Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person(bloomberg.com)
bloomberg.com
Jeff Bezos Is Now the World's Second Richest Person
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-29/bezos-rises-to-become-world-s-second-richest-with-amazon-surge
541 comments
I think that's a little hyperbolic. In feudalism the balance of power is enforced by violence, whereas Jeff Bezos got rich because you gave him money in exchange for products. Like,
"Hey, here's this cool electronic device called the Amazon Echo for $50."
is a markedly different from
"Farm here or I'll decapitate you."
The fact that you harbor a resentment as if the former is anything like the latter is slightly terrifying.
"Hey, here's this cool electronic device called the Amazon Echo for $50."
is a markedly different from
"Farm here or I'll decapitate you."
The fact that you harbor a resentment as if the former is anything like the latter is slightly terrifying.
This reminds me of Nozick's Wilt Chamberlain example, which I will quote here:
> Nozick's famous Wilt Chamberlain argument is an attempt to show that patterned principles of just distribution are incompatible with liberty. He asks us to assume that the original distribution in society, D1, is ordered by our choice of patterned principle, for instance Rawls's Difference Principle. Wilt Chamberlain is an extremely popular basketball player in this society, and Nozick further assumes 1 million people are willing to freely give Chamberlain 25 cents each to watch him play basketball over the course of a season (we assume no other transactions occur). Chamberlain now has $250,000, a much larger sum than any of the other people in the society. This new distribution in society, call it D2, obviously is no longer ordered by our favored pattern that ordered D1. However Nozick argues that D2 is just. For if each agent freely exchanges some of his D1 share with the basketball player and D1 was a just distribution (we know D1 was just, because it was ordered according to your favorite patterned principle of distribution), how can D2 fail to be a just distribution? Thus Nozick argues that what the Wilt Chamberlain example shows is that no patterned principle of just distribution will be compatible with liberty. In order to preserve the pattern, which arranged D1, the state will have to continually interfere with people's ability to freely exchange their D1 shares, for any exchange of D1 shares explicitly involves violating the pattern that originally ordered it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy,_State,_and_Utopia
> Nozick's famous Wilt Chamberlain argument is an attempt to show that patterned principles of just distribution are incompatible with liberty. He asks us to assume that the original distribution in society, D1, is ordered by our choice of patterned principle, for instance Rawls's Difference Principle. Wilt Chamberlain is an extremely popular basketball player in this society, and Nozick further assumes 1 million people are willing to freely give Chamberlain 25 cents each to watch him play basketball over the course of a season (we assume no other transactions occur). Chamberlain now has $250,000, a much larger sum than any of the other people in the society. This new distribution in society, call it D2, obviously is no longer ordered by our favored pattern that ordered D1. However Nozick argues that D2 is just. For if each agent freely exchanges some of his D1 share with the basketball player and D1 was a just distribution (we know D1 was just, because it was ordered according to your favorite patterned principle of distribution), how can D2 fail to be a just distribution? Thus Nozick argues that what the Wilt Chamberlain example shows is that no patterned principle of just distribution will be compatible with liberty. In order to preserve the pattern, which arranged D1, the state will have to continually interfere with people's ability to freely exchange their D1 shares, for any exchange of D1 shares explicitly involves violating the pattern that originally ordered it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy,_State,_and_Utopia
As in many of these discussions, this hinges very heavily on the notions of "free exchange" and "consent".
How do we account for the effects of power or leverage imbalances on free exchange or consent?
If you consider violent force and the like as just one extreme on the broad spectrum of potential leverage between two parties, then we see that a primary focus of most governments is to limit or prevent leverage of cetain forms or intensity.
How do we account for the effects of power or leverage imbalances on free exchange or consent?
If you consider violent force and the like as just one extreme on the broad spectrum of potential leverage between two parties, then we see that a primary focus of most governments is to limit or prevent leverage of cetain forms or intensity.
>>How do we account for the effects of power or leverage imbalances on free exchange or consent?
If it's financial leverage not gifted by regulatory protection, why do we necessarily need to?
If it's financial leverage not gifted by regulatory protection, why do we necessarily need to?
Although, my relationships with AT&T, Exxon, and my landlord do not seem to match this Wilt Chamberlain scenario.
The standard claim is that you need to be a better buyer, and to have backups for all of your suppliers. It can be painful to switch suppliers (and successful suppliers quite intentionally make it more painful to switch away).
The social world is entirely constructed, just as much as societies infrastructure. In capitalism the goal is to make as much as possible doing as little as possible, and the only way you do that is to become the supplier you despise. Personally, I believe a world with reproduction caps and universal income would do a lot to ensure that, at the very least, capitalism is "opt in".
The social world is entirely constructed, just as much as societies infrastructure. In capitalism the goal is to make as much as possible doing as little as possible, and the only way you do that is to become the supplier you despise. Personally, I believe a world with reproduction caps and universal income would do a lot to ensure that, at the very least, capitalism is "opt in".
Well that standard claim is utterly bunk given the reality is that we cannot just choose to switch to a different supplier when:
1. Most of the time there is no alternative 2. Even when there's alternative, it's probably crap 3. If the alternative isn't crap, then the existing market players will engage in anti-competitive tactics until there are only crap market players remaining.
Amazon is, by any definition, a company engaging in illegal anti-competitive business practices. Losing money in order to stifle competition is nothing new, and it's still as illegal as it has ever been: very.
1. Most of the time there is no alternative 2. Even when there's alternative, it's probably crap 3. If the alternative isn't crap, then the existing market players will engage in anti-competitive tactics until there are only crap market players remaining.
Amazon is, by any definition, a company engaging in illegal anti-competitive business practices. Losing money in order to stifle competition is nothing new, and it's still as illegal as it has ever been: very.
First, losing money to edge out competition is not illegal. Loss-leaders are a normal business practice.
Second, none of your three points refute the Chamberlain argument.
1. There were limited alternatives to Wilt. When Wilt was named MVP in 1959, there were 8 NBA teams.
2. Technically, there were 39 other players in the starting lineups of NBA teams that year.
3. Among those starters was Bill Russell, whose Boston Celtics won their second straight NBA championship that year. The NBA has controlled membership very tightly in all the years since. It has been granted exceptions from laws prohibiting anti-competitive behavior.
And yet, Wilt is still featured in this classic thought experiment to illustrate fair distribution of wealth.
Second, none of your three points refute the Chamberlain argument.
1. There were limited alternatives to Wilt. When Wilt was named MVP in 1959, there were 8 NBA teams.
2. Technically, there were 39 other players in the starting lineups of NBA teams that year.
3. Among those starters was Bill Russell, whose Boston Celtics won their second straight NBA championship that year. The NBA has controlled membership very tightly in all the years since. It has been granted exceptions from laws prohibiting anti-competitive behavior.
And yet, Wilt is still featured in this classic thought experiment to illustrate fair distribution of wealth.
> First, losing money to edge out competition is not illegal. Loss-leaders are a normal business practice.
Well for a start, loss leading and intentionally lowering prices unsustainably to cut out competitors are different things. Loss leaders don't exist to be anti-competitive, they exist to attract people to your shop so they will buy the other things you have, which is how you make profit.
Selling some things below cost in order to sell other things to make a profit is fine. Selling some things below cost in order to not make a profit, living off of venture capital while your competitors go out of business? Completely different story.
And, quite frankly, 'normal business practice' means fuck all. Lots of things are normal, illegal and unethical.
>Second, none of your three points refute the Chamberlain argument.
No, the argument resting on a false dichotomy refutes itself.
>And yet, Wilt is still featured in this classic thought experiment to illustrate fair distribution of wealth.
