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Comment by pb7 | Hacker News Reader

>These billionaires made many billions on covid, while you got a 1400 dollar check so you could survive.

They made billions from excellent businesses on which the world relied during a time of crisis. What would people have done without the likes of Amazon and fast delivery of nearly everything?

>These billionaires pay their workers minimum wage every day.

No one makes minimum wage at Amazon.

>People can't get toilet breaks at amazon warehouse without being harassed.

Citation needed. Individuals out of a population of 1,000,000 diverse people choosing to do things is not a trend.

>He doesn't care about any of us.

I don't care about him either. It's a business transaction that benefits both parties, nothing more, nothing less.

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> They made billions from excellent businesses on which the world relied during a time of crisis. What would people have done without the likes of Amazon and fast delivery of nearly everything?

You're building an argument atop the assumption that if Amazon didn't exist, nothing else would be available. Amazon's strategy is to spend money that no other company can spend (by forgoing profits) to be the fastest / cheapest option available. Bezos' innovation is not the "fast shipping" or "broad range of products" Amazon offers, his innovation was the foresight to understand how to dominate the market and the gumption to do it.

A single business that owns the sales and distribution of goods is one possible solution to the problem you describe, absolutely, and it's pretty clear that Amazon is doing the best job at that solution... but it's not the only solution, it's one of many.

Well written reply so I'll try to address thoroughly.

>You're building an argument atop the assumption that if Amazon didn't exist, nothing else would be available.

I cannot be making this argument because Amazon exists and we have many other options. We also had many other options before Amazon. Despite this, Amazon became an e-commerce powerhouse. Why? I suspect it's because Amazon is by the far the best option for consumers and others are only close because they adopted many of the same guiding principles like fast free shipping and easy returns.

>Amazon's strategy is to spend money that no other company can spend (by forgoing profits) to be the fastest / cheapest option available. Bezos' innovation is not the "fast shipping" or "broad range of products" Amazon offers, his innovation was the foresight to understand how to dominate the market and the gumption to do it.

He dominated the market because he offered those things. How else would Amazon be able to overtake its much larger competitors? Amazon is not operating at a loss with external funding like many startups, it simply reinvests in itself because it makes incredibly impressive use of its resources. Other companies could do the same but as it turns out, it's quite difficult to repeatedly leverage your profits into bigger and better outcomes. Apple and Google sit on a pile of cash because they don't know how to best make use of it despite a history of successes.

>A single business that owns the sales and distribution of goods is one possible solution to the problem you describe, absolutely, and it's pretty clear that Amazon is doing the best job at that solution... but it's not the only solution, it's one of many.

Nothing stops me from shopping elsewhere and I frequently do. Best Buy gets much of my business for certain products because they've been quite good ever since their early 2010s turn around. eBay gets all of my business for used products. Walmart, Target, and regional grocery stores (not Whole Foods) get the rest. And I shop online mercilessly and don't have a particularly strong taste for Amazon (despite my countless comments in this thread would suggest -- I'm simply arguing for principles) so I'm as decent of a gauge for the state of things as anyone.

> They made billions from excellent businesses

Bezos is not 1 million times more productive than other human beings. He just managed to create a system that exploits people in a massive scale. That's not what I call excellent business.

Who said that he was? Wealth has little to do with productivity.

Yes, and perhaps that might be a problem, don't you think?

No. I want people to keep being incentivized to create innovative companies, products, and services that make my life easier and more enjoyable. The people that are successful in doing so will reap rewards many orders of magnitude more than their employees that did not take on any risk and whose output is measured by “productivity”.

Do you think people would no longer be incentivized if there were, for example, a cap on how much money/wealth they could own? Let's say the limit was $1 billion, to start with.

The only counter-argument I can think of is that SpaceX might have run out of money if Elon "only" had $1 billion to pour into it, but I believe he started the company with just a $100 million investment of his own money.

I'd also accept people being able to funnel billions into non-profit foundations which they control, as long as those foundations have goals which vaguely benefit society, such as "making humans a multi-planetary species".

