Like, I don't think/know if it should be law. I'm not talking about being Robinhood with our taxes or whatever. I don't know any of that.
All I know is it's frustrating. Look at all the good Gates is working towards. There's just so much room for people with that much wealth to strive for.
Honestly.. I think what's most frustrating is I can't even imagine what you even do with that much money, aside from watch it get bigger, if not helping people. These people have so much money that they can't even spend it. Short of trying to personally buy a company or a country, there's just nothing you could spend it on.. it grows too fast. So it's frustrating that the human condition so easily falls towards hoarding.
And yes, I'm largely ignoring the idea of liquidity, but for this discussion I think we can.
This is just the return of the times of charity.
You’d think people would remember how that worked out for the French royalty, but I guess it’s always “going to be different this time.”
Prior to the french revolution, many royalty's (including the french) got their righteousness to rule from 'god'.
The french revolution was the first which actually abolished this ancient idea and tried to hold the nobles accountable to the state. (early revolutionaries even wanted to keep the bourbonnes, until the jacobins and Robespierre came around and ended that rather... certainly).
They just weren’t very effective at defusing the time bomb.
Not to mention it's been learned to label those sorts of revolutionaries as "terrorists," among a lot of other social engineering tricks.
I should note - I'm not for lopping off anybody's heads. I'm just saying the shortlist of solutions for a trapped peasantry class has grown quite slim.
I haven't thought too much about it honestly, but it seems so, yes. I'm frustrated by a lot of things. It doesn't mean I think I should be trying to change Bezos' mind, but I think being frustrated in this scenario just means you feel a level of personal responsibility for the world around you. Even if you're not immediately responsible for it.
I'm frustrated by a ton of things I'm not personally able to change. Yet it doesn't change by desire for it to be different, my desire to find a way to improve the situation, and ultimately my tiny but meaningful feeling of personal responsibility.
Anyway, take all this with a grain of salt. I chose a word (frustrated) to express my emotion towards the situation I described earlier. I don't think it's wrong, but emotions are hardly a science.
It's a matter of perspective, which is why I asked the question in the first place. Can you personally change how Bezos spends his money? No. Can you personally help the homeless and disadvantaged? YES!
Tax rate on the top-1% of earners in the US was much, much, MUCH higher until the recent four or so decades.
I don't know if they should be taxed more than the 99%, I'll let someone who knows economics tell me what is best.
An economist will tell you that a handful of taxes are inherently helpful and getting money is a nice bonus (externalities taxes, some amount of LVT). If you need more money than what you can get through those (and you do) then the least harmful tax is a wealth tax, but those are unpopular and difficult to administrate. Income-based taxes are less efficient but still okay. Sales taxes aren't very good at all.
High income tax rates (such as we indeed used to have in the United States) affect people like dentists and pediatricians, not people like Bill Gates or Warren Buffet.
Note that Steve Jobs, Larry Page, Sergei Brin, Mitt Romney, and Michael Bloomberg, among others, have all "taken a salary of $1/year" as a publicity stunt at various times, yet somehow managed to wind up billionaires in spite of that. Harry Reid never had a real job in his entire life, and never had any ordinary income outside his congressional salary, but wound up massively wealthy nonetheless.
Try proposing a tax on net worth/assets and see how many of the Pelosis, Feinsteins, Heinz-Kerrys, Warrens, Obamas, or Kennedys sign off on that.
You're right that net worth taxes are non-starter virtually everywhere, that's one thing both parties will always agree on.
Reid is only worth about $10M at 78 years old, not exactly massively wealthy, it brings him just barely into the 1%.
Genuinely curious.
The effective tax rate for those in the top 1% hasn’t changed all that much and is near historical highs.
I recall reading something similar when delving down this wikipedia hole: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_richest_Americans_in_h...
That said, you're making the fallacy of thinking like money is a natural resource we dig up from the ground or something, that Bezos is hoarding.
No. Money is just an abstraction of barters and favors owed. Suppose Bezos pays a surgeon $100k to treat a patient. Well, the surgeon could have done it for free. So if Bezos didn't pay the surgeon, who is responsible for the lack of treatment? Bezos, or the surgeon? (An over-simplification, but the point doesn't change if you shift the money from one surgeon to a whole hospital etc.)
My vote: allow Bezos and others to operate within the law. If they're exploiting a loophole (like tax-free Amazon competing with taxed local shops), fix the law.
Should the surgeon really do the work for free when 100k to him means a lot; but 100k to Bezos is meaningfully less?
By the same token, if there's someone in front of me who needs help and I can help them with 5 cents? 5 cents is nothing to me, I'd do it in a heartbeat. $10,000 I could also afford, but it would be a considerable risk for my life and long term happiness.
The point I'm getting at, is expectation of helping someone or doing something noble seems to be relative to how much excess you have. Though, another important angle is how likely it is to help someone. I don't give $25 to charitable TV advertisements because I don't trust them. Despite being able to afford $25 to help someone.