I have no fucking idea what NBA is.
Well for a start, loss leading and intentionally lowering prices unsustainably to cut out competitors are different things. Loss leaders don't exist to be anti-competitive, they exist to attract people to your shop so they will buy the other things you have, which is how you make profit.
Selling some things below cost in order to sell other things to make a profit is fine. Selling some things below cost in order to not make a profit, living off of venture capital while your competitors go out of business? Completely different story.
And, quite frankly, 'normal business practice' means fuck all. Lots of things are normal, illegal and unethical.
>Second, none of your three points refute the Chamberlain argument.
No, the argument resting on a false dichotomy refutes itself.
>And yet, Wilt is still featured in this classic thought experiment to illustrate fair distribution of wealth.
I have no fucking idea what NBA is.
I was going to chime in, but you nailed it here.
Absorbing losses until your competition goes out of business is called price gouging. It's considered unethical and in many current cases is actively punished worldwide. Advantageous access to funding is usually (but not always) the enabler.
In the early 20th century US Industry invaded Brazil with much lower interest rates and absolutely decimated Brazil's budding manufacturing sector, to which it has never recovered. Then there's Wal-mart in the US -- Amazon's strategy is not unlike Wal-mart's was (ream the competition in a price war with lower prices and ginormous investments in logistics technology, which bring competitive cost-savings). It's impossible to beat that triad (low prices, being flush with outside capital, huge investments in cost-savings). Other businesses without all that money can't keep prices low and invest heavily at the same time. Another advantage:You hardly need to advertise. You make a name for yourself with the good deals you give everyone.
I don't think it's fair. I don't shop at a wal-mart, I don't use amazon, and I don't use uber(never have). That's about the only solution I can see: don't patronize scumbags.
Maybe one day the banking system will be less democratic. For now, the bankers pick favorites and those favorites become ever more favorable, because the goal of these schmucks is the centralization of wealth-- so why not get to centralizing it?
Absorbing losses until your competition goes out of business is called price gouging. It's considered unethical and in many current cases is actively punished worldwide. Advantageous access to funding is usually (but not always) the enabler.
In the early 20th century US Industry invaded Brazil with much lower interest rates and absolutely decimated Brazil's budding manufacturing sector, to which it has never recovered. Then there's Wal-mart in the US -- Amazon's strategy is not unlike Wal-mart's was (ream the competition in a price war with lower prices and ginormous investments in logistics technology, which bring competitive cost-savings). It's impossible to beat that triad (low prices, being flush with outside capital, huge investments in cost-savings). Other businesses without all that money can't keep prices low and invest heavily at the same time. Another advantage:You hardly need to advertise. You make a name for yourself with the good deals you give everyone.
I don't think it's fair. I don't shop at a wal-mart, I don't use amazon, and I don't use uber(never have). That's about the only solution I can see: don't patronize scumbags.
Maybe one day the banking system will be less democratic. For now, the bankers pick favorites and those favorites become ever more favorable, because the goal of these schmucks is the centralization of wealth-- so why not get to centralizing it?
> Absorbing losses until your competition goes out of business is called price gouging.
No, it's called dumping. Price gouging is a different unethical pricing maneuver.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging
No, it's called dumping. Price gouging is a different unethical pricing maneuver.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging
ERRATA: *maybe the banking systems will be MORE democratic
why are you talking about the basketball example? post you responded to was talking about consumer choice in sectors that suffer from monopolies or oligopolies such as internet (or mobile data) service provider.
Interesting. the solution should be to just to tax Wilt Chamberlain at a rate high enough that the astronomical net worths become merely "stratospheric".
"Interesting. the solution should be to just to tax Wilt Chamberlain at a rate high enough that the astronomical net worths become merely "stratospheric"."
The solution to what ? Could you describe the problem in the (above) Wilt Chamberlain example ?
The solution to what ? Could you describe the problem in the (above) Wilt Chamberlain example ?
unequal distribution of wealth is the underlying issue, so essentially they are suggesting a progressive tax system whereby higher earners are taxed at a higher rate. Which allows the government to redistribute that wealth towards poorer areas of society whilst not impacting significantly on the living standards of the higher earner.
Well stated. All of the arguments above amount to "sure inequality is happening, but that's just capitalism so what can be done?" This.
Inequality.
The problem is, nearly never, access to resources: modern society (including in poor countries) puts necessary resources (food, clothing, shelter and even transportation) available to all at a very small price. Our material needs are 100% guaranteed.
The problem is that most of the goods that modern society produces are unavailable for most of the population. By reducing inequality, we could improve life quality for the masses.
The problem is, nearly never, access to resources: modern society (including in poor countries) puts necessary resources (food, clothing, shelter and even transportation) available to all at a very small price. Our material needs are 100% guaranteed.
The problem is that most of the goods that modern society produces are unavailable for most of the population. By reducing inequality, we could improve life quality for the masses.
I was asking specifically about the WC example, not real life.
Dissatisfaction
That's just another way of saying people shouldn't be allowed to give their shares freely. You give your shares to Wilt, the government gives them back to you (assuming the government has no overhead).
So the original argument stands: forced wealth redistribution is incompatible with free will and liberty. The word "force" itself means the removal of freedom.
So the original argument stands: forced wealth redistribution is incompatible with free will and liberty. The word "force" itself means the removal of freedom.
The government doesn't give you back everything you gave to WC and it doesn't necessarily give it back to you.
You van spend your money however you want. Taxes simply mean that everyone benefits from spending, not just WC.
You van spend your money however you want. Taxes simply mean that everyone benefits from spending, not just WC.
Right but in this particular thought scenario it doesn't matter what the government does with the shares. It is still the case that the government constrained your liberty regarding your shares. You wanted Wilt to have them, Wilt didn't get them.
I'm not making a moral statement here. I'm not saying whether it's good or bad for the government to do this. I'm just making an observation that, logically, the parent didn't provide a "solution" to the grandparent's thought experiment.
I'm not making a moral statement here. I'm not saying whether it's good or bad for the government to do this. I'm just making an observation that, logically, the parent didn't provide a "solution" to the grandparent's thought experiment.
you're coming dangerously close to the precipice of far-right libertarian "all taxes are tyranny" ideology here.
This is an argument I haven't seen before, and I've been trying to follow the tree of wikipedia links, but I'm not understanding terminology like "patterned principle." Is it a fixed distribution of wealth, or opportunity, or some other thing? Would Wilt spending all his excess income bring things back into balance, or do extra possessions also violate the principle? What if he spent the money on experiences?
Or better yet, can someone translate it into plain old equations for me? Words get very slippery, especially since this is a proof by contradiction and it's hard to make sure you've eliminated all the possibilities without enumerating them.
Or better yet, can someone translate it into plain old equations for me? Words get very slippery, especially since this is a proof by contradiction and it's hard to make sure you've eliminated all the possibilities without enumerating them.
> I'm not understanding terminology like "patterned principle."
See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/34r4vg/endst...
This awkward terminology is something that infuriates me about Nozick.
See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/34r4vg/endst...
This awkward terminology is something that infuriates me about Nozick.
Thank you! My math brain says I can define (I think) a pathological system that is both "patterned" and "non-patterned," and a bunch that are non-patterned but still result in equality given the right initial conditions, but these definitions aren't meant to be rigorous in that way, right? He's talking more about what's likely to be true given what we know of realistic human societies?
Yes, if wilt spends the money he made on things that don't further concentrate his money-making ability then it will cascade and circulate, helping create the imbalances necessary for activity (economy).
