Current Events > Protesters set up a guillotine outside Jeff Bezos' mansion

(+) Yeah! (+)

Questionmarktarius posted...

"Raise the minimum wage so my competition suffers too!" is a pretty shitty reason.

That happens though. If company A sees they can easily pay their people more, but have reasons to believe it would harm their competitors, they have an incentive to lobby for a higher minimum wage.

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Questionmarktarius posted...

The obvious solution there is to just hire more people, which isn't really viable when the existing workers apparently want double the pay.

It is when you don't pay taxes and your profit margin is measured in tens of billions a quarter. They could quadruple the pay and hire twice as many workers and not make a dent in their margin.

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Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

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ScazarMeltex posted...

It is when you don't pay taxes and your profit margin is measured in tens of billions a quarter. They could quadruple the pay and hire twice as many workers and not make a dent in their margin.

Amazon isn't just sitting on giant piles of unspent cash. Nearly everything they make goes right back into the company.

https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/8/21/20826405/amazons-profits-revenue-free-cash-flow-explained-charts

It compares Amazons revenue (gray line) seasonal peaks and valleys that go up and to the right to the tune of nearly $70 billion last quarter to profit (pink line), a much more modest line that reflects a small percentage (3 percent last quarter but historically much less) of those sales. It shows relatively low profits on gargantuan sales.

Amazon intentionally posts low profits because it takes the vast majority of the money it earns and invests it right back into the company so that it will profit all the more in the future. Its business model, once reviled on Wall Street, has spurred numerous other companies like Uber and WeWork to emulate Amazon and forgo profits for the sake of growth though many of these companies havent really proved that they could ever be profitable.

Amazon keeps profit and free cash flows artificially low by investing money right back into its business in the form of capital expenses, like building data centers, upgrading distribution networks, and creating wind and solar farms. It can do so without having to borrow money, which means it wont incur interest costs. (Note that in addition to its strict tech investments like data centers and hardware plants, Amazon has to build out physical warehouses where it stores, sorts, packages, and ships goods from hundreds of thousands of sellers.)

All these investments have led to lines of businesses like AWS cloud computing and advertising that are relatively much more profitable than its e-commerce segment.

Theyre going to barely be profitable, but theyre going to reinvest their profits rapidly into new innovative products and then you see them go from books to music to jewelry to toys to private label to AWS to Alexa to advertising on the platform to acquiring Zappos to acquiring Twitch to acquiring Ring, venture capitalist and trend forecaster Mary Meeker told Del Rey on Land of the Giants.

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So many edgy booktlicking economists living on mommy and daddy's money ITT

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Is it because he didnt let his employees like Bugs Bunny have pee breaks?

monkmith posted...

this just means he'll push harder to remove humans from the warehouses entirely...

As someone who was just moved to a "technologically-advanced" warehouse that was designed to minimize the amount of employees, their computers and machines are constantly failing and glitching and halting production and their "smart scanners" are sending much more shit to the wrong places, to the point where they're re-hiring all of those old positions and we are getting more hours. The technology threat is an empty one, if Amazon had the means to replace all human workers they would do it without a second thought.

I don't like the hate for him, though. He grew a small online bookstore into an economic global powerhouse; of course he deserves to be richer than some scrub putting dildos in a box. I think shooting for $30/hr is too high but a higher raise for this type of work is reasonable, along with either healthcare or stricter safety measures. It's a job that involves a lot more physical labor and hazardous conditions compared to other minimum wage work, and other companies offer good wages/benefits while still growing billions in profit a year.

hockeybub89 posted...

Minimum wage should easily be double. Companies make more and more money and none of it is passed on to the workers and their stagnant wages.

And people ITT are actually arguing that this is fair its inexcusable and stupid. Companies continue to grow larger and leave the workers with the same stagnant pay. My company for example has been making more money now than in its history and decreased the max rate you can earn with them by $10 a hour. These companies dont care about paying fair wages the excess profit goes straight to the top and does not trickle down.

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s0nicfan posted...

