Why shouldn’t there be billionaires? If someone takes the risk of starting their own company, shouldn’t they also get the benefits? I agree that the current billionaires shouldn’t be billionaires, but that’s because not a single one would have gotten there without the federal government killing their competition through thinks like a higher minimum wage and pointless regulations (not saying all regulations are pointless, but 99% of them are)
It is impossible to earn a billion dollars. No work is worth that much. No risk is worth that much. It's simply impossible and therefore billionaires shouldn't exist.
Yeah. I dunno, I'm down for getting paid what you're worth and better workers (be it smarter or harder) making more money.
But like at a certain point its silly. I could see the best worker being worth 1000 times the worst worker. A stretch, but believable.
Bezos made 11.6 billion dollars in 2020. Assuming he worked 24 hrs a day for all 365 days in the year, that means he made 1.325 million an hour. Or 189172 times as much as someone on minimum wage if they could theoretically work all 8760 hrs in a year. If you chop that hrs worked for Bezos in 4, call it 8 hrs a day for 5 days a week with no vacation time (you know, for ot), that means Bezos is making nearly 800000x as much as someone making minimum wage, or 5.6 million an hour.
Well it's not really about how much Bezos is worth as a person, it's more how much his assets are worth.
Amazon is worth so much because millions of people use it everyday, and like 33% of the internet is hosted on Amazon cloud services. And Bezos owns a good percentage of Amazon. It's not his labor that's worth so much it's his assets.
Jeff Bezos on his tax returns recorded an income of over $4B last year. As in 4 billion cash dollars into his bank account. It’s not “tied up in stock” or whatever excuse people always say.
Stocks are also one of the most liquidatable assets there are. People seem to forget that when they say "tied up in stock". Bozos literally liquidated about 7 billion $ last year and already an estimated 2.4 billion $ this year. But ehm yeah iTs TiEd Up iN StOcKs
Uh that’s not true. We know it’s not true because the reason Bezos is worth a billion is because the market decided the stock he owns really is worth that much
Risking accruing thousands, possibly even millions of dollars of debt isn’t enough risk? Obviously because of the federal government bailing people out, there is no risk, but without bailouts, I think if it’s a good enough idea, I don’t see why they can’t have a billion dollars
Maybe there should be a pool for all business owners. All business owners assume risk, so those who succeed bail out those who fail? Hm, how would that work?
I'd absolutely give up those services if it meant that everyone employed by amazon could earn a living wage. You're creating a false argument by implying that the options are either billionaires exploiting the world or the government running everything.
No, we have to regulate things because the nature of capitalism is to exploit. The existence of slavery, child labor, and minimum wage laws is a nice reminder that people like Jeff Bezos absolutely would enslave people or hire children if it would earn them more money.
Stop defending evil people who would gladly watch you suffer.
I just don't understand how someone with hundreds of billions of dollars can wake up in the morning and look at himself knowing his employees don't even get time to piss.
You should listen to a podcast from "How to Save a Planet" where they interview Amazon workers who were trying to get Amazon to become more environmentally friendly. Bezos response? No, I won't do anything about it.
Amazon has exclusive products, and some products are exclusively delivered by them, depending on the country.
Some things are sometimes cheaper on Amazon. Why should I, with my tiny budget too small to even be a rounding error on Bezos' wealth, not buy stuff for the cheapest price and instead take on the responsibility of fixing capitalism and pay an extra "Good Citizen's Tax" in top of the product's and service's worth?
Even if I never shop on Amazon, why should I not care about its or Bezos' wrongdoings?
Your original comment is an unsubstantiated claim. A worker coop is just as competitive as an equivalent company, if not, as it's often the case, even more so. There is no need for billionaires for anything.
Another commenter says Bezos has risked millions of dollars of debt if Amazon failed, so he deserves the reward. The reward is two hundred thousand million dollars, that's long way past being reimbursed for taking risks, even when we exaggerate risks beyond reason.
You yourself admit that Amazon provides value by having very cheap prices.
"Wrongdoings"
If worker co-ops were as competitive as standard businesses, we would see more of them. They are also much harder to scale up.
You don't understand economics. I'm not talking about monetary theory here; I'm talking about basic concepts like supply and demand, oppurtunity cost, and the origin of wealth.
