Current Events > Wealth shown to scale.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Squall28 posted...

How does Jeff Bezos having more money affect you personally?

More resources going to him means less going elsewhere?

I mean, this is some pretty simple shit.

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I think we need to stop pretending like Bezos has 185 billion or liquidated cash laying around. This is net worth of assets.
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Bootlicking is seriously the left wing version of libcuck

Its just a dumbass insult word to call back on when they dont actually have an argument. If someone uses it, its time to stop engaging with them.

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RchHomieQuanChi posted...

More resources going to him means less going elsewhere?

I mean, this is some pretty simple shit.

It's already been explained. It's based on a valuation. The money haven't actually went to him yet. If anything, if he sells like you guys want, that's when resources start going to him. And guess what? The resources aren't from you or that one guy talking about his homeless friends. It's from other people willingly buying the stock.

This notion that he's taking from you, or that there's some pie he's taking a larger portion of is complete nonsense.

The economy grows due to growing business, giving more people opportunities.

https://www.statista.com/graphic/1/188105/annual-gdp-of-the-united-states-since-1990.jpg

You guys have a 5 year old's view of resources. "Waah mommy Jeffy got a bigger slice than me" That shit ain't how it works, and it's not the "simple shit" you think it is.

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Damn_Underscore posted...

Bootlicking is seriously the left wing version of libcuck

Its just a dumbass insult word to call back on when they dont actually have an argument. If someone uses it, its time to stop engaging with them.

tbf when ur defending the ruling class who are directly or indirectly exploiting & oppressing u thats like the textbook definition of bootlicking

Vermander posted...

I think we need to stop pretending like Bezos has 185 billion or liquidated cash laying around. This is net worth of assets.

He definitely has enough money to do whatever he wants to, or at least he has easy access to it.

When you start to to talk taxation, though, this becomes a lot more complicated. Basically all of the liquid wealth he has will be capital gains rather than income. So that recent story about how billionaires pay nothing in income taxes was totally misleading. A possible solution would be increasing the upper capital gains tax rate, but I believe they are relatively low now on purpose to facilitate asset quality trading.

Another possible solution is a wealth tax, but there are obvious issues with forcing people to sell their financial assets. It would not be good for the stock market and other financial markets.

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Squall28 posted...

It's already been explained. It's based on a valuation.

Xavier_On_High posted...

Value isn't intrinsic. It's based on how much people are willing to pay, and that in turn is based on those people's finite resources on an individual level. Amazon isn't an abstract entity, it's a company supported by the people who work for it and the societies in which it operates.

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Your second quoted post doesnt counter the point that wealth isnt zero sum in this context.
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That doesn't address the point at all. Willing to pay isn't the same as paid. If he hasn't liquidated, he hasn't taken anything. And if he does start liquidating, the money won't be coming from you. It'd be coming from people voluntarily buying his stock. The idea that he's somehow taking from you is complete nonsense. If you have a Pokemon card, that is now valued at $100 instead of $1, you didn't somehow make someone lose $99 just from holding onto your card.

Look, if you guys want to make a case against Amazon's working conditions, I'm all for it. That's a different issue. That's based on actual facts. But this obsession over his net worth which is tied to his stocks is complete nonsense.

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g980 posted...

Your second quoted post doesnt counter the point that wealth isnt zero sum in this context.

wealth is zero sum regardless of whether or not it was demonstrated in that post

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Jeff Bezos just worked that much harder than everyone else. All of us can only dream of working a fraction of a decimal as hard as Jeff Bezos.

averagejoel posted...

wealth is zero sum regardless of whether or not it was demonstrated in that post

So demonstrate how changes in valuation of Amazon takes wealth from someone else
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Godnorgosh posted...

Not true. That would be billions of dollars that could be used on public spending to improve your life in a very direct way.

How are you going to tax appreciation on an asset that hasn't been realized?