Amazon isn't just sitting on giant piles of unspent cash. Nearly everything they make goes right back into the company.

https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/8/21/20826405/amazons-profits-revenue-free-cash-flow-explained-charts

Sure. But let's not pretend here that Bezos net worth doesn't grow as Amazon expands. The guy's net worth is almost 200 billion at this point, and it continues to grow. Obviously not all of that is Amazon money, dude has other investments. But you can't tell me that with their stock value and profits that they can't afford to pay better and hire more people. The choose to profit an exorbitant amount at the expense of their employees well-being when they could choose to profit a huge amount and pay their employees better.

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Middle hope posted...

They want a 30 dollar starting wage? What.

I do too. That sounds pretty good.

ScazarMeltex posted...

Sure. But let's not pretend here that Bezos net worth doesn't grow as Amazon expands. The guy's net worth is almost 200 billion at this point, and it continues to grow. Obviously not all of that is Amazon money, dude has other investments. But you can't tell me that with their stock value and profits that they can't afford to pay better and hire more people. The choose to profit an exorbitant amount at the expense of their employees well-being when they could choose to profit a huge amount and pay their employees better.

did you actually read the link? Their profits go directly into investing in solar farms, new jobs, new warehouses, etc. The link explicitly points out that they are constantly hiring new people as they invest in new areas.

and of course his net worth goes up, because most of his net worth is in Amazon stock. The better the company does, the higher he is worth but that doesn't convert to actual income. That's the point of my very first post.

I'm not saying wages shouldn't go up. What I'm saying is that people single out Amazon for some weird reason without even the most basic understanding of their operations. They just see a big number and have a fit. Go after Walmart if you really want to take on a giant abusive conglomerate, but even in this topic people just keep saying Amazon should do things and when I provide sourced links explaining exactly why they can't people just accuse me of being a bootlicker. It's willful ignorance at best.

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Lol 30 dollars sounds ridiculous no matter how much money Jeff Bezos makes.

$15 is more then most fast food managers around here make to begin with.


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apocalyptic_4 posted...

My company for example has been making more money now than in its history and decreased the max rate you can earn with them by $10 a hour.

Why are you still working there, if it's so terrible?

No one here probably has even the slightest idea of how difficult it is to create a company like Amazon. If the workers don't like it, they're free to quit and go somewhere else; they're not being held against their will. And there are plenty who are willing to tak their place. Jeff Bezos earned his money fair and square.

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s0nicfan posted...

did you actually read the link? Their profits go directly into investing in solar farms, new jobs, new warehouses, etc. The link explicitly points out that they are constantly hiring new people as they invest in new areas.

and of course his net worth goes up, because most of his net worth is in Amazon stock. The better the company does, the higher he is worth but that doesn't convert to actual income. That's the point of my very first post.

I'm not saying wages shouldn't go up. What I'm saying is that people single out Amazon for some weird reason without even the most basic understanding of their operations. They just see a big number and have a fit. Go after Walmart if you really want to take on a giant abusive conglomerate, but even in this topic people just keep saying Amazon should do things and when I provide sourced links explaining exactly why they can't people just accuse me of being a bootlicker. It's willful ignorance at best.

I read it, I get the model, and it works. I would prefer they balance that expansion with wage growth and better treatment of employees, as someone who has worked blue collar his whole life, it's hard on your body and in cases like Amazon with unreasonable quotas, hard on the pysche. Slow your growth by 10% and give motherfuckers a living wage. Your expansion will get you to the same place, just at a slower pace.

Eventually they'll reach a point where expansion isn't practical anymore (only so many things you can expand into realistically) and then we'll see what happens because their profits will be even higher (and diversified) and their reinvestment into expansion won't be as significant. I do agree that Wal-Mart is the most egregious offender though. They are literally mustache twirling villains.

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ScazarMeltex posted...

Eventually they'll reach a point where expansion isn't practical anymore (only so many things you can expand into realistically) and then we'll see what happens because their profits will be even higher (and diversified) and their reinvestment into expansion won't be as significant. I do agree that Wal-Mart is the most egregious offender though. They are literally mustache twirling villains.

i mean, history has shown us that when growth companies finish growing, what they do is pay dividends to shareholders

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AngelsNAirwav3s posted...

$60k a year minimum wage, good luck with that

Yeah I know right. Bezos deserves every cent of those billions and these Amazon workers should say thank you after he kicks them in the nuts

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Questionmarktarius posted...

