Poll of the Day > Jeff Bezos (Amazon) is now worth 0ver $150billion Bucks...

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jezz-bezos-becomes-richest-man-152127913.html

That's a whole lotta PRIME sales...

enough money to put 150k people in retirement and yet he'd still be rich

All from selling books out of his garage. Kinda interesting how some folks started off.
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I really want to know what he plans to do. He already has more money than him and his next 6 generations will ever need. Where does he go from here? What is he planning on doing with all that money?
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If he keeps even 20% of that money to himself and his family, hes a piece of shit.

Who even needs that much cash?
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RoboXgp89 posted...

enough money to put 150k people in retirement and yet he'd still be rich

I'm sure he's retired a lot of people >_>

InfestedAdam posted...

All from selling books out of his garage. Kinda interesting how some folks started off.

Was trying to find a clip from the Lorax remake with the guy talking to a young O'Hare about the next big thing but gave up =x But yeah, a lot of big stuff comes from humble beginnings and a lot of companies just like them don't make it.

slacker03150 posted...

I really want to know what he plans to do. He already has more money than him and his next 6 generations will ever need. Where does he go from here? What is he planning on doing with all that money?

Depends on how many descendants he has and how wasteful they are. Keep in mind that 90% of hereditary wealth is gone by the third generation and you're adding 3 generations on top of that.

PK_Spam posted...

If he keeps even 20% of that money to himself and his family, hes a piece of shit

lolwut? Simply for keeping money he earned? That's just fucking stupid.

That said, he's done some shitty stuff -- including buying WaPo and using it as an instrument to attack Hillary's primary and general election opponents.

PK_Spam posted...

Who even needs that much cash?

Given that it's not enough to colonize Mars, I need more than that. Otherwise how am I going to set up a rival planet?
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I bet you this website is using Amazon Web Services....
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fucking chad af
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PK_Spam posted...

If he keeps even 20% of that money to himself and his family, hes a piece of shit.

Who even needs that much cash?

Nobody.

There should be a cap on bank accounts at a reasonable level. When you make that much money, you dont even need to work... You can live off the interest. All income on these multi-millionaire and billionaire accounts that go over the cap should go into a basic income fund for people who qualify. Even if the cap was as low as $50,000,000, that would be enough to afford whatever they wanted. With as much as they earn, they would never drop below that cap.
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zebatov posted...

PK_Spam posted...

If he keeps even 20% of that money to himself and his family, hes a piece of shit.

Who even needs that much cash?

Nobody.

There should be a cap on bank accounts at a reasonable level. When you make that much money, you dont even need to work... You can live off the interest. All income on these multi-millionaire and billionaire accounts that go over the cap should go into a basic income fund for people who qualify. Even if the cap was as low as $50,000,000, that would be enough to afford whatever they wanted. With as much as they earn, they would never drop below that cap.

lmao

CacciatoPart3 posted...

zebatov posted...

PK_Spam posted...

If he keeps even 20% of that money to himself and his family, hes a piece of shit.

Who even needs that much cash?

Nobody.

There should be a cap on bank accounts at a reasonable level. When you make that much money, you dont even need to work... You can live off the interest. All income on these multi-millionaire and billionaire accounts that go over the cap should go into a basic income fund for people who qualify. Even if the cap was as low as $50,000,000, that would be enough to afford whatever they wanted. With as much as they earn, they would never drop below that cap.

lmao

zebatov posted...

PK_Spam posted...

If he keeps even 20% of that money to himself and his family, hes a piece of shit.

Who even needs that much cash?

Nobody.

There should be a cap on bank accounts at a reasonable level. When you make that much money, you dont even need to work... You can live off the interest. All income on these multi-millionaire and billionaire accounts that go over the cap should go into a basic income fund for people who qualify. Even if the cap was as low as $50,000,000, that would be enough to afford whatever they wanted. With as much as they earn, they would never drop below that cap.

Socialist, Are You?

Zeus posted...

Keep in mind that 90% of hereditary wealth is gone by the third generation and you're adding 3 generations on top of that.