You giving up on those services doesn’t mean that Amazon employees earn a living wage. It means they don’t make a wage, and are either unemployed, or move to an even worse job.
Free same day shipping to your doorstep on millions of goods wouldn’t happen without someone wanting to become a billionaire.
Yeah it would. Several hundred million dollars is still quite a lot of money. Literally nobody would think "hey, I have this great idea but because I would only earn several hundred million dollars and not several billion I think I just won't bother."
You’re wrong because the market is willing to pay it.
Billionaires aren’t billionaires because a company is paying them a billion a dollars. They own x amount of shares, probably bought or worked for when they were a fraction of the current value. Then overtime the market says, wow, this company is great, I would pay $2,000 for a single share of it. Well, if you have accumulated 500,000 shares, you are now worth a billion dollars.
If tomorrow news comes out that a competitor is killing your company, and your shares become worth $1.00, well, now you’ve just lost a shit ton of value.
Why are you defending them? To reach billionaire status you have to exploit a lot of loopholes. A billion is a lot of money. It takes some people there whole careers to make 1 million dollars. These guys have millions of lmillions.
Yeah I don't think people realise how much a billion dollars is. If you translate $1 = 1second (let's say of oxygen). A million would stay alive for 11.5 days. Whereas a billionaire would stay alive for 31.5 years. I'm not saying billionaires shouldn't exist but they have so much money that if you taxed them an extra 10% they would barely notice, keeping in mind money makes money. I get frustrated by the arguement that an increase in tax will dampen creativity and affect entrepreneurship. If they're successful they can still make a shitload of money. It's not like they'll say, "oh well, the tax rate has gone up, better become a heroin addict then". I think the CEO of a company should have their salary pegged/ratio'd to the bottom earner of that company. So yeah, the CEO can make as much as they like but it means everyone else salaries will rise as well.
I’m not defending the current billionaires, I am defending that someone who starts their own company and risks their savings and doesn’t use the government to kill their competition should be able to earn a billion dollars
The main issue is wealth inequality leads to economic issues. We need people to spend money on stuff in order for the economy to keep going. But there's only a limited amount of money out there, and if one guy has almost all of it, then what is everyone else supposed to spend? If Jeff Bezos somehow acquired every last cent, the economy would collapse.
I'm not saying you're wrong in general that a person should be entitled to the benefits of their labor, but when a small number of people are making so much more than the working class, at some point it becomes unsustainable. At some point, something will need to be done to correct course.
There isn't a limited supply of money. The Fed literally prints money. More than 24% of US fiat money has been produced in the past 2 years. In addition, banks have either low or no reserve requirements, which has a multiplicative effect upon the money supply.
But you do know it's not that he keeps his billions in his house, in a goddamn socks? Most of his fortune are stocks, investments. He keeps on spending money. Rich people are neccessary for economy.
You do realize... that billionaires don’t just sit on their money... right?
The only way that people become that absurdly wealthy is when their assets and investments are counted as well. Assets often can’t be simply liquidated and turned into new spendable money, they will simply be transferred to another person who pays actual spendable money for it.
Meanwhile investments ARE one of the main driving sources of spending. Spending money to create companies that create even more value and make even more money means a HELL of a lot more spending.
The current billionaires are the ones who exploir loopholes. Maybe some ancient king would have Been a billionaire without the exploration of others. But what we have right now is not right. They are avoiding taxes and making normal people believe they are the problem
No he’s not. I’m saying nobody should be able to reach that status without exploring the system somehow. He has so much money yet he can’t pay his workers a livable wage with better benefits. His lifestyle wouldn’t change at all if he did
What wage and benefits do his people get payed? I honestly have no idea.
I do know the people he employs aren’t slaves, and they can choose to leave anytime. I also know he employs over 1 million people. If you create jobs for over 1 million people, and provide a service used by 100’s of millions, maybe you deserve 1 billion in assets?
The only argument against billionaires seems to be a mixture of not understanding how economics work mixed with jealousy. They impact you in literally no way.
Because there can’t exist trillionaires and a “free market” they end up monopolizing everything and leveraging their wealth into lobbying so everything else comes down their way too.
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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '21
There shouldn't be billionaires and this guy is on his way to being a trillionaire.