Why are you still working there, if it's so terrible?

The point of my post went right over your head if that's your take away. And no where did I imply it was terrible the practice of companies not improving their wages is what's terrible. I dont depend on a 9-5 to make ends meet I'm financially free from that rat race but please continue to miss the point of this.

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I wonder if people would have the same reaction if a bunch of right-wing people showed up to a protest with a noose. But then again most of you are probably as ignorant about history as you are economics.

apocalyptic_4 posted...

And no where did I imply it was terrible the practice of companies not improving their wages is what's terrible.

Amazon pays over double the minimum wage for entry level positions. Wages in general also aren't stagnant, that's a myth that comes from non-monetary compensation not being factored into income.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

I wonder if people would have the same reaction if a bunch of right-wing people showed up to a protest with a noose. But then again most of you are probably as ignorant about history as you are economics.

Amazon pays over double the minimum wage for entry level positions. Wages in general also aren't stagnant, that's a myth that comes from non-monetary compensation not being factored into income.

That would be seen as "punching down" or something.

ssk9716757 posted...

why? the company is worth exponentially more now as is Bezos. the workers that made it happen should get more, not less.

By that logic everyone that worked for any corporation deserves $30 per hour

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Broseph_Stalin posted...

I wonder if people would have the same reaction if a bunch of right-wing people showed up to a protest with a noose.

why on earth would people react the same way to a symbol of racial oppression as they would to a symbol of revolution against wealthy elites?

who are you?

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Sackgurl posted...

a symbol of revolution against wealthy elites?

read at least one book on the reign of terror please you're as embarrassing as the protesters

someone think of the poor, oppressed billionaires

Broseph_Stalin posted...

I wonder if people would have the same reaction if a bunch of right-wing people showed up to a protest with a noose. But then again most of you are probably as ignorant about history as you are economics.

Wonder how pathetic your understanding of history has to be when you think ignoring the fact that black men are still being actively lynched and Emmet Till is literally in living memory while the last bourgeoisie was put the guillotine two centuries ago constitutes a gotcha

Broseph_Stalin posted...

Wages in general also aren't stagnant, that's a myth that comes from non-monetary compensation not being factored into income.

No, wage stagnation is present even when you measure by total compensation


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Why are people acting like they are paying their employees slave wages? The local warehouse near me advertises that its hires in at 17 an hour. Thats more than double the federal min wage. That and they have been getting 50 hours a week from what ive heard from people who work there. And i think the only real barrier to entry is being able to pass a piss test for weed.

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ScazarMeltex posted...

The people who do the labor deserve fair compensation as it relates to the value that said labor generates.

Sure, but the problem arises when you try to define what fair means. And I mean really define it, not some vague feeling of a definition.

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Frolex posted...

Wonder how pathetic your understanding of history has to be when you think ignoring the fact that black men are still being actively lynched and Emmet Till is literally in living memory while the last bourgeoisie was put the guillotine two centuries ago constitutes a gotcha

Had to reread this like three times to make sure you were making the argument that using a noose like that is actually ok as long as enough time has passed. The stuff you read on this board...

Frolex posted...

No, wage stagnation is present even when you measure by total compensation

EPI data on this is notoriously misleading because of how they measure productivity of all workers vs pay of some workers, you can read about it here (tl;dr don't take data as fact if you don't know what you're looking at):

https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/6rtoh4/productivity_pay_gap_in_epi_we_trust/

Flauros posted...

Why are people acting like they are paying their employees slave wages?

Every religion needs a devil.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

Had to reread this like three times to make sure you were making the argument that using a noose like that is actually ok as long as enough time has passed. The stuff you read on this board...

Yes, the amount of time between when the wealthy have been actively oppressed by people with guillotines and black people have been actively oppressed by people with nooses is extremely relevant to the social and historical significance of two different symbols, especially given the lynching of black people by right wing extremists with nooses is current context rather than historical. Maybe when black americans have occupied the the same social position as the wealthy for 200 years, your claim that taking offense at right wingers brandishing nooses at black people but not lefties brandishing guillotines at rich people is hypocritical might hold some water. It takes a digusting ignorance of both history and current reality to claim the two are equal.
Broseph_Stalin posted...