While true, that's typically not starting from numbers as large as $150 billion. He's got four kids; if we assume that each of those kids has four kids of their own, the third generation's going to be 16 kids, for a total of 20 descendants up to that point. Evenly divided for the sake of easy math, that means $7.5 billion each, or enough money that they could each spend $225,000 every single day of a 90-year life and still have $100 million left over. And that's without accounting for any sort of investment return or interest, or the fact that his kids have already lived part of their lives without spending $225,000 every single day.

Six generations might be an exaggeration, especially if we keep assuming 4 kids each (that'd be a total of 1,324 descendants), but I very, very highly doubt 90% of his fortune will be gone by the third generation. That's just more money than anyone could spend that quickly without deliberately trying to waste it.

Zeus posted...

Given that it's not enough to colonize Mars, I need more than that. Otherwise how am I going to set up a rival planet?

You don't need to colonize Mars, so...

that is a whole lot of deer
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_AdjI_ posted...

Zeus posted...

Given that it's not enough to colonize Mars, I need more than that. Otherwise how am I going to set up a rival planet?

You don't need to colonize Mars, so...

Clearly we have very different definitions in regards to the word "need," sir.
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zebatov posted...

PK_Spam posted...

If he keeps even 20% of that money to himself and his family, hes a piece of shit.

Who even needs that much cash?

Nobody.

There should be a cap on bank accounts at a reasonable level. When you make that much money, you dont even need to work... You can live off the interest. All income on these multi-millionaire and billionaire accounts that go over the cap should go into a basic income fund for people who qualify. Even if the cap was as low as $50,000,000, that would be enough to afford whatever they wanted. With as much as they earn, they would never drop below that cap.

Or you could, you know, tax them.
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i really do hate that man.
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slacker03150 posted...

I really want to know what he plans to do. He already has more money than him and his next 6 generations will ever need. Where does he go from here? What is he planning on doing with all that money?

You seem to think it's a giant money-bin, and not "wealth" that mostly exists only on paper or some electronic record.

slacker03150 posted...

I really want to know what he plans to do. He already has more money than him and his next 6 generations will ever need. Where does he go from here? What is he planning on doing with all that money?

As an employee, I can tell you what he's not spending it on, putting it back into his own business.
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Questionmarktarius posted...

slacker03150 posted...

I really want to know what he plans to do. He already has more money than him and his next 6 generations will ever need. Where does he go from here? What is he planning on doing with all that money?

You seem to think it's a giant money-bin, and not "wealth" that mostly exists only on paper or some electronic record.

But QM, if it's not in a money-bin, what does he swim in?!

And yeah, it's net worth rather than actual liquidity. Regardless of the evaluations, a lot of things he wouldn't be able to readily sell -- let alone at the evaluated price -- if he wanted to cash out tomorrow.
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Zeus posted...

_AdjI_ posted...

Zeus posted...

Given that it's not enough to colonize Mars, I need more than that. Otherwise how am I going to set up a rival planet?

You don't need to colonize Mars, so...

Clearly we have very different definitions in regards to the word "need," sir.

So it would seem.

If dude is making so much money, why do they feel the need to push Prime on all the Amazon customers?
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WarGreymon77 posted...

If dude is making so much money, why do they feel the need to push Prime on all the Amazon customers?

You don't get rich by not wanting money.
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WarGreymon77 posted...

If dude is making so much money, why do they feel the need to push Prime on all the Amazon customers?

$$$$$$$$ > $$$
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WarGreymon77 posted...

If dude is making so much money, why do they feel the need to push Prime on all the Amazon customers?

Because revenue is declining in relation to operating expenses. Last year, they had a 25% increase in sales with a 28% increase in operating costs. That means their actual profit margins are shrinking. In general, Amazon has never really returned massive profits, it just does tons of business.
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zebatov posted...

PK_Spam posted...

If he keeps even 20% of that money to himself and his family, hes a piece of shit.

Who even needs that much cash?

Nobody.

There should be a cap on bank accounts at a reasonable level. When you make that much money, you dont even need to work... You can live off the interest. All income on these multi-millionaire and billionaire accounts that go over the cap should go into a basic income fund for people who qualify. Even if the cap was as low as $50,000,000, that would be enough to afford whatever they wanted. With as much as they earn, they would never drop below that cap.