So it's definitely complex, but correct me if I'm wrong, but your barter abstraction doesn't feel right to me.
The above dialog is unfamiliar because it gets abstracted away by money, but if money works correctly, then that's what it really means for Bezos to pay the surgeon $100k to treat the patient.
Imagine I know how to fish. I go and teach one million people how to fish. I charge them $1 each, which they gladly pay because they consider the skill worth more than $1. Now I have $1M. I hoard it. Am I greedy? By no means! It's a paradox: you think I'm greedy because I'm hoarding that $1M, but actually I have the $1M because I provided so much value!
Okay so I think I'm getting where you're going with this.. though I feel like it's a separate argument. Honestly it's difficult, so I'm not trying to be dense or coy and argue your point lol.
If I understand you, your saying the $1M does not denote you owe something - and that I can totally agree. You provided value, you have $1M, it was fairly acquired and you don't need to contribute back to society.
However, I don't think it matters to me, honestly. In my personal view, my 5c example still holds true. If I can give someone 5c, I don't care that I earned the 5c - providing value to the population around me. I have enough money that giving 5c away is meaningless, it's a level that I can easily help someone at - not just easily, without question/hesitation even.
Which goes back to what I said earlier, it's all about relative excess. In the $1M example, you don't owe anyone anything - you provided a service, you're better off because of it. Yet, if $1/m is all they make, your level of income os miles above theirs. To the point that, you could spend $25 for a goal you deem helpful to society, and it would mean little to you, but a ton to other people.
So yes, you don't owe anyone anything. But that's why I called it a personal responsibility. I want to be kind, and 5c for me to help someone is a no brainer. I don't owe them, I want to help them. Bezos and other massively rich people might be missing that.
I'm not saying Bezos sell some houses/cars and donate. I'm not saying you should take a loan out and donate. I'm saying we all should want to help people with a an amount that is trivial to us. If you're poor, helping people with trivial money may be of no value (in USD), time is likely more valuable. If you're mega rich however, a trivial value can change lives.
That 5c you give doesn't accomplish anything by itself. If the recipient uses it to buy a slice of bread, the merchant could have just given the slice to him for free. Now you'll say, "The merchant needs the 5c more than I do", but again, no: no-one eats nickels. If the merchant 'needs' the 5c to buy his baby son some milk, again, the dairy could give him the milk for free.
Money is a tool for convincing people to do things. Bezos could use his fortune to convince people to do nice actions to each other, but if he doesn't, those people could still do those nice actions to each other anyway. The surgeon does not literally need the money as if he was going to use the dollar bills as a suture (lol). Paradoxically, by saying Bezos has an obligation to donate money, you're essentially saying Bezos has an obligation to dictate how people should act. Somehow I doubt that was your intention!
I get that, though admittedly it's a very strange point. What's the tactile, real world application of this line of thought?
Ie, it sounds like you're making a random argument akin to "we could all be in a dream, why try?". I'm not mocking your argument, I'm stating that it feels oddly philosophical in a real world.
Yes, that 5c doesn't inherently do anything. Yet, why should I expect the merchant accept the work for free? I'm the rich one, not the merchant. Which is my point - I'm acting, I'm doing something with the excess I have.
And yes, I am thinking of money as having an intrinsic value. "Convincing people to do things" has a form of value to me, and I imagine is very valuable to the person who needs bread considers money to buy bread very valuable. Again, your argument feels.. weirdly philosophical.. which again, is not me bashing your argument/you in the slightest. I mean no disrespect.
> Money is a tool for convincing people to do things. Bezos could use his fortune to convince people to do nice actions to each other, but if he doesn't, those people could still do those nice actions to each other anyway. The surgeon does not literally need the money as if he was going to use the dollar bills as a suture (lol). Paradoxically, by saying Bezos has an obligation to donate money, you're essentially saying Bezos has an obligation to dictate how people should act. Somehow I doubt that was your intention!
I think I fail to see it that way, honestly. If Bezos buys a movie ticket, is he dictating how people act? He's purchasing a ticket, which is a tool to convince people to do things - but again, this seems like an academic definition.
To think of it differently, if Bezos buys 2 loafs of bread, one for himself and one for another person as charity - does it matter what definitions we use here? He can afford to buy more loafs than anyone he knows. He can buy a near infinite number of loafs, especially compared to the bread maker who didn't do the work for free. Yes, the surgeon, bread maker, etc all could have done the work for free - but they don't have as much of this "convincing tool" as Bezos has.
This is why I think this argument is weirdly philosophical. I can instead just say everything I've said with the words "convincing tool" used instead of "money" and I feel like nothing changes on my argument. Bezos has more convincing power than almost anyone in the world. Whether or not it has intrinsic value is .. imo, irrelevant. Bezos' convincing power is leagues beyond that of the surgeon. Like mine is leagues beyond that of the 3rd world homeless man. I'm struggling to see what labels matter here.
At the end of the day, we're just talking about helping people, and how many tools you have to do so. When put so simply, does any of this debate.. matter? Is this debate more than just pedantic?