> I want people to keep being incentivized to create innovative companies, products, and services that make my life easier and more enjoyable.

Funny, I do too! That's why I don't want all the wealth and power in the hands of a few oligarchs, and that's why I want everyone to be properly compensated and rewarded for their work and their creations. Capitalism, especially in its current flavour, prevents this.

> their employees that did not take on any risk

If a business fails and closes down its employees will be out on the dole, and that's the best case scenario. They lose their health care, possibly their homes and other possessions. Capital risks what, materially? One less luxury auto? One less vacation across the globe this year? Probably not even that.

I confess I never really understood all that talk about "risk".

Well then if it's so easy, then why doesn't everyone just start their own businesses? There's no risk after all. Get a loan from a bank and start a small business -- millions of people do this around the world! Easy. Guaranteed wealth, right?

>If a business fails and closes down its employees will be out on the dole, and that's the best case scenario. They lose their health care, possibly their homes and other possessions.

No, best (and most likely) scenario is that they find a job elsewhere a few weeks later while they collect unemployment. The business owner who likely had no savings because everything was reinvested into the business is actually screwed. You keep thinking every owner is Jeff Bezos but there are millions of small to medium business owners who risk it all for the chance to make it big. It's not "one less luxury auto". It's their entire livelihood.

Since you think that employees should share in the equity when a company is as successful as Amazon, I take it you also agree that employees should have all of their past wages clawed back when the company goes out of business, right? It's only fair. If they helped take the company to success, then they must have also brought it down to failure as well.

> Get a loan from a bank and start a small business

That's the point: Bezos didn't get a loan from a bank, he just raised money from other rich people. He never had even the risk of repaying a bank loan, for Christ's sake! Most people who want to start small business are a much more precarious situation, and that's why they don't start businesses as easily as you want.

His risk was the opportunity cost of not working a safe, guaranteed high paying job which he already held.

> employees that did not take on any risk

You must be kidding that Bezos took any risk... The only risk he had was that he wouldn't continue making money from his well paid Wall Street job. He was already well off when he started raising other people's money to found Amazon. So, no, he didn't take any risk to justify all this money. Only the very deluded think he did anything of great risk. He is an oligarch who exploit others, and doesn't deserve even a fraction of that fortune.

Yes… that is the risk. He was already comfortable and could have had a guaranteed easy life but he decided to throw that away to start Amazon that could have failed after many years of foregoing his cushy salary. Most people wouldn’t have taken this risk in his position and that’s why they will never have a chance to be wealthy like him. Your foot stomping won’t change that.

That's not risk at all. He wouldn't lose a cent, he was just trading one big salary for a potentially bigger fortune.

So maybe we should be taxing wealth instead of productivity (i.e. income). Or at least let's tax both, with a 0% tax rate on the first $100m of wealth.

The median US household pays an amount of tax each year equivalent to about 8% of their net worth, so that would be an obvious rate for billionaires to pay on their wealth.

I've yet to see a practical alternative to market based pricing that doesn't require rewiring humans at a massive scale.

Markets ≠ Capitalism

> Bezos is not 1 million times more productive

Bezos has unambiguously produced 1m times more than what most humans have.

I've written 10 million lines of code. Can I get a ride to Mars too?

Nobody cares about your 10 million lines of code, so good luck.

No he hasn't produced anything. The people making all the things his platform sells and his employees do. He sits on high in his ivory tower, never has that been more apparent.

He has created million or more times more value than an average human being.

To make it simple.

Would you live in a village where you have 1000 people with 1 apple to eat, or 999 people with 3 apples to eat and one guy with 1000 apples, because he was able to find a way to grow many more apples per day?

Conclusion: Jeff Bezos has added enormous amounts of value to the world.

I guess you will probably say something like, "but I would like to live in a world where this person must give away most of those apples, until he maybe has only 6 apples per day and others have 4". Would this person have still been as motivated to take a risk - which entrepreneurism is all about? Especially knowing that maybe 5% of the start ups will succeed.