That's like saying you should be taxed on the appreciation of your house's value even if you haven't sold it.
Godnorgosh posted...

Bezos' $185 net worth absolutely depends on the labor of others. His net worth could not have been achieved without the labor of Amazon's >1 million employees at a rate of pay which would enable him to accumulate that much capital.

His net worth is based almost entirely off how much the market says amazon is worth as an asset. Pretty much all of Amazon's revenue has gone back into the company, which creates jobs and economic movement. And guess what economic movement generates? Tax revenues

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Squall28 posted...

How does Jeff Bezos having more money affect you personally?

Billionaires leverage their wealth into power by donating to every politician in order to slow progress on social safety nets (keep labor cheap), green policy (so they wont be punished for their environmental destruction), and keep their taxes low.

So now the rest of us have to foot more of the bill than we would otherwise and I cant walk down the street without sweating in another heat wave while being swarmed by zombie hordes of homeless people.

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Squall28 posted...

The amount of wealth in the world keeps growing, and Bezos wealth is based on a valuation of something he owns. It's like if someone offers you a million dollars to buy your house. You don't actually have a million dollars in cash from that, but you'll be counted as a millionaire.

Then let's say you keep getting better offers on your house. The price keeps going up. Are you hoarding wealth? Are you sucking resources from the world because you are getting better offers?

As the value of your assets go up, you can borrow more against them without liquidating. So you can access this increasing amount of buying power and pay crumbs on interest instead of massive amounts of taxes. This is a really basic thing and what people of any sort of wealth do.

Had you bought Tesla stock years ago instead of laughing at me for doing so, youd have had a couple bucks to rub together and know this by now.

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Solid Snake07 posted...

That's like saying you should be taxed on the appreciation of your house's value even if you haven't sold it.

tbf that's exactly what happens with houses

but house value isn't as volatile as say stock
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g980 posted...

So demonstrate how changes in valuation of Amazon takes wealth from someone else

money is a stand-in for resources. the amount of resources on the planet is finite. one person (or one company, or one country, or whatever) hoarding a disproportionately large amount of money inherently means that everyone else has less access to those resources.

unless you're talking exclusively about numbers on a screen, which I don't care about

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Godnorgosh posted...

Tax revenues that do not even begin to approach $185 billion.

Taxes on every single transaction in the history of amazon? Lol, bro you're talking trillions of dollars of exchange.

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averagejoel posted...

money is a stand-in for resources. the amount of resources on the planet is finite. one person (or one company, or one country, or whatever) hoarding a disproportionately large amount of money inherently means that everyone else has less access to those resources.

unless you're talking exclusively about numbers on a screen, which I don't care about

That is what we are talking about

When people start getting outrage boners because Bezos net worth changed by however many billions of dollars because the price of Amazon went up*, its just numbers on a screen

*which is the hot take you jumped in to defend
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g980 posted...

That is what we are talking about

When people start getting outrage boners because Bezos net worth changed by however many billions of dollars because the price of Amazon went up*, its just numbers on a screen

*which is the hot take you jumped in to defend

cool. don't care. wealth is still a zero-sum game regardless of whether or not that post showed it

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Relient_K posted...

This is a stupid question.

There is quite literally, a finite amount of wealth in the world. When the super rich hoard massive amounts on cash instead of spending it (or say, paying taxes) it makes everyone else poorer. As they continue to accumulated wealth and buy up land and property the opportunities for others shrink.

This is a stupid post.

There is quite literally NO finite amount of wealth in the world because wealth is largely derived from subjective evaluations and, in the case of a man like Jeff Bezos, his "wealth" is stock evaluations where no money is made nor lost until he goes to sell it. Honestly, posts like those just demonstrate how fucking clueless the people who try to make wealth arguments are and why wealth arguments are generally kinda stupid.

