just are. And I don't think it makes sense to vilify them for their success, and I am against wealth confiscation or wealth cap policies. It isn't for me, or anyone else to say how much wealth another person should or shouldn't have. I want no part of a system that tries to place value judgments based on another person's wealth.
Rising Star
Bruh went to bed and this blew up lol
Dont know why the idea of taxing the wealthy a proportionate amount and the business still profiting are mutually exclusive thoughts. It doesn’t have to 0 to 100. Everyone is then triggered and now goes into the ethics of what amount is deemed too much? Just tax an appropriate percentage...no reason why people who make less than $100k should be taxed more proportionally than people who make millions? Who’s to say now that it’s deemed appropriate for someone under 100k to now pay more proportionately? Don’t understand why people feel the need to defend the 5% and up? There are 18.6 million millionaires in the US and then only 540 billionaires. FIVE HUNDRED FORTY people out of 330 million Americans . Studies show people have a hard time understanding more than 200 units of something and it’s extremely evident when it comes to understanding what even 20 million is out of 330 million, let alone FIVE HUNDRED FORTY out of 330 million. You really feel compelled to defend them? You can have fair tax laws and have wealthy people. Again. Not mutually exclusive ideas smh
Pro
Sometimes I wonder if it’s just wealth worshipping or people way overvaluing themselves and their earnings. Your six figure salary and the extra couple hundred or maybe thousands in higher taxes collected means nothing compared to the marginal increase of 1% taxes on someone with $1B
My advice to all ... stop bitching about “income inequality” and focus on “economic mobility”
Equal income and equal wealth just means we are ALL poor and a few oligarchs (politicians usually or billionaires) are rich ruling over their economic slaves.
Economic mobility is the mechanism for how you can start with net zero assets and in 1 lifetime, generate enough wealth to rise up into a different wealth class (call it tax bracket if you want to). This is by definition the root of economic freedom.
Belief it or not, there is plenty of evidence that focusing economic mobility creates far more wealth at a much higher rate across a much wider portion of the population.
They are both important though. Income mobility allows for income inequality to be more tolerable because you aren’t stuck in your position.
The reason income inequality still matters is because in the US we don’t have great economic mobility. Certainly better than developing countries but not compared to western peers at least in terms of generational earnings elasticity.
For the most part the income level you’re born into determines your future wealth bracket. It’s incredibly hard for the wealthy to fall to a lower bracket and hard for the poorest to climb up the latter. Worse for minorities by far. Middle class whites I believe have the most upward mobility.
If we want to improve economic mobility then the answer actually is to tax the wealthy at much higher rates and particularly to tax generational wealth transfers which are one of the biggest drivers of stagnation in economic mobility.
Rising Star
Lol shave a few zeros off that $10B too
Based on what, cowboy?