In such world, no one will take risks and everyone stays with 1 or 2 apples per day. There's a reason US has so many successful unicorn start ups.

It takes skill, talent, passion, resources and massive amount of luck to pull of what Jeff Bezos did. In a more socialized version of this system, it would have not happened.

The more you tax potential returns and reward, the less risk or resources would people be willing to put in to create something new.

So in Bezos case with his estimated net worth of 205B USD and assuming a average net worth of an american family of 750k (not sure how accurate this number is it was the first thing on google) this comes down to Bezos owning 266666 Apples for every apple a "normal" famliy owns. Noone would complain if it was a 1000 to 3 ratio.

Almost noone argues that we should take all his apples away but I think there is a lot of room before he has to feel like his risk is not worth it anymore.

The only issue Amazon would have in a more socialized society is that it would be way harder to exploit poor people that have to take up with their working conditions and wages because they rely on those jobs. And if your business cannot survive without exploitation it should not exist in the first place.

I'm still thinking that any bigger taxation could decrease potential risk taking and/or investments into new potentially innovative avenues. Maybe there could be a golden taxation point that's higher than it is now, but I also think it's definitely possible that it would work out worse overall for everyone.

If there's 1000 to 3 ratio, the things small group of people could organize to build would be far off what individuals could start with today.

If a single individual who has a good idea, they would have to convince many more people that the idea is good in order to be able to proceed with it.

Also, why does it even matter that much what Jeff's net worth specifically is? Unless he's wasting that money or using that to purposely destroy the world, it just exists as a number and if it was divided between people, it would only increase prices of everything and we probably would be back where we started. And it would only benefit the world if the people the money was divided with would use the money more wisely as opposed to Jeff.

If they can't get over 1000 to 3 ratio or certain ratio, because of the taxes, why would those folks just not rest on their laurels?

I agree that at some point there will be a decrease in risk taking and investments but I don't think that risk and investments are inherently more important than all other factors.

I am also not arguing for 1000:3 or any other specific ratio. The only reason I brought his net worth up is to show the ratio that we have right now (not even including the ratio compared to amazon workes which would be even higher). And even if he doesn't do anything evil with his money its money that other people dont't have. People that could use that money to provide for their families or put their kids through school. People that could have the potential to create something new or come up with new ideas who never get to do it because they barely make enough to get through the month. For Bezos it is indeed just a number but for others it could mean a lot more.

For all of those people it suddenly doesn't matter how hard they work or how skilled and talented they are. We do not live in a meritocracy and its probably impossible to achieve that so the only answer can be a more socialized system.

You are right in that it would not help to just split the money up my point is that we should not allow this to happen in the first place. As for prices increasing - If our system only works if a few have a lot and a lot have very little I think we should think about the sustainability of this system. If we do nothing things will get out of hand sooner or later (if they are not already).

People wont stop investing or taking risks just because they cannot reach bezos levels of wealth. Bezos has absolutely no reason to aquire another dollar but he still keeps going. Again I am not arguing for 1000:3 the number can be a lot higher but there needs to be an upper limit.

It would be definitely interesting to see what would happen and amazing to test out if we could have two parallel universes where in one you will increase taxes.

I wonder if there are any economic simulations done that would represent the actual world most closely to have something to toy with.

What if instead of paying Bezos paying more taxes, he has to pay his workers more? I think it's wrong to just force Bezos to give away his wealth. However, I also think that some Amazon workers should be payed more.

I don't think Bezos would have had the same amount of success with Amazon, if he had to do everything himself without hiring any other people. I believe most successful achievements were achieved through the work of many people. In the villagers and apples example, if the one man was able to produce 1000 apples by himself, I agree that the one man should be able to keep all 1000 apples to himself. However, if the one man was only able to produce 1000 apples with the work of others, I think that the workers should be receive a "fair" share of the produce. I don't have an idea or definition of what "fair" would be but 266,666 to 1 apple doesn't seem very "fair".