EPI data on this is notoriously misleading because of how they measure productivity of all workers vs pay of some workers, you can read about it here (tl;dr don't take data as fact if you don't know what you're looking at):

https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/6rtoh4/productivity_pay_gap_in_epi_we_trust/

if you don't like that study, we can just look at the data direct from the BLS


The idea that changes in non-monetary compensation are solely repsonsible for stagnation of wage growth is patently false

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Frolex posted...

Yes, the amount of time between when the wealthy have been actively oppressed by people with guillotines and black people have been actively oppressed by people with nooses is extremely relevant

At absolutely no point will it ever be ok to show up to a black persons house with a noose, the meaning doesn't magically change over an arbitrary amount of time. I can't tell if the point is going way over your head or you're just desperate to defend people dumb enough to associate themselves with the reign of terror.

Frolex posted...

if you don't like that study, we can just look at the data direct from the BLS

Or you could maybe show data that actually measures wage growth instead of continuously confusing that with productivity comparisons? I'll show you how:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PRS88003153

Broseph_Stalin posted...

At absolutely no point will it ever be ok to show up to a black persons house with a noose, the meaning doesn't magically change over an arbitrary amount of time.

No, the meaning changes realtive the context of history, not an amount of time. At no point in the last 200 years have rich americans had any sort of history of oppression by people with guillotines. Black people have had history of oppression by people with nooses for that entire period. There's no equivocation to be made there

Broseph_Stalin posted...

I can't tell if the point is going way over your head or you're just desperate to defend people dumb enough to associate themselves with the reign of terror.

I'm not defending anyone. I'm attacking your laughable notion that there's any comparison whatsoever between what a rich person feels when they see a bunch of lefties with guillotine vs what a black person feels when they see a bunch of right wing extremists with nooses

Broseph_Stalin posted...

Or you could maybe show data that actually measures wage growth instead of continuously confusing that with productivity comparisons? I'll show you how:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PRS88003153

Because the question isn't whether there's been literally 0 percent change in worker compensation, it's a question of whether that change is proportional to the changes in their output and the work they're doing, and to changes of how much they can actually afford to buy on that wage

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Frolex posted...

No, the meaning changes realtive the context of history, not an amount of time. At no point in the last 200 years have rich americans had any sort of history of oppression by people with guillotines.

You keep using the thing I'm mocking you for as a rebuttal. The meaning behind a noose doesn't change after going x amount of years without a lynching. You don't get to feign innocence with your rebel flag because it was a long time ago. What's funny is that even those idiots would admit to why they brought a guillotine but you feel the need to make excuses for their ignorance.

Frolex posted...

Because the question isn't whether there's been literally 0 percent change in worker compensation, it's a question of whether that change is proportional to the changes in their output and the work they're doing, and to changes of how much they can actually afford to buy on that wage

Right, so lets actually look at inflation-adjusted wage growth:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PRS88003153

Would you look at that! Clear wage growth, and that doesn't even include non-monetary compensation. And the stuff we can afford to buy with it has also increased, otherwise we wouldn't have it.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

You keep using the thing I'm mocking you for as a rebuttal. The meaning behind a noose doesn't change after going x amount of years without a lynching. You don't get to feign innocence with your rebel flag because it was a long time ago. What's funny is that even those idiots would admit to why they brought a guillotine but you feel the need to make excuses for their ignorance.

The meaning of the rebel flag hasn't changed because it's been continually used by white nationalists andneo-confederates to oppose civil right movements in the same from reconstruction all the way through today. The only one feigning ignorance here is you and your refusal to acknowledge why people actually have a problem with racist symbolism. Even if you disagree with both lefties with guilotines and white supremacists with nooses, it's dishonest at very best to refuse to acknowledge there is a fundamental difference in both the historical and modern context in both cases.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

Right, so lets actually look at inflation-adjusted wage growth:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PRS88003153

Would you look at that! Clear wage growth, and that doesn't even include non-monetary compensation. And the stuff we can afford to buy with it has also increased, otherwise we wouldn't have it.

I've never said anything inflation adjusted. Every figure i've already referenced in this topic has been inflation adjusted.It's about comparing those inflation adjusted figures with increases in productivity and cost of goods. And no, average buying power has not increased


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Its literally not worth responding to Broseph. He thinks for-profit healthcare is a valid argument against quantifiable wage stagnation and anyone who disagrees gets called stupid. He hates working class people. Spare yourself the effort.