The effects of spending your money can have three types of impact: 1) you spend money in ways that don't directly offer you further capacity to concentrate wealth (food, drugs, entertainment, (clothes, cars, and houses are arguably marks of status which in many societies is a tool for further wealth concentration). 2) you spend money in a way that reduces other's capacity to concentrate wealth (you spend money to abolish the school board in the liberal capital of a rural state in the bible belt, like the Waltons and Stephens just teamed up to accomplish in Little Rock, Arkansas. (thanks guys!)) 3) you spend money in ways that can directly benefit your competitive advantage in making money. In the business world we call this Capex, or capital expenditure. Spending money on things that help you make more money.
I think it's important to say:
What is money? Money is a store of value, which is used to peacefully coerce others to do what you want them to to. It can be used to convince others to do your bidding, or in the case of a well established (specified) civilizatiobn, people have already done the work they expect you to want, and are ready to make the exchange. Changes to the product or process happen over time, with the consumer communicating to the providers what and how he or she wants a specific thing, and will guide businesses with the placement of his or her own dollars. This is why these guys spend more on 2 and 3 of this list: money is a form of power, where you can dictate not only what but the way products and services are rendered. And as a member of the elite class of producers and financiers, it is further advantageous to impede any one unit or subgroup of consumers from having enough money to coerce the elite into business practices that favor consumers
The effects of spending your money can have three types of impact: 1) you spend money in ways that don't directly offer you further capacity to concentrate wealth (food, drugs, entertainment, (clothes, cars, and houses are arguably marks of status which in many societies is a tool for further wealth concentration). 2) you spend money in a way that reduces other's capacity to concentrate wealth (you spend money to abolish the school board in the liberal capital of a rural state in the bible belt, like the Waltons and Stephens just teamed up to accomplish in Little Rock, Arkansas. (thanks guys!)) 3) you spend money in ways that can directly benefit your competitive advantage in making money. In the business world we call this Capex, or capital expenditure. Spending money on things that help you make more money.
I think it's important to say:
What is money? Money is a store of value, which is used to peacefully coerce others to do what you want them to to. It can be used to convince others to do your bidding, or in the case of a well established (specified) civilizatiobn, people have already done the work they expect you to want, and are ready to make the exchange. Changes to the product or process happen over time, with the consumer communicating to the providers what and how he or she wants a specific thing, and will guide businesses with the placement of his or her own dollars. This is why these guys spend more on 2 and 3 of this list: money is a form of power, where you can dictate not only what but the way products and services are rendered. And as a member of the elite class of producers and financiers, it is further advantageous to impede any one unit or subgroup of consumers from having enough money to coerce the elite into business practices that favor consumers
This argument is trivially inconsistent. The state must protect liberty by interfering with one's liberty?
State interfence is a direct transgression against an individual's liberty. Thus far the majority has decided that such interfence is a greater evil than the "inequality" that it could reconcile.
State interfence is a direct transgression against an individual's liberty. Thus far the majority has decided that such interfence is a greater evil than the "inequality" that it could reconcile.
The only way to have the freedom from being punched in the nose, is by taking away the freedom to punch people in the nose, punishing punchers with more nose-punching, but constrained by due-process (peer-reviewed violence).
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes!
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/waltwhitma132584...
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/waltwhitma132584...
That's the point.
Which is why the most morally consistent position is to be an anarchist. Perhaps not practical in many cases, but morally defensible.
Anarchism is a paradox though. Because it doesn't exist naturally. We always develop some kind of hierarchy. To do away with hierarchy, we need some kind of enforcement body. And how do we get that without some kind of hierarchy?
I'm kind of anarchic myself, in that I like decentralization of power and resources.
I think the key is to realize that no ideology will work by itself in its absolutist form. Rather we try to get close to it.
So the question to me is, how do we get relative equality without losing the benefits of companies like Google and Amazon.
It's a hard problem. Maybe we're already at the best compromise?
I'm kind of anarchic myself, in that I like decentralization of power and resources.
I think the key is to realize that no ideology will work by itself in its absolutist form. Rather we try to get close to it.
So the question to me is, how do we get relative equality without losing the benefits of companies like Google and Amazon.
It's a hard problem. Maybe we're already at the best compromise?
There's a difference between "statelessness" anarchism and the type of anarchism entirely opposed to power structures or other forms of central authority.
"It's full of contradictions!"
"So is independence!"
"So is independence!"
The negatives need not be so similar for the two to occupy the same space of vast property ownership concerns - namely that a single person has what many consider to be a troubling amount of wealth and power.
EDIT: sentence structure change
EDIT: sentence structure change
But that's not the important part. The violence is the important part. Feudalism wasn't unjust because the kings had a lot of money, it was unjust because they got a lot of money through force and not through productive economic activity.
Also, I think it is extremely problematic to compare any system with large disparities of outcome with an essentially violent system like feudalism (or just defining "inequality = violence", which people do) because what you are doing is basically justifying violence against that system. Violence against capitalism has happened historically, multiple times, and has led to huge injustices, the slaughter of innocent people, and the ruin of every society that has tried it (unless they ease off like China). That alone is a great counterexample to the idea of capitalism = feudalism = violence.
Also, I think it is extremely problematic to compare any system with large disparities of outcome with an essentially violent system like feudalism (or just defining "inequality = violence", which people do) because what you are doing is basically justifying violence against that system. Violence against capitalism has happened historically, multiple times, and has led to huge injustices, the slaughter of innocent people, and the ruin of every society that has tried it (unless they ease off like China). That alone is a great counterexample to the idea of capitalism = feudalism = violence.
each system is as violent as the people running it. An ideal king is just the land owner collecting rents from the people on their land, and lending rights to people they think can make more wealth from it.
Capitalism is perfectly happy with slavery; it didn't end because it wasn't profitable.
There's still some rather violent things in today's capitalism like "give me all your money or die from cancer" which when the capitalists gave you cancer, isn't much different than the violent king forcing you to farm. You give them what they want or you die.
Capitalism is perfectly happy with slavery; it didn't end because it wasn't profitable.
There's still some rather violent things in today's capitalism like "give me all your money or die from cancer" which when the capitalists gave you cancer, isn't much different than the violent king forcing you to farm. You give them what they want or you die.
> it didn't end because it wasn't profitable.
Actually, it ended because it could not compete with free labor. It was dying around 1800 because of that, and then the cotton gin revived it. It was dying again in the 1850s, and a big driver of the Civil War was the slave states trying to protect their economy from free labor competition.
I don't think it's a coincidence that social justice has tended to follow what works best economically.
Actually, it ended because it could not compete with free labor. It was dying around 1800 because of that, and then the cotton gin revived it. It was dying again in the 1850s, and a big driver of the Civil War was the slave states trying to protect their economy from free labor competition.
I don't think it's a coincidence that social justice has tended to follow what works best economically.
Slavery still very much exists in places like Middle East, South Asia, and US prisons, so your argument is moot.
Ask yourself why the USSR was unable to compete with the US economically, and could not even feed itself (Kansas in the 1970s was known as "the breadbasket of the Soviet Union". Why the Chinese could not compete with the US until they switched to free labor. Why N. Korea is starving and regular shipments of food from the west keeps things from getting much worse. The Middle East is not known for exporting factory goods.
The examples go on and on.
Where forced labor still exists there is something else propping it up or subsidizing it - like I mentioned with prison labor.
The examples go on and on.
Where forced labor still exists there is something else propping it up or subsidizing it - like I mentioned with prison labor.
Claiming that labor in the USSR was slave labor is disingenuous and quite a stretch. By the same standard, I can claim that Western wage labor was also slave labor.