I don't see Bezos as being bad or evil but I see the fact that his workers don't get payed more as unfair. It's kind of like the "thank you essential workers for keeping the society functioning during the pandemic" phase that America had last year. We call these workers "essential" but their pay doesn't reflect that title. Some of the work that these "essential workers" do might be simple unskilled labor, but it is necessary work. Even if the work itself might not be of something that demands better pay, I believe the fact that the work is necessary is something that demands better pay. And if one person has 266,666 apples, I think there are enough apples to go around to pay the "essential workers" more. I just don't think it's "fair" that some "essential workers" who are earning close to minimum wage will never have the same opportunities that others in more lucrative fields (e.g. software engineering) will because of financial limitations.

>What if instead of paying Bezos paying more taxes, he has to pay his workers more? I think it's wrong to just force Bezos to give away his wealth. However, I also think that some Amazon workers should be payed more.

Amazon already pays the most for this type of work. So how much should they pay?

>We call these workers "essential" but their pay doesn't reflect that title.

The work is essential but the workers are easily replaceable, with the exception of medical staff whose pay is appropriate.

As mentioned before, I don't know what a "fair" pay would be. Maybe it could be based on a percentage of the total revenue? But one man being paid 266,666 apples while others get paid 1 apple doesn't seem "fair". Especially, if the 266,666 produced apples were only possible with the combined work of others.

And yes, the work is essential and workers are easily replaceable because the work is something practically anybody could do. My point is that because the work is essential, the easily replaceable workers should be payed more. Regardless of who does the work, whether it is some random civilian off the street or Bezos, somebody has to do the work. That's why it's essential. The work itself is valuable so I believe whoever does the work should be payed based on the value of the work.

Bezos isn't "paid" his net worth. His compensation was actually very low compared to his net worth, only $1.6 million in stock compensation in 2019 (and $82k cash). His net worth comes from his 10% stake in Amazon that he's pretty much had since he founded the company. So, he isn't paid 266,666 apples, he owns 10% of a giant apple farm that he founded.

Yes I understand but even if he isn't necessarily being paid 266,666 apples, he has access to that much wealth. I mean, Bezos is able to start his own space expedition which I don't think many people can do. While that's happening, we have people who are doing essential work getting paid close to minimum wage. Their net worth is probably some insignificant amount. These essential workers probably won't be able even own a home until well later into their life, if ever.

Maybe I'm just too immature and ignorant but the fact that Bezos can start his own space expedition while Amazon workers have to pee into bottles and get paid $15 per hour just doesn't seem fair. And paying people the minimum amount simply because they are replaceable makes it seem like people are treated as if they were resources. Maybe in terms of logistics people can be seen as resources, but my opinion is that people and their lives are not resources. I don't think people go to work and spend a good chunk of their life working just to be a resource for someone else to take advantage of.

> They made billions from excellent businesses on which the world relied during a time of crisis. What would people have done without the likes of Amazon and fast delivery of nearly everything?

They've been rewarded enough already. Sometimes enough is enough, it's obscene.

So where do you draw the line? What's the number? And when that number is reached, what happens exactly?

100x the poverty line. Excess earnings goes to taxes.

RIP innovation if the bar is that low

Innovators gonna innovate, they don't need ginormous returns to get out of bed.

This comment is pretty hand wavy, but generally speaking the innovator is not the only part of the puzzle. Our world is still largely driven by investment and risk and something has to balance the scales. I agree that intrinsically motivated people probably care less for the money piece, but there are plenty of innovators that are both extrinsically and intrinsically motivated.

The world's greatest 20th century innovators, such as Einstein and Shannon, did not do their work to get rich. It's more than a little crazy that "innovation" has become so closely associated with ECommerce entrepreneurship, and is assumed to be driven by greed.

My outlook has almost nothing to do with being paid, but rather having the proper rewards for taking a proper risk. For someone like Musk, the reward from PayPal enables him to pursue even greater innovation, which he is doing marvelously. I would bet a large sum that he would not be where he is now if his gains were capped at 100x poverty level.

This seems like a pretty good place, really. https://twitter.com/Mikel_Jollett/status/1241843944238923777...