The fact that Amazon's value has increased year over year pretty clearly demonstrates that wealth is far from "finite." The only thing in greater abundance is stupidity, as we've seen from the stupid opinions people share when they demonstrate how poorly they understand the idea of wealth by insisting that the rich have Scooge McDuck money vaults.

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I can already tell this will go off the rails.

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RiKuToTheMiGhtY posted...

I can already tell this will go off the rails.

You're just saying this because the train is parked at the boat dock

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More 500 topics with CE arguing about wealth

Less 500 topics about pitbulls.

Lets make it happen together.

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Zeus posted...

his "wealth" is stock evaluations where no money is made nor lost until he goes to sell it.

insisting that the rich have Scooge McDuck money vaults.

He can borrow more against rising stock evaluations to buy his Scooge McDuck vaults to avoid liquidating the stock. So buying power is made or lost without selling.

At the Bezos scale the numbers on screen primarily function as power/influence tho, not gold coin pools.

But this is one of the reasons they prefer certain tax advantaged stock compensation packages over raw $$$. Tax dodge and have financially illiterate plebs rush to defend the rich over petty details that they dont even understand.

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There are two types of people. People who complain about what other people are earning with graphs and those who get shit done.

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Squall28 posted...

How does Jeff Bezos having more money affect you personally?

I think only some people would go far to say that if I made CDs by myself and they were popular enough that millions of people bought it and I became a billionaire that I'm negatively affecting people in a vacuum (ignoring silly things like people enjoying my music means that they focus less on other music).

But it doesn't really work that way for most billionaires. They lobby to reduce their tax burden to lower their contributions to society. Often times they pay wages such that their workers have to rely on the government safety net to survive (essentially your taxes subsidizing cheap labor). They use their scale to undercut other companies, which in the short term is beneficial to the consumer, but in the long term leads to monopolies. They also push for policies that are beneficial to their company but harmful to society like reducing regulations, etc.

It definitely does impact you, just not in the "I'm jealous!" way.

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Anteaterking posted...

They lobby to reduce their tax burden to lower their contributions to society

The only way to contribute to society is by paying taxes.

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SK8T3R215 posted...

The only way to contribute to society is by paying taxes.

When conservatives are unintentionally based.

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Hot take: Another way to contribute to society, other than paying taxes, is to contribute to legitimate charitable organizations.

Im all for everyone paying their fair share of taxes, sure, but I want to be sure that the government in charge at the time of tax collection, and is ultimately the responsible party for maximizing the public benefit of such tax collection, is doing their utmost best to ensure sound and legitimate spending of said tax revenues for the public good.

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CE_gonna_CE posted...

Hot take: Another way to contribute to society, other than paying taxes, is to contribute to legitimate charitable organizations.

the biggest reason why charitable organizations exist in the first place is to protect wealthy people from paying taxes

Im all for everyone paying their fair share of taxes, sure, but I want to be sure that the government in charge at the time of tax collection, and is ultimately the responsible party for maximizing the public benefit of such tax collection, is doing their utmost best to ensure sound and legitimate spending of said tax revenues for the public good.

why are you not applying the same level of scrutiny to "charitable organizations"?

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$1B should be the wealth cap. Anything else should go to make sure that the rest of us are living comfortably and not paycheck to paycheck.

For example, make sure we all have the right to affordable housing so we dont have to pay rent. Rent is so expensive that you cannot save for a house.

averagejoel posted...

the biggest reason why charitable organizations exist in the first place is to protect wealthy people from paying taxes

why are you not applying the same level of scrutiny to "charitable organizations"?

That was inferred by the legitimate designation in my post.

Im well aware of questionable and shell organizations that are primarily in existence to shelter wealth and reduce taxes, and my post was definitely not in support or favor of organizations such as those.

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008Zulu posted...

It is Jeff Bezo's fault that Amazon became a giant company. It surely wasn't the hundreds of millions of people buying from it every year that contributed.

Amazon makes most of its money with AWS

CE_gonna_CE posted...