I'm also dubious of your Kansas claims (Google search comes up with nothing). Again, by the same standard, I can claim that the US "cannot even clothe itself" today. I'm sure reality is a lot more nuanced than that.
I can expand further on history of the USSR and long-term effects of WW2 on that country's population, which had massive waves of effect well into 1990s, but I'll stop here.
I'm also dubious of your Kansas claims (Google search comes up with nothing). Again, by the same standard, I can claim that the US "cannot even clothe itself" today. I'm sure reality is a lot more nuanced than that.
I can expand further on history of the USSR and long-term effects of WW2 on that country's population, which had massive waves of effect well into 1990s, but I'll stop here.
[deleted]
In case anyone is wondering what libertarian revisionism looks like, look above.
The Confederacy couldn't even produce shoes for their soldiers. That's why Lee had gone north to Gettysburg - there was a shoe factory nearby.
> I don't think it's a coincidence that social justice has tended to follow what works best economically.
citation needed
citation needed
Slavery ended in the US because we fought a war. And some forms of slavery do exist today. See prison labor for example.
The war didn't just happen. It didn't start out as a war to end slavery, either (that happened later, with the Emancipation Proclamation).
As for prison labor, most of the cost of that is borne by the taxpayer, not the company using their labor. Keeping people prisoners in the US is very expensive.
As for prison labor, most of the cost of that is borne by the taxpayer, not the company using their labor. Keeping people prisoners in the US is very expensive.
Nothing you just said supports that slavery ended because of the "free market".
1) The Civil War was absolutely about slavery. Here's a professor at West Point talking about: https://youtu.be/pcy7qV-BGF4 (and PragerU is a very conservative source too).
2) The Emancipation Proclamation didn't end slavery. It ended it in states that were still rebelling. It took amendments to the Constitution to end slavery once and for all.
3) I agree that keeping prisoners is very expensive in the US and that most of that cost falls on the taxpayer. But it is very much still (essentially) slavery that the "free market" uses.
1) The Civil War was absolutely about slavery. Here's a professor at West Point talking about: https://youtu.be/pcy7qV-BGF4 (and PragerU is a very conservative source too).
2) The Emancipation Proclamation didn't end slavery. It ended it in states that were still rebelling. It took amendments to the Constitution to end slavery once and for all.
3) I agree that keeping prisoners is very expensive in the US and that most of that cost falls on the taxpayer. But it is very much still (essentially) slavery that the "free market" uses.
> Feudalism wasn't unjust because the kings had a lot of money, it was unjust because they got a lot of money through force and not through productive economic activity.
What if they just inherited it?
How confident are we that everyone who has a lot of monetary power today got to that place originally through productive economic activity vs. illegitimate/criminal activity, or unproductive economic activity, or inheritance, or just being the first to colonise (or often just plain steal) some land, or some other less savory source?
What if they just inherited it?
How confident are we that everyone who has a lot of monetary power today got to that place originally through productive economic activity vs. illegitimate/criminal activity, or unproductive economic activity, or inheritance, or just being the first to colonise (or often just plain steal) some land, or some other less savory source?
We're not talking about all rich people. We're talking about Jeff Bezos. How did Jeff become the second wealthiest human on the planet?
Well, his mother's family had some wealth. But his mother was a single teenage mom until she married his step-father. His step-father immigrated alone from Cuba at the age of 15. Later, he worked his way through a degree at the University of Albuquerque.
So, I'm not sure how much of a silver spoon he had.
Well, his mother's family had some wealth. But his mother was a single teenage mom until she married his step-father. His step-father immigrated alone from Cuba at the age of 15. Later, he worked his way through a degree at the University of Albuquerque.
So, I'm not sure how much of a silver spoon he had.
In an ideal society, we identify theft/criminal activity and get the money back. That's part of what we have government for right? Also inheritance is ultimately the extension of the will of someone who was economically productive, so I see no problem there.
> Also inheritance is ultimately the extension of the will of someone who was economically productive, so I see no problem there.
Like Queen of England's inheritance, for example?
Or anybody inheriting land on American soil?
Totally no violence involved in initially obtaining those assets?
Like Queen of England's inheritance, for example?
Or anybody inheriting land on American soil?
Totally no violence involved in initially obtaining those assets?
Love this cartoon:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/COQgS0MUcAA7-RK.png
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/COQgS0MUcAA7-RK.png
Crimes aren't inherited.
So if I kill you and take your house, and somehow escape justice before dying myself and passing said house to my son, your son forfeits any claim to the house? Correct?
I think the general consensus is that if you can identify a specific property that has been stolen from you in an estate, you can reclaim it (from the estate). But claims against someone who purchased the stolen goods unknowingly, or general claims from one group to another, like a common English person against the Queen, a colored person against a random white man, or a Palestinian against an Israelite, those are not valid.
General consensus of people who've benefitted from said stealing*
In each of the cases you listed, the person who would've had claims against them has power over the plaintiff
In each of the cases you listed, the person who would've had claims against them has power over the plaintiff
So if I unknowingly buy a stolen bike off Craigslist, I get to keep it? If the owner later identifies it with proof and requests me to return it, do I get to say "sorry, no" to him?
no. (with a lot of statutory exceptions, i'm quite sure) i believe the applicable common law rule is this:
if there's a (prior) theft in the chain of title, then you do not have good title.
hence the market for title insurance and the market for title searches.
if there's a (prior) theft in the chain of title, then you do not have good title.
hence the market for title insurance and the market for title searches.
You don't even have to die in this scenario. Just give the loot to a friend. He inherits the loot but not the crime. Maybe he'll return the favor, or just immediately give it back to you.
that's a legal convention that we agree with in America today, kinda, mostly. it has not always been the prevailing legal convention in society.
Inequality sure is.
> Also inheritance is ultimately the extension of the will of someone who was economically productive, so I see no problem there.
I see a problem with the dead ruling over the living. Your will ends when you do with no extension.
That's not to say there might not be legitimate reasons to allow some inheritance, but extending the will of the dead, economically productive in life or not, is not among them.
I see a problem with the dead ruling over the living. Your will ends when you do with no extension.
That's not to say there might not be legitimate reasons to allow some inheritance, but extending the will of the dead, economically productive in life or not, is not among them.
Isn't that why wills are written while people are still alive, and executed as they die? Isn't that why it's called the last will? Not "extending the will of the dead" isn't any kind of legal principle anyways. It's absurd. We don't rewrite every law after the people that wrote it died, come on.
> We don't rewrite every law after the people that wrote it died
Sure, for one reason for convenience. But Jefferson, it must be noted, wanted something similar for every law and Constitution (time based, because the alternative is impractical), specifically because the law should represent the will of the people living under it, not the dead hand of the past generation.
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch2s23.h...
Sure, for one reason for convenience. But Jefferson, it must be noted, wanted something similar for every law and Constitution (time based, because the alternative is impractical), specifically because the law should represent the will of the people living under it, not the dead hand of the past generation.
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch2s23.h...
Good luck with that.
The daughter of a wealthy estate might receive the very best in private education, music lessons, etc. She might take her allowance and start a successful business. She might just have a successful business because of all her parents' social connections.
Then dad dies. How do you propose to nullify all the advantages she still enjoys because of her father's wealth?
Can you take away the child's business that was started with a few million dollars from dad? No? But you can take away the million dollars still sitting in the bank?
How about the farm? the house? the boat? Can those not be inherited?
If you reject all inheritance, you reject much of the incentives of capitalism.
EDIT: better English
The daughter of a wealthy estate might receive the very best in private education, music lessons, etc. She might take her allowance and start a successful business. She might just have a successful business because of all her parents' social connections.