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why is broseph the way he is

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Frolex posted...

The meaning of the rebel flag hasn't changed

What the fuck do you think the guillotine is supposed to mean LMAO Like I know why they brought it, they know why they brought it, you seem to be the only person here who's confused.

Frolex posted...

I've never said anything inflation adjusted. Every figure i've already referenced in this topic has been inflation adjusted.It's about comparing those inflation adjusted figures with increases in productivity and cost of goods. And no, average buying power has not increased

That is yet another graph that doesn't disclose what price index it uses, doesn't count non-monetary compensation and measures productivity of all workers but wages of some workers. I'm begging you to stop posting graphs when you don't understand the data. If you won't read the reddit link at least watch these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXI_ADnp22c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcdqGUWj2oo

Doom_Art posted...

why is broseph the way he is

I'm on a board full of people who use groupthink as a coping mechanism for their lack of critical thinking skills.

"if you don't do what we want we'll murder you" is the message, i guess?

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The Trent posted...

"if you don't do what we want we'll murder you" is the message, i guess?

No you see guillotines are used differently today. I can't tell you how but they are.

they're just symbols of threatening murder not actually tools of threatening murder

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Doom_Art posted...

why is broseph the way he is

Well he linked to a Koch libertarian youtube channel so that explains a lot. He probably also enjoys a lot of Prager U. Reeks like a victim of a conservative algorithm youtube rabbit hole.

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Questionmarktarius posted...

The obvious solution there is to just hire more people, which isn't really viable when the existing workers apparently want double the pay.

The interesting thing about this is that in some cases, I would be fine with my pay staying the same if I had a smaller workload due to better staffing

I ain't with doing two peoples jobs for no extra pay

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foreverzero212 posted...

Well he linked to a Koch libertarian youtube channel so that explains a lot. He probably also enjoys a lot of Prager U.

Russ Roberts is literally an economist who has taught at Stanford among other schools. The fact that you think that is comparable to Prager U says a lot. He's obviously not the only person who's spoken out against the wage stagnation myth either but the person I was talking to didn't seem interested in any of that.

Why you guys are so loyal to misinterpreted data I will never understand.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

What the fuck do you think the guillotine is supposed to mean LMAO Like I know why they brought it, they know why they brought it, you seem to be the only person here who's confused.

Unless you an actually prove a single instance of leftist protestors actually guillotining a rich person, no , I don't think you know why they brought it. actual nooses are currently being used on actual black people. the same is not true of people with guillotines and the wealthy. they are not the same. They aren't both bad equally because both were used to kill people historically at one point. Only one of them presents an actual, tangible threat to someone elses safety.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

That is yet another graph that doesn't disclose what price index it uses, doesn't count non-monetary compensation and measures productivity of all workers but wages of some workers. I'm begging you to stop posting graphs when you don't understand the data.

The raw data is available direct from the BLS if you aren't happy with the way Pew has presented their research.
https://www.bls.gov/ces/data/employment-situation-table-download.htm


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Broseph_Stalin posted...

Russ Roberts is literally an economist who has taught at Stanford among other schools. The fact that you think that is comparable to Prager U says a lot. He's obviously not the only person who's spoken out against the wage stagnation myth either but the person I was talking to didn't seem interested in any of that.

Why you guys are so loyal to misinterpreted data I will never understand.

More specifically the Hoover Institution at Stanford which is conservative right and libertarian think tank. That's Koch policy and all of these types use the same goofy animations to spout the same crap all over youtube.

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you'd think after two pages of this you'd just explain the real reason they brought a guillotine but alas

Once you understand that Broseph thinks billionaires are more important than Black people, his hang ups with the guillotines (but not nooses) make sense.

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foreverzero212 posted...

More specifically the Hoover Institution at Stanford which is conservative right and libertarian think tank. That's Koch policy and all of these types use the same goofy animations to spout the same crap all over youtube.

...there's no policy anywhere in either of those videos.

here's larry summers take on it which you won't read as well I'm sure

https://www.piie.com/system/files/documents/summers20171109paper.pdf