Well, I'm a logician, so maybe that's inevitable :)
>I'm the rich one, not the merchant
Saying "I'm the rich one" is appealing to the fallacy of money as fixed natural resource. Try this: instead of picturing yourself as rich, picture yourself as a renowned hero, maybe you've cured cancer. Does the fact you've cured cancer place on you an obligation to use your celebrity status to convince the merchant to give the homeless man bread?
No! If anything, people should have an obligation to give YOU bread. Why would it be an axiom that "whoever has done the most to improve the world, is the most obligated to improve the world more"? That's essentially what you're saying, except it gets all confused because you replace "done the most to improve the world" by "has the most money", and treat money like a fixed natural resource.
>If Bezos buys a movie ticket, is he dictating how people act?
Yes, on a small scale.
>He can buy a near infinite number of loafs
No, as soon as he started buying on super-industrial scale, he would drive the price way up. He probably couldn't even buy all the bread in one city, at least not all at once.
This again illustrates the money-as-resource confusion people have. If it were a video game and the bread vendor were an NPC with an unlimited amount of bread with a hard-coded price, then yes, Bezos would be able to buy a practically infinite amount. (In which case, the vendor would be more of a force-of-nature than a person, and the ability to exchange dollars for bread would be a fundamental law of nature. When you think of it this way, video games have very, very, very weird physics :)
>I can instead just say everything I've said with the words "convincing tool" used instead of "money"
Yes, now you're starting to understand :) And so, when you say Bezos is obligated to donate money, you're essentially saying Bezos is obligated to act as a benevolent king/dictator. The act of choosing which scientist to give the money to is no different than the act of a king/dictator deciding which scientist gets a royal commission, etc.
Not exactly. I'm saying that people naturally want to help others. To think of it differently:
If I could give 5c to help someone I'd do it in a heartbeat. If I increased my income 100fold (or some astronomical number), I would expect that 5c figure to also increase by a similar amount.
I would sincerely hope that should I obtain this 100fold increase, my desire to help people would not change. This philosophical debate seems.. odd, and entirely off mark imo. All that matters is the world around me (and each of us). I am only one man, I can only do what I can. If I can give 5c to someone directly and it helps them, great. If I buy bread for them with 5c and it helps them, great. The specifics don't matter to me, my thoughts are that I expect most people to naturally want to help others.
Yes, the bread maker also wants to help people. Yes the surgeon also wants to help people. Yes, Bezos should want to help people. No he's not obligated to, but as I said, I consider most people good. That goes back to my question of why people with so much, do so little.
And yes, I am again using money as a resource. Which fundamentally I don't want to debate, because anything you call a resource I can buy with money, so I'm trying to avoid (what I feel is) pointless philosophical debate. So if we can step aside what we call a resource or not, if we can agree that I can help people with what is in my bank account, then we don't need to debate. If we can't agree that I can help people with money.. then I don't know where to even go. I fundamentally do not understand you if that tiny agreement is not possible. At that point, I'd even question if you're just being purposefully difficult/pedantic... no disrespect meant, I said it's a hypothetical question, not that you are.
Bezos is probably interested in growing Amazon into the biggest business in the world, and part of that strategy is cutting costs to the bone.
What I'm trying to say is he's looking for a way to maximize Amazon's growth rate, not necessarily pinch pennies (pinch billions?). So if he can preserve his current strategy by giving a few billion away, I don't think he cares.
The game at his level of scoring includes different variables in the profit equation. He has to worry if poor people repoduce enough, is the overall population growth expanding, etc.
He "scored" really doesn't apply.
I was told once that if you are a business, either the grow, or die.
Would it have been better if those jobs were never created and those same people were on full welfare payments?
If jobs are being made solely through and for subsidies they are better off doing it directly usually.
If they automate more things from the rules change? Mission accomplished - we have more productive work, more private investment in research and development, and technology marches forward and people can do more productive things with their time.
Things now are so dire that charity became more than needed.
Your comment is proof that it is a good way to clean one's reputation even if you do horrible things in a daily basis.
I get the shtick. I hear it enough. It's not true, but it's a good story. Plays well on social media. The world is almost certainly better off with Amazon existing than without, even if they do some heinous stuff.
Don't know your situation but assuming you are not on the Forbes billionaires list you probably pay higher tax rate than Bezos. In that sense you did do something to mitigate homelessness.
That's precisely what Bezos is going for here.
I feel you though... I'm glad something is being done.
But let's keep criticizing Amazon as an exploitative enterprise.
And let's keep criticizing the homelessness crisis as a systemic issue which needs a systemic solution, not just a bone thrown from the table of the world's richest person.
He also has made goods generally cheaper and much more easily accessible to the world.
The same is true of many local politicians. They have political links to activist groups in their area who they steer funding in return for support during elections and also for intimidating developers into contributing to them.
this is not a problem that could not have been solved it is a problem that solving is not an actual goal but a means to continue the gravy train and perpetual power lock.