That was inferred by the legitimate designation in my post.

Im well aware of questionable and shell organizations that are primarily in existence to shelter wealth and reduce taxes, and my post was definitely not in support or favor of organizations such as those.

regardless of the legitimacy of such organizations, it still gives wealthy people way too much freedom in deciding where their money goes

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averagejoel posted...

regardless of the legitimacy of such organizations, it still gives wealthy people way too much freedom in deciding where their money goes

Sometimes i wonder if you are a parody account
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g980 posted...

Sometimes i wonder if you are a parody account

do you agree that wealthy people should not be able to decide, on a whim, which programs receive funding and which don't?

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Squall28 posted...

How does Jeff Bezos having more money affect you personally?

That money could be used in infrastructure and a bunch of other projects that help society instead of him using it as a figure to flex on people with less money. Businesses like facebook and amazon etc. Are not forged from competition but chosen in a lottery like system by the invisible hand of the market.

TrollTrace posted...

That money could be used in infrastructure and a bunch of other projects that help society instead of him using it as a figure to flex on people with less money. Businesses like facebook and amazon etc. Are not forged from competition but chosen in a lottery like system by the invisible hand of the market.

So the invisible hand chose Facebook and not MySpace, eh?

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g980 posted...

I hope we can all appreciate how dumb this is

A) bezos's wealth is largely based on how Amazon is valued. Just because the market agrees his shares are worth $X does not mean he magically has taken $X from someonr

B) the wealthy pay plenty of taxes (a disproportionately high amount). They should probably pay a bit more, but it is untrue to say they pay none

C) they arent hiding stacks of cash under their mattresses. Invested money funds businesses, it pretty much all continues to move through the economy.

Its annoying that i have to defend someone like Bezos - who has some very shitty business practices - but some of you guys are just so far off the mark someones gotta inject a little bit of reality into the convo

Well this is a shit take that's been left to fester too long.

A) While I don't agree with the statement that wealth is finite, I believe the greater argument lends itself to the notion that the increase in wealth over the past quarter of a century (or longer) has disproportionately gone to the Uber wealthy. Therefore while over wealth does increase, the sharing (uh oh socialist boogey word) of said wealth has not been allocated in a way fair to society as a whole.

Also the value of these stocks start becoming cyclical in nature. And while tech businesses were not on the verge of collapse in the past year, it's clear the American government while dump vast sums of money into companies to stop them from failing.

B) The wealthy do pay their fair share of taxes. The ultra wealthy do not even pay close to their fair share of taxes. The corporations they work for also do no pay their fair share of taxes. I don't know how you escaped these facts, but your head must have been buried deep somewhere.

C) Oh they most certainly hide their money away. Consider off-shore accounts in tax havens. Consider forms of wealth that are not taxable such as paintings that get purchased and stored in shipping containers. Their money is not being circulated through the typical means that all other tiers of Americans use and spend their money.

CE_gonna_CE posted...

So the invisible hand chose Facebook and not MySpace, eh?

Pretty much, there wasnothing wrong with myspace, facebook became the default friend app by chance, like a collective hive mind everyone chose fb over myspace even though myspace wasperfectly fine. Same thing with amazon, i doubt bezos wasthe first to come up with that idea but he just got lucky peoplelikedhis business. Same with a rapper likekanye west, there is nothing remarkable about the guy he just got chosen to be this mega star, hedid not earn shit if anything he owes his fans.

And another thing, all the guys behind the brands i mentioned are not people that should be idolized, they are absolute crooks that game the system at every expense of the average person. They are not great people but terrible peoplein my opinion who could not care less about their employees or the damage they are causing to society with their stupid manipulative applications/websites.

P good trolling there see ya on page 4

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Also, whats up with the missing spaces in random words?

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Never thought I'd see so many connoisseurs of Jeff Bezos's ass.

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how did all these other people become so bafflingly unfathomably wealthy
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