Then dad dies. How do you propose to nullify all the advantages she still enjoys because of her father's wealth?
Can you take away the child's business that was started with a few million dollars from dad? No? But you can take away the million dollars still sitting in the bank?
How about the farm? the house? the boat? Can those not be inherited?
If you reject all inheritance, you reject much of the incentives of capitalism.
EDIT: better English
> If you reject all inheritance, you reject much of the incentives of capitalism.
I reject the idea that inheritance is a matter of right, and particularly that there is any moral right in extending the will of the dead past their death.
I don't, OTOH, disagree that some inheritance may even socially useful and worth permitting, with appropriate conditions and limitations, on that basis. In fact, I said so explicitly in GP.
OTOH, I'm also not a big fan of capitalism as a system, am glad that it has generally been displaced by the modern mixed economy since being described by its critics, and think that the influence it has on the general shape of modern economies needs to be further curtailed, so I'm not particularly worried that limiting inheritance might further undermine the influence of capitalism; that's a benefit, not a cost.
I reject the idea that inheritance is a matter of right, and particularly that there is any moral right in extending the will of the dead past their death.
I don't, OTOH, disagree that some inheritance may even socially useful and worth permitting, with appropriate conditions and limitations, on that basis. In fact, I said so explicitly in GP.
OTOH, I'm also not a big fan of capitalism as a system, am glad that it has generally been displaced by the modern mixed economy since being described by its critics, and think that the influence it has on the general shape of modern economies needs to be further curtailed, so I'm not particularly worried that limiting inheritance might further undermine the influence of capitalism; that's a benefit, not a cost.
So where's the line?
I was born and grew up under an actual communist rule. It was terrible. Also, it didn't really work due to fundamental human nature.
What human nature you ask? Well, mine for example. I'm working my ass of so that I can have more than you have. So that I can leave my wealth to my children (three so far) so that they can continue from a better position than where I started from (almost nothing, except the education my single mother gave me) to get an edge in life.
You want to take that option away from me? Sorry, not gonna work.
I was born and grew up under an actual communist rule. It was terrible. Also, it didn't really work due to fundamental human nature.
What human nature you ask? Well, mine for example. I'm working my ass of so that I can have more than you have. So that I can leave my wealth to my children (three so far) so that they can continue from a better position than where I started from (almost nothing, except the education my single mother gave me) to get an edge in life.
You want to take that option away from me? Sorry, not gonna work.
> I'm working my ass of so that I can have more than you have.
why do you want to have more than someone else? that implies that you derive pleasure from the deprivation of others, which is sadistic.
I think you should work so that you can have the things that you want for yourself, not so you can have more than someone else.
why do you want to have more than someone else? that implies that you derive pleasure from the deprivation of others, which is sadistic.
I think you should work so that you can have the things that you want for yourself, not so you can have more than someone else.
I like the freedom that monetary success gives. I've seen it briefly and it was freaking awesome.
The only reason it gives that freedom though is derived from inequality. The world is an extremely complex system and complex systems have weird emergent and unpredictable behaviours.
Also, some people contribute more than others. I'm certainly not saying that I'm the biggest contributor, but I do know people who can code circles around me (yes, I used to be a software developer, hey, this is HN you know) and really can do things that I could not, because they depend on fundamental understanding of complexity that I'm simply unable to comprehend. There is no way I could have come up with Paxos for example and clearly it has been extremely useful technology. Also I'm sure the inventor (Alan Kay, IIRC) makes a ton more money than I do and he deserves it!
There is no fundamental equality, because people are not equal and peoples contribution to society is not equal.
Bezos already has paid more taxes than I will ever pay - so he has in fact contributed more.
The only reason it gives that freedom though is derived from inequality. The world is an extremely complex system and complex systems have weird emergent and unpredictable behaviours.
Also, some people contribute more than others. I'm certainly not saying that I'm the biggest contributor, but I do know people who can code circles around me (yes, I used to be a software developer, hey, this is HN you know) and really can do things that I could not, because they depend on fundamental understanding of complexity that I'm simply unable to comprehend. There is no way I could have come up with Paxos for example and clearly it has been extremely useful technology. Also I'm sure the inventor (Alan Kay, IIRC) makes a ton more money than I do and he deserves it!
There is no fundamental equality, because people are not equal and peoples contribution to society is not equal.
Bezos already has paid more taxes than I will ever pay - so he has in fact contributed more.
People care about what's going to happen after they die. You can see this from any global warming activist. They're not concerned about their own live but about future generations. Are you saying they should mind their own business and ignore the grandkids who might have more storms and famines?
> Are you saying they should mind their own business and ignore the grandkids who might have more storms and famines?
No, I'm not.
I'm saying that once they're dead, what they cared about when they were alive matters, if at all, because and to the extent people still living care about it, and that there is no inherent right that the dead have to have their will dictate actions or rights of the living once they have died.
No, I'm not.
I'm saying that once they're dead, what they cared about when they were alive matters, if at all, because and to the extent people still living care about it, and that there is no inherent right that the dead have to have their will dictate actions or rights of the living once they have died.
that's not the same type of thing as inheritance of material property and money. the inhabitability of the earth is an existential priority. what we do with leftover bank account balances when someone dies is not.
you're arguing against a strawman, the post you're replying to was discussing the posthumous will specifically.
> In an ideal society,
There has never existed an "ideal society". Power always corrupts.
There has never existed an "ideal society". Power always corrupts.
Capitalism is inherently violent whether you like it or not. The police violently repress anyone seeking what they have a natural right to: their fair share of the wealth.
Capitalism is absolutely violent, and just as concerned with with-holding value as providing it (the primary means of price negotiation is the threat of walking away). Look at how much food a grocery store throws away, or how many houses are unoccupied, all in the interests of accounting and bargaining leverage.
However: I take umbrage with "natural right" (the only right nature guarantees is entropy and death), and "fair share" (as decided by whom?). I think a wealthy, free, and just society would include infrastructure investment and The Commons in addition to free enterprise and private property; but good luck getting every single person to agree on the same definition of "fair".
However: I take umbrage with "natural right" (the only right nature guarantees is entropy and death), and "fair share" (as decided by whom?). I think a wealthy, free, and just society would include infrastructure investment and The Commons in addition to free enterprise and private property; but good luck getting every single person to agree on the same definition of "fair".
Grocery stores throw a lot of food away due to regulation and liability issues, not for bargaining leverage.
Crap. They throw away food because it's cheaper to throw it away than to give it to those that need it. It has nothing to do with 'liability' or 'regulation', given they still do the same in NZ, which has neither the concept of personal injury liability nor onerous food regulations.
Correct, even just paying for delivery to homeless shelters is the money no store owner wants to pay and even if you get volunteers they still have to pay for gas.
Edit: forget gas even paying the employees to sort the food that is still edible costs too much.
Edit: forget gas even paying the employees to sort the food that is still edible costs too much.
People have a natural right to the results of others' toils solely by virtue of having been born?
People have a natural right to a fair share of society's toils solely be virtue of being human beings, yes, absolutely.
What you have is not the result of your toils.
What you have is not the result of your toils.
> What you have is not the result of your toils.
be careful with your phrasing. better to say "What you have is not solely the result of your toils."
be careful with your phrasing. better to say "What you have is not solely the result of your toils."
We could remedy that by taking privileged children away from their toiling parents who provide them with advantages not available to other kids.
Ah, the "Don't read to your children" approach [0]. Don't worry, I know you weren't being serious. Sadly some people are.
[0] http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417997/professor-if-yo...
[0] http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417997/professor-if-yo...