Or just you know... try to earn your own money. If you think it's unfair working for other people who cheat you then start a business of your own

Zeus posted...

Questionmarktarius posted...

slacker03150 posted...

I really want to know what he plans to do. He already has more money than him and his next 6 generations will ever need. Where does he go from here? What is he planning on doing with all that money?

You seem to think it's a giant money-bin, and not "wealth" that mostly exists only on paper or some electronic record.

But QM, if it's not in a money-bin, what does he swim in?!

And yeah, it's net worth rather than actual liquidity. Regardless of the evaluations, a lot of things he wouldn't be able to readily sell -- let alone at the evaluated price -- if he wanted to cash out tomorrow.

tbh if he actually did turn out to have a big fuckin scrooge mcduck style money bin like that i would completely change my opinion of him.
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zebatov posted...

There should be a cap on bank accounts at a reasonable level. When you make that much money, you dont even need to work... You can live off the interest. All income on these multi-millionaire and billionaire accounts that go over the cap should go into a basic income fund for people who qualify. Even if the cap was as low as $50,000,000, that would be enough to afford whatever they wanted. With as much as they earn, they would never drop below that cap.

This is the sort of statement that strongly suggests, "didn't think it through".

Let's say, for example, any money deposited in a bank in excess of 50 million is confiscated. What do you think would really happen?
Think about this, for just a little bit.

Questionmarktarius posted...

zebatov posted...

There should be a cap on bank accounts at a reasonable level. When you make that much money, you dont even need to work... You can live off the interest. All income on these multi-millionaire and billionaire accounts that go over the cap should go into a basic income fund for people who qualify. Even if the cap was as low as $50,000,000, that would be enough to afford whatever they wanted. With as much as they earn, they would never drop below that cap.

This is the sort of statement that strongly suggests, "didn't think it through".

Let's say, for example, any money deposited in a bank in excess of 50 million is confiscated. What do you think would really happen?
Think about this, for just a little bit.

You mean a socialist policy wasn't really thought out?! >_>
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pionear posted...

Socialist, Are You?

If makes the most sense.

OhhhJa posted...

Or just you know... try to earn your own money. If you think it's unfair working for other people who cheat you then start a business of your own

What a concept.

Now imagine how many employees I wouldn't have if we all did this.

There needs to be a cap on money you can possess.
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Questionmarktarius posted...

Let's say, for example, any money deposited in a bank in excess of 50 million is confiscated. What do you think would really happen?
Think about this, for just a little bit.

It would be automatically deposited into an account that people who qualify could draw from up to a certain limit each month to help with basic necessities? It's known that charities pocket most of their donations. Not all, but a large portion. If these billionaires signed up for a system like what I mentioned, it could still be viewed as charitable, and with the right implementation, 100% of it could go to help people and not mostly benefit one person or some corporation.

It isn't much different than Japan's disability policy.

In Japan, every single company is required to hire a certain number of persons with disabilities based on the company's size. For every person a company is short on the quota, they are fined 40,000 to 50,000 (again based on size - < 300 employees or > 300 employees) per month. That money goes directly to other businesses which, for every person employed that is a PWD over the quota, is given 27,000 from that pot as a bonus.
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People saying "just earn your own money" don't seem to realize that you don't earn that much money without taking it from others. Look up the many reports on working conditions in Amazon warehouses to see how ol' Jeffy did it...
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https://www.barrons.com/articles/SB927932262753284707

Here's a fun article about Amazon from back in 1999. They're eating their words now, haha.
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zebatov posted...

It would be automatically deposited into an account that people who qualify could draw from up to a certain limit each month to help with basic necessities?

No.
That money would never be deposited.

Let's frame this in another hypothetical.
Suppose there's some place you go every week, like some sort of weird socialist church or something. Now, suppose that as you enter the door, your pockets are checked, and any amount of money held over $10 is taken - but if you have no money on you, you are given $5.
How long do think it would be before nearly everybody starts leaving their cash at home?

Nightengale posted...

People saying "just earn your own money" don't seem to realize that you don't earn that much money without taking it from others.