The thing is, most of the net worth of these people isn't just sitting around in a big bucket of cash; the wealth of these people is overwhelmingly due to their ownership of their businesses.

If I own a mom-and-pop sandwich shop worth $1 million, and I take a $50k salary, I imagine most people would be fine with that.

If I grow this sandwich shop into a national franchise worth $1 billion and still take a $50k salary, I still am in possession of just as much spendable cash, but suddenly I'm a billionaire on paper. It seems incredibly immoral to strip my own business from me because it's been too successful, and that type of ownership expropriation seems extremely likely to stifle entrepreneurship.

Tax people when they sell stock. Tax people's income. Tax collateralized assets. Tax the hell out of them if they're making boatloads of cash. But to wrest ownership of someone's creation from their hands because they've done too good a job creating it seems like a recipe for disaster.

> If I grow this sandwich shop into a national franchise worth $1 billion

It's very unlikely that you personally, singlehandedly would be able to build your sandwich shop into a billion dollar franchise.

The value of Amazon is not a trillion dollars because of Jeff Bezos alone. He helped get it there, sure, and he deserves to be rewarded for that, but so did 800k other people. Can an Amazon driver afford a house, 2 cars, and to put 2 kids through college on a single income today? My dad could working for UPS for 30 years starting in the 80s. He's retired now with a pension. Why can't Amazon provide that kind of life for their workers? They're certainly richer and more profitable than UPS ever was. One key difference is that UPS is unionized, and then you start to realize why Amazon really, really, really, doesn't want their workers to unionize.

Bezos' wealth is not a problem in a vacuum. It's a problem in a world where he's using his wealth to fly to space, while others (even people who work for him) are being evicted from their homes during a global pandemic, and there are more than enough homes to house everyone. That's the backdrop for all of this outrage.

IMO an example of what would be incredibly immoral is if your ownership stake in your national sandwich chain reaches $1 billion, and your workers aren't making a living wage that can cover rent, food, and healthcare for their families. Yes we want to encourage entrepreneurship, but we cannot do so at the expense of workers. I think we've gone too far in one direction and now the backlash is forming.

This is, in my opinion, the perfect example of where regulation should be applied though. If a business is playing by the rules and we as society aren't okay with the results, then those rules should be changed for all businesses, e.g. minimum wage raises.

The roadblocks to these laws is that they don't come for free, and loads of businesses would either no longer be viable or would be able to hire less. This is one of the ways that Amazon is building out its moat to prevent challengers (note that Amazon has had a $15 minimum wage for years). Of course there's a happy equilibrium somewhere in there, but this is not the role of Jeff Bezos (or my hypothetical sandwich shop) to figure out.

I expect my government to determine the rules of how society can function, and I expect businesses to be as efficient as possible within the bounds of those rules.

As an aside, though, none of this has to do with the concept of someone being forced to give up their own company. If a company needs to act a certain way, then the law should force the company to act that way for sure. If a company was following the law, though, the backlash for crappy outcomes falls firmly at the feet of that law.

What if the sandwich shop went from being worth $1M to being worthless instead? Should the workers bear the cost of any business debt and/or have their wages clawed back?

When a founder draws a salary and the business goes under, their wages aren't clawed back. Why would a worker's wages be clawed back?

Workers should share in ownership. If the value of the business goes to zero, their ownership stake goes to zero, just like the founder.

You're blind to the injustices and violence in the system, masked under the veneer of "free transactions". There's nothing "free" about the current organization of the global economy.

Free market ≠ Capitalism ≠ Post-80s Neoliberal Capitalism

> They made billions from excellent businesses on which the world relied during a time of crisis. What would people have done without the likes of Amazon and fast delivery of nearly everything?

"Excellent businesses" that are modern day slave labor, in the case of Amazon.

Their employment is predatory to the maximum, optimized around the ridiculous churn rates. Blocking unions from forming the same way Musk and others do is really just the smallest part of that at this point.

This article below touches some of the insane practices one should keep in mind while watching Bezos thank his employees and customers for paying for his cowboy space ride.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/15/us/amazon-wor...

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