That's kind of why the West is rich ... well it wasn't so natural but hundreds of years of on-going colonialism made it so.
[deleted]
Humanity is inherently violent.
Jeff Bezos himself has not performed the productive economic activity that has generated his wealth. He has performed some labor for a corporation, similar to millions of other Americans, except that because of the ownership privileges granted to him by our capitalist system his share of the wealth produced by the corporation he works for is vastly out of proportion with the wealth share almost everyone else in the entire world receives.
the wealth is Amazon's. Bezos owns quite a lot of Amazon. the system permits this level if inequality. that doesn't mean it is deserved or desirable.
the wealth is Amazon's. Bezos owns quite a lot of Amazon. the system permits this level if inequality. that doesn't mean it is deserved or desirable.
You don't think land lords provided positive economic activity under feudalism? That's absurd, but not as absurd as the implications that capitalist states don't have blood on their hands.
Sorry, why is it concerning? It seems concerning to me but only if you choose not to really engage with what it means.
Throughout human history there has never been a time where those in power, regardless of how obtained, didn't turn to violence and subterfuge to maintain it.
Have you experienced violence from those in power? Its so easy to spread fear when you haven't used your brain.
And have you considered how much of your lifestyle, the best parts of your lifestyle, is impossible under any system other than capitalism? I can't think of a better vehicle for diversity and indeed there certainly isn't one. It's almost insulting when people so casually dismiss these things.
And have you considered how much of your lifestyle, the best parts of your lifestyle, is impossible under any system other than capitalism? I can't think of a better vehicle for diversity and indeed there certainly isn't one. It's almost insulting when people so casually dismiss these things.
You may wish to tone down the condescension. Many people use their brains just fine and have, in fact, experienced violence from those in power.
Perhaps they knew or were related to one of the dozens of people murdered by police. Perhaps they were turned away from a favorite recreational activity by armed BLM agents and snipers violently confiscating cattle. (Why does the BLM have snipers?) Maybe they were affected by government murders at Ruby Ridge, or police peppering of Occupy protesters, or maybe they were attacked by trained dogs near the Dakota pipeline. Maybe their children were threatened when they spoke out about a tax hike to hire more police. Maybe their relative is in lockup for crossing an imaginary line that arbitrarily bounds Arizona. Maybe their property was taken from them because it could generate higher tax revenue if a strip mall were built there instead. Maybe they read about somebody who fled for their life after exposing illegal activity on the part of the government.
Maybe it is possible to use your brain and still be wary of the corrupt use of power in today's society.
Perhaps they knew or were related to one of the dozens of people murdered by police. Perhaps they were turned away from a favorite recreational activity by armed BLM agents and snipers violently confiscating cattle. (Why does the BLM have snipers?) Maybe they were affected by government murders at Ruby Ridge, or police peppering of Occupy protesters, or maybe they were attacked by trained dogs near the Dakota pipeline. Maybe their children were threatened when they spoke out about a tax hike to hire more police. Maybe their relative is in lockup for crossing an imaginary line that arbitrarily bounds Arizona. Maybe their property was taken from them because it could generate higher tax revenue if a strip mall were built there instead. Maybe they read about somebody who fled for their life after exposing illegal activity on the part of the government.
Maybe it is possible to use your brain and still be wary of the corrupt use of power in today's society.
I have had things stolen from me by someone else and tried to get police help with that.
And I've also stolen things from both poor and from large businesses and:
a) confessed to it (thankfully before 18 years old, my advice from the experience : do not ever, ever, ever do this, no matter how obvious the situation is)
b) gotten away with it
Comparing the reactions of the authorities between what happened when I offended a large business, who wanted to make an example (I didn't realize this at the time but they never even want restitution or the stolen item back), and what happened when I tried to recover my own stolen property and attempted in vain to get ANYTHING done (other than "fill in this paper and add to this huge stack here")
Just a piece of advice : DO NOT learn kids to not steal by having them return a stolen item, unless you know and trust the store owner.
Does this count as violence ?
And I've also stolen things from both poor and from large businesses and:
a) confessed to it (thankfully before 18 years old, my advice from the experience : do not ever, ever, ever do this, no matter how obvious the situation is)
b) gotten away with it
Comparing the reactions of the authorities between what happened when I offended a large business, who wanted to make an example (I didn't realize this at the time but they never even want restitution or the stolen item back), and what happened when I tried to recover my own stolen property and attempted in vain to get ANYTHING done (other than "fill in this paper and add to this huge stack here")
Just a piece of advice : DO NOT learn kids to not steal by having them return a stolen item, unless you know and trust the store owner.
Does this count as violence ?
My intention was to show why comparing the two things you mentioned and claiming the comparison is outrageous was not a reasonable dismissal of OP's concern - because they were talking about the similarities of society predicated on wealth accumulation generally and not the violence inflicted to protect that wealth and how that has changed over time.
Many disagree with the tenants of capitalism regardless of how violent those in power are or how corrupted their authority is, the system itself can occur as strange, especially when it puts a lot of power into the hands of a few people - that causes uneasiness in many cultures and it is certainly something to think about as wealth inequality gaps widen, for better or worse.
I don't really have any stake in the result of this conversation and my views aren't as critical of capitalism generally, I'm commenting because your out of hand dismissal of OP's comment made me think that you might either be erroneously framing the comment or reading his concern as something far more serious than the casual comment would otherwise indicate (at least, that's how I read it).
Another way to read the OP would be something this - "Doesn't this remind anyone of how wealth was distributed in more clearly feudalistic times? Weird, right? - it makes me feel weird. I worry sometimes that this might be the beginnings of what we will consider to be a slip into a dystopian society. It worries me, and I wonder about it from time to time."
EDIT: copy/pasted a little too much and repeated myself
Many disagree with the tenants of capitalism regardless of how violent those in power are or how corrupted their authority is, the system itself can occur as strange, especially when it puts a lot of power into the hands of a few people - that causes uneasiness in many cultures and it is certainly something to think about as wealth inequality gaps widen, for better or worse.
I don't really have any stake in the result of this conversation and my views aren't as critical of capitalism generally, I'm commenting because your out of hand dismissal of OP's comment made me think that you might either be erroneously framing the comment or reading his concern as something far more serious than the casual comment would otherwise indicate (at least, that's how I read it).
Another way to read the OP would be something this - "Doesn't this remind anyone of how wealth was distributed in more clearly feudalistic times? Weird, right? - it makes me feel weird. I worry sometimes that this might be the beginnings of what we will consider to be a slip into a dystopian society. It worries me, and I wonder about it from time to time."
EDIT: copy/pasted a little too much and repeated myself
[deleted]
> a troubling amount of wealth and power
Any rookie cop can force you to pull over in your car, and confiscate any cash you have with you. Bezos can do none of that.
Any rookie cop can force you to pull over in your car, and confiscate any cash you have with you. Bezos can do none of that.
Bezos can buy The Washington Post and use it a megaphone to shape elite debate and tilt policy towards his preferences. No rookie cop can do that.
He can influence the voters, sure, from his soapbox. But he can't make anyone vote his way. It's the government that wields the power, not Bezos.
Keep in mind that Clinton way outspent Trump, and had most of the media on her side, and still lost. Money and media do not buy elections.
Keep in mind that Clinton way outspent Trump, and had most of the media on her side, and still lost. Money and media do not buy elections.
He didn't acquire it through violence, so there's nothing to see here. Move along, people.
A handful of people control as much wealth as the world's population combined, but there's nothing here to concern any of us, since they didn't do it with sword and cannons like a few hundred years ago.