Well that's just not true. It's much easier to take it from people, but you can sell a unique product on a global scale and cut good profits from it because people consider the product valuable.
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Questionmarktarius posted...

zebatov posted...

It would be automatically deposited into an account that people who qualify could draw from up to a certain limit each month to help with basic necessities?

No.
That money would never be deposited.

Let's frame this in another hypothetical.
Suppose there's some place you go every week, like some sort of weird socialist church or something. Now, suppose that as you enter the door, your pockets are checked, and any amount of money held over $10 is taken - but if you have no money on you, you are given $5.
How long do think it would be before nearly everybody starts leaving their cash at home?

Just for the sake of arguement, couldn't the government establish a tax of this value against these people, place no loopholes for their buddies and make a fund on predicted tax revenue? Ultimately the government could fine them for a greater value if not paid and have their stuff repossessed to claim the lost revenue.
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Nightengale posted...

People saying "just earn your own money" don't seem to realize that you don't earn that much money without taking it from others. Look up the many reports on working conditions in Amazon warehouses to see how ol' Jeffy did it...

He didn't take it from them tho, every single one of those employees work there willfully, and they could quit or strike ant any time they want to. He started a business from the ground up, and it's one of the most used services out there. He earned his money.

And yea, just cuz that's his net worth doesn't mean he has a scrooge mcduck style vault of money laying around somewhere. Most of it's probably tied in with his business and a critical part of helping it actually function.
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socialist = idiot
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

Just for the sake of arguement, couldn't the government establish a tax of this value against these people, place no loopholes for their buddies and make a fund on predicted tax revenue? Ultimately the government could fine them for a greater value if not paid and have their stuff repossessed to claim the lost revenue.

Taxing someone's vague "net worth" just leads to Wealth Flight, and disaster for anyone who can't flee.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4932482/Wealth-tax-forces-12-000-millionaires-YEAR-France.html

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11187602/The-wealth-tax-a-tax-on-the-rich-that-cripples-the-poor.html

Questionmarktarius posted...

Taxing someone's vague "net worth" just leads to Wealth Flight, and disaster for anyone who can't flee.

The secret to that is an agreed policy amongst all economically viable countries. It's a stupid thing to do in a single country but if it's a world agreement, like the Paris Agreement, they don't have anywhere to flee to.
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

Questionmarktarius posted...

Taxing someone's vague "net worth" just leads to Wealth Flight, and disaster for anyone who can't flee.

The secret to that is an agreed policy amongst all economically viable countries. It's a stupid thing to do in a single country but if it's a world agreement, like the Paris Agreement, they don't have anywhere to flee to.

So... Moon colony within a decade, huh?

But more realistically, a "wealth ceiling" would end up being exactly that. Instead of creating extra wealth to be confiscated, the economic activity of any given individual or entity would reach a certain point and just stop. Layoffs would start happening after a company has a good quarter.

If you were allowed to work any number of hours in a week, but you'd only be paid up to 48, would you ever work 49 hours?

Questionmarktarius posted...

That money would never be deposited.

So don't give people the choice. If all money has to go through a central tracking system in order to change hands, it'd become virtually impossible to hide income (especially if cash disappears, though that carries with it plenty of other issues). Certainly, one could avoid ever reaching the cap by just spending the money instead of depositing it, but that's still preferable because spending money still redistributes it (just to people the earner chooses instead of the government) and avoids extreme concentration of wealth.

Of course, having any number of people in charge of that tracking and redistribution opens it up to corruption and exploitation, so the ideal approach would be to have robots take care of everything. Humans can't be trusted with it.

Questionmarktarius posted...

If you were allowed to work any number of hours in a week, but you'd only be paid up to 48, would you ever work 49 hours?

Probably not. Why would anyone want me to, though?

The idea is not to let a handful of companies become economic juggernauts and finance the rest of the world with their excess. It's to prevent any single entity from getting this obscenely large. In a world where no individual could own more than $50 million, Jeff Bezos would never have amassed $150 billion. Amazon would never have become as incredibly massive as it is today. Instead, the online shopping market would be left open to other companies who might someday stand a chance of competing with Amazon, rather than having to wait for Amazon to become complacent in their success and screw up. The same amount of business would be conducted overall, but it'd be conducted by a dozen or so different companies (presumably resulting in a secondary market of comparison services that would search multiple sites for desired products).