In fact, since the days of imperial conquest by force are pretty much over (minus the occasional here and there), we really shouldn't worry ever again about the hundred people who own the world.
Not. A. Problem.
A handful of people control as much wealth as the world's population combined, but there's nothing here to concern any of us, since they didn't do it with sword and cannons like a few hundred years ago.
In fact, since the days of imperial conquest by force are pretty much over (minus the occasional here and there), we really shouldn't worry ever again about the hundred people who own the world.
Not. A. Problem.
Is Poe's law making a fool of me, or do you truly believe this?
He is sarcastic. But it's also a false dichotomy. It is different from taking things by force. There is in general mutual benefit between all involved parties.
Though that doesn't mean we can just completely relax. We should stay vigilant, because tyranny is always just around the corner.
Though that doesn't mean we can just completely relax. We should stay vigilant, because tyranny is always just around the corner.
> tyranny is always just around the corner.
I believe in capitalism, but still when a handful of people own the world, that in itself is a form of tyranny. The article below says EIGHT PEOPLE control as much wealth as over 3 BILLION PEOPLE, 50% of the world's population. And much of that number lives in poverty. It's no ill will against Bezos or his success in business to say, it sure would be nice if the world didn't have 1.3 billion people in extreme poverty, while the world's wealth is controlled by, and for the benefit of, just a roomful of people.
http://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-eight-richest-as-wealt...
I believe in capitalism, but still when a handful of people own the world, that in itself is a form of tyranny. The article below says EIGHT PEOPLE control as much wealth as over 3 BILLION PEOPLE, 50% of the world's population. And much of that number lives in poverty. It's no ill will against Bezos or his success in business to say, it sure would be nice if the world didn't have 1.3 billion people in extreme poverty, while the world's wealth is controlled by, and for the benefit of, just a roomful of people.
http://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-eight-richest-as-wealt...
Was the way that inequality was achieved ever the only problem? Is inequality in itself a social ill? Inequality achieved through socially accepted means is still inequality. I'm not advocating Harrison Bergeron levels of flattening here, but there has got to be diminishing returns on the utility of extreme wealth which could better be used to help the uber poor.
There's a lot of ways you can look at it.
Feudalism was a hierarchical system. Not all nobles went around hacking off heads - they could farm that out to higher ups who kept order. What's the difference between Amazon's reliance on national governments? The business model only works because the US enforces peace on parts of the world and because the Chinese government allows its workers to be used for pennies on the dollar. Within Amazon's kingdom, good luck getting the authorities to help you if you aren't a big player.
Meanwhile the average worker who isn't any less intelligent or hard working is seen as worth a fraction of a percentage of Bezos. Sounds like feudalism, serfdom, slavery, or whatever you'd like to call it. That we can celebrate such disparities of human value and even worse in some places this kind of rampant greed is seen as something good is what is truly terrifying.
Feudalism was a hierarchical system. Not all nobles went around hacking off heads - they could farm that out to higher ups who kept order. What's the difference between Amazon's reliance on national governments? The business model only works because the US enforces peace on parts of the world and because the Chinese government allows its workers to be used for pennies on the dollar. Within Amazon's kingdom, good luck getting the authorities to help you if you aren't a big player.
Meanwhile the average worker who isn't any less intelligent or hard working is seen as worth a fraction of a percentage of Bezos. Sounds like feudalism, serfdom, slavery, or whatever you'd like to call it. That we can celebrate such disparities of human value and even worse in some places this kind of rampant greed is seen as something good is what is truly terrifying.
> any less intelligent or hard working
Not necessarily true. Luck plays a big role in things like this but Bezos is clearly in the elite when it comes to effective professionals.
Not necessarily true. Luck plays a big role in things like this but Bezos is clearly in the elite when it comes to effective professionals.
Bezos is effective because his company engages in illegal anti-competitive practices. Amazon either breaks even or loses money, and the reason is because they have incredibly low prices. Why do they have incredibly low prices? Because they can, because they have the venture capital, and because others can't compete with those prices without that venture capital.
We're quickly reaching the point where without venture capital, there's no way to enter any market anymore. You can't start a company and just produce good products worth paying for. You have to have enough VC to be able to withstand sustained market pressure from those who do have it and can spend you out of the market by lowering their prices.
There's a reason that these practices are illegal.
Plus they pay fuck all tax.
We're quickly reaching the point where without venture capital, there's no way to enter any market anymore. You can't start a company and just produce good products worth paying for. You have to have enough VC to be able to withstand sustained market pressure from those who do have it and can spend you out of the market by lowering their prices.
There's a reason that these practices are illegal.
Plus they pay fuck all tax.
You can open a hair salon without venture capital.
You can start a tech consulting company without venture capital.
You can start a construction company, a law practice, an auto repair shop, or a dental practice without venture capital.
Oh, you mean that you can't build a multi-billion dollar company overnight without venture capital?
Thank you for your insight.
You can start a tech consulting company without venture capital.
You can start a construction company, a law practice, an auto repair shop, or a dental practice without venture capital.
Oh, you mean that you can't build a multi-billion dollar company overnight without venture capital?
Thank you for your insight.
>Oh, you mean that you can't build a multi-billion dollar company overnight without venture capital?
No, you can't build a large company ever without venture capital. Money begets money. The only way that any company will ever be large in the future is if some other existing billionaire decides they think they deserve funding.
No, you can't build a large company ever without venture capital. Money begets money. The only way that any company will ever be large in the future is if some other existing billionaire decides they think they deserve funding.
I beg to differ. Here are a few examples that you might have heard of:
ESRI
Oracle
How many times more effective? As the difference between what humans can do and what computers can do increases, we become relatively closer.
Technology is a lever that can hugely amplify differences in capability.
A 10% skill difference between two people with shovels will result in a much smaller output difference than a 10% skill difference between two operators of heavy duty earth moving equipment.
With software, this dynamic occurs in the extreme, as the cost to run a software program is so low. A hour of unskilled human labor cost hundreds or thousands of times more than an hour of computation. And the quantity and complexity of output from a single hour of computation is rapidly increasing.
Edit: reworked the comment to make my point much more clearly
A 10% skill difference between two people with shovels will result in a much smaller output difference than a 10% skill difference between two operators of heavy duty earth moving equipment.
With software, this dynamic occurs in the extreme, as the cost to run a software program is so low. A hour of unskilled human labor cost hundreds or thousands of times more than an hour of computation. And the quantity and complexity of output from a single hour of computation is rapidly increasing.
Edit: reworked the comment to make my point much more clearly
Part of being effective is leveraging your abilities via managing other people. An effective manager can make 10 people each perform 10x more effectively when working towards a goal. You could argue then that one person's effectiveness increases the whole organisation's effectiveness 100x
Of course with bad managers it can easily go the same amount in the other direction, but it seems that Bezos has extremely effectively leveraged his abilities in management and built a very successful company because of that.
Of course with bad managers it can easily go the same amount in the other direction, but it seems that Bezos has extremely effectively leveraged his abilities in management and built a very successful company because of that.
Really? I would say we become a lot farther apart. The productivity an elite can have with computer support is far greater than an uneducated worker.
Two people move their finger forward one centimeter.
One of them made a hole in the ground; he's going to put a seed in it, which will hopefully grow into something useful.
The other one pushed a button which started an automatic lathe which created an engine piston worth a hundred thousand dollars.
The difference in the productivity of two people is practically limitless.
One of them made a hole in the ground; he's going to put a seed in it, which will hopefully grow into something useful.
The other one pushed a button which started an automatic lathe which created an engine piston worth a hundred thousand dollars.
The difference in the productivity of two people is practically limitless.
But the second person isn't being productive. The lathe is being productive. In Amazon's case, the person actually pushing the button on the lathe can barely make rent.
Feudalism is not a terrible analogy. It's just not complete. It's still stick, but now we get carrot too. We still get the stick as in - don't pay your taxes and you go to jail or can't pay rent - you're out on the street. It's not beheading, but it's still force backed up by promise of violence.
But now we also get the carrot - the freedom to consume what you can afford to.
But now we also get the carrot - the freedom to consume what you can afford to.
Whatever economic system may be in place, it will be possible to profit by making better decisions in that context, but that doesn't prove the superiority of that system, and it doesn't make it "terrifying" to wonder whether this or that emergent phenomenon is a feature or a bug.
The terrifying part is someone with a completely un-nuanced understanding of Jeff Bezo's wealth going around saying "Hey! This man committed violence against me! He committed violence against you too!" when the violence was selling them an Amazon echo at a cheap price, or just being richer than them. What happens when they reach a consensus that Bezos committed violence against them? History tells me very clearly (see Russia, China, LatAm, Germany).
> when the violence was selling them an Amazon echo at a cheap price
How about when the violence was selling under the normal market value undermining competition, then remaining the only vendor. Also replacing employees with robots.
So in the end, people who would have had a job lost it, no matter if they work directly for Amazon or for the competition.
It's not violence to take people's jobs, but in a society with few social protections, it's as bad as violence.
How about when the violence was selling under the normal market value undermining competition, then remaining the only vendor. Also replacing employees with robots.
So in the end, people who would have had a job lost it, no matter if they work directly for Amazon or for the competition.
It's not violence to take people's jobs, but in a society with few social protections, it's as bad as violence.
Selling under normal market value is not an act of violence.
Using robots instead of human employees is not an act of violence.
You have a very strange world view. Are your clothes hand-stitched? Was the electronic device you used for your post painstakingly constructed by hand? Do you think it is fair for some things to be automated but not others?
Perhaps you think that it was bad to selectively cultivate a variety of wheat that could yield more tons of food per acre? Or maybe you think it is just wrong for a farmer to use a tractor? Should they water a hundred acre field by hand with 1 gallon buckets? That would mean more jobs!
What is your opinion of all these auto-mechanics who have displaced stable hands? Should cities use thousands of laborers to spin manual generators to feed individual street lights? Modern power plants are taking peoples' jobs.
Using robots instead of human employees is not an act of violence.
You have a very strange world view. Are your clothes hand-stitched? Was the electronic device you used for your post painstakingly constructed by hand? Do you think it is fair for some things to be automated but not others?
Perhaps you think that it was bad to selectively cultivate a variety of wheat that could yield more tons of food per acre? Or maybe you think it is just wrong for a farmer to use a tractor? Should they water a hundred acre field by hand with 1 gallon buckets? That would mean more jobs!
What is your opinion of all these auto-mechanics who have displaced stable hands? Should cities use thousands of laborers to spin manual generators to feed individual street lights? Modern power plants are taking peoples' jobs.
There's a very strange phenomena going on where are starting to equate non-violent things with violence. Even words are violence.
I have witnessed a friend being physically attacked and have seen the aftermath of an physical attack.
From this perspective, I can only conclude that these people equating things to violence are simply attempting to gain political power, or virtue signal or whatever.
I have witnessed a friend being physically attacked and have seen the aftermath of an physical attack.
From this perspective, I can only conclude that these people equating things to violence are simply attempting to gain political power, or virtue signal or whatever.
Gave money to Amazon, which funneled it to a single individual. I think in a perfect society, this sort of cash flow would be severely tempered.
> which funneled it to a single individual.
You mean, which funneled a small fraction of it to a single individual. Bezos individually got more of it than anybody else, however to pretend that he got all of it, is silly.
Total non-stock compensation paid by the business. Total stock compensation paid. Total investor return since inception. Total benefit to all consumers in convenience and savings. Total benefit to the investor return derived and that capital being put to further use in the economy. And on and on the calculation goes. The money has been funneled to hundreds of thousands of jobs and hundreds of thousands of investors overall and millions of consumers (savings from aggressive margin pricing, or just value from various useful products Amazon has provided such as Prime), spanning decades.
Bezos has likely gotten a low single digit percentage of all the value Amazon has created for everyone.
You mean, which funneled a small fraction of it to a single individual. Bezos individually got more of it than anybody else, however to pretend that he got all of it, is silly.
Total non-stock compensation paid by the business. Total stock compensation paid. Total investor return since inception. Total benefit to all consumers in convenience and savings. Total benefit to the investor return derived and that capital being put to further use in the economy. And on and on the calculation goes. The money has been funneled to hundreds of thousands of jobs and hundreds of thousands of investors overall and millions of consumers (savings from aggressive margin pricing, or just value from various useful products Amazon has provided such as Prime), spanning decades.
Bezos has likely gotten a low single digit percentage of all the value Amazon has created for everyone.
And yet he's now one of the richest people in the world. As an employee, is Bezos really a million times more valuable than a typical Amazon engineer? That seems almost self-evidently unfair to me.
I think in a truly just society, the multiplier on the amount that a single individual could be compensated compared to his or her peers would have a hard cap. It would solve so many societal problems and also incentivize corporations to run more like collectives instead of fealties. Companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple would still exist, just as they do today; after all, their founders didn't get started out of the desire to make big bucks. But there wouldn't be any oligarchs on the other end of the pipe.
Not that it's likely to happen, of course! A person can dream...
I think in a truly just society, the multiplier on the amount that a single individual could be compensated compared to his or her peers would have a hard cap. It would solve so many societal problems and also incentivize corporations to run more like collectives instead of fealties. Companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple would still exist, just as they do today; after all, their founders didn't get started out of the desire to make big bucks. But there wouldn't be any oligarchs on the other end of the pipe.
Not that it's likely to happen, of course! A person can dream...
It's the reward for past work, not current.
Imagine kid A studies really hard during his youth and doesn't get to have any fun because he's working so hard. Kid B likes to slack off and party and do drugs. If Kid A grows up and makes it big, why does kid B deserve half? Why should he deserve any portion? You could tax kid A's wealth but you can't tax kid B's youth and pleasure. Why put a cap on on kid A's wealth if you are not putting a cap on kid B's leisure time? We put no such caps on anything else whether it be beauty, intelligence, number of friends, popularity even though all of these things cause disparity.
Imagine kid A studies really hard during his youth and doesn't get to have any fun because he's working so hard. Kid B likes to slack off and party and do drugs. If Kid A grows up and makes it big, why does kid B deserve half? Why should he deserve any portion? You could tax kid A's wealth but you can't tax kid B's youth and pleasure. Why put a cap on on kid A's wealth if you are not putting a cap on kid B's leisure time? We put no such caps on anything else whether it be beauty, intelligence, number of friends, popularity even though all of these things cause disparity.
Well, I'm not necessarily suggesting that wealth be distributed equally throughout all society. But maybe we would be better off if wealth and ownership operated on a more human scale. Even in a massive company like Amazon, no matter how hard A works or how much B goes on Reddit, A will never be one million times more valuable than B. That sort of piece-of-every-pie money is an absurdity. In my fantasy economy, A could still be rewarded for their hard work, but perhaps on the order of millions instead of tens of billions. There's no intrinsic reason why people should be able to acquire material wealth with no upper limit.
I strongly believe that in order to build a better world, we have to stop thinking in terms of people "deserving" things and instead focus on what's better for society overall.
I strongly believe that in order to build a better world, we have to stop thinking in terms of people "deserving" things and instead