The whole "why would anyone work harder if they don't get paid for it?" argument has merit, but only when the cap is so low as to be reasonably attainable without working hard. Nobody is going to be able to amass $50 million without putting some effort into it, and having $50 million to your name is going to be beneficial enough that people will still want to work for it even if they can't be billionaires. They just aren't going to work harder than is needed to become fabulously rich, which I don't think is really a bad thing.
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adjl posted...

So don't give people the choice. If all money has to go through a central tracking system in order to change hands, it'd become virtually impossible to hide income (especially if cash disappears, though that carries with it plenty of other issues). Certainly, one could avoid ever reaching the cap by just spending the money instead of depositing it, but that's still preferable because spending money still redistributes it (just to people the earner chooses instead of the government) and avoids extreme concentration of wealth.

And this is exactly why socialist states become authoritarian rather quickly.

The whole "why would anyone work harder if they don't get paid for it?" argument has merit, but only when the cap is so low as to be reasonably attainable without working hard. Nobody is going to be able to amass $50 million without putting some effort into it, and having $50 million to your name is going to be beneficial enough that people will still want to work for it even if they can't be billionaires. They just aren't going to work harder than is needed to become fabulously rich, which I don't think is really a bad thing.

In the "wealth inequality" sense, that's not really a bad thing, no. In the "social programs" sense, it could be disastrous, as seen with France.

Amazon only paid 0.04% in taxes last year
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Questionmarktarius posted...

And this is exactly why socialist states become authoritarian rather quickly.

You do need to have a certain degree of authoritarianism to effectively control the flow of money, yes. The challenge is to do so in a manner that doesn't hurt anyone, which is not actually impossible.

Questionmarktarius posted...

In the "wealth inequality" sense, that's not really a bad thing, no. In the "social programs" sense, it could be disastrous, as seen with France.

I would think that such a cap would be imposed in addition to taxes, rather than in place of them. Ideally, a cap like this wouldn't actually result that much wealth being redistributed by the government since, as you say, people would avoid working harder than was necessary to almost meet the cap. The wealth would instead get more naturally redistributed by having more players in a given industry to meet the global demand, in which case the same amount of money will still be changing hands (and therefore being taxed). It's just not being concentrated in one pair of hands.
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Questionmarktarius posted...

So... Moon colony within a decade, huh?

But more realistically, a "wealth ceiling" would end up being exactly that. Instead of creating extra wealth to be confiscated, the economic activity of any given individual or entity would reach a certain point and just stop. Layoffs would start happening after a company has a good quarter.

If you were allowed to work any number of hours in a week, but you'd only be paid up to 48, would you ever work 49 hours?

That's not really a problem. Either the company spreads the wealth more to grow the company's influence or they stay small enough to not have google-level global control and several companies pop up to take on the unused market. Either way the wealth is pushed out across more people.

This also solves another issue, unemployment. If you can only earn 500k, why not work less hours to reach it? Have 1m jobs split in to two half hour jobs.
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adjl posted...

The wealth would instead get more naturally redistributed by having more players in a given industry to meet the global demand, in which case the same amount of money will still be changing hands (and therefore being taxed). It's just not being concentrated in one pair of hands.

The end result would be some sort of Ultragames shells, essentially a thousand Quiksters as large companies voluntarily split up, for tax liability reasons.
Not really a "bad" thing overall, but a rather strange way to go about it. Like a 'sin tax' on success.

nothing quite like a good ol topic about wannabe communists talking about the best way to steal someones stuff lol

Questionmarktarius posted...

Not really a "bad" thing overall, but a rather strange way to go about it. Like a 'sin tax' on success.

More power management. Big companies can buy out governments, if they can be broken up then it makes it more difficult for them to make these moves. Ripping pages out of CK2.
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KaptainKiro posted...

nothing quite like a good ol topic about wannabe communists talking about the best way to steal someones stuff lol

Nothing quite like wannabe Anarchists crying about the best way to steal all the resources and tread on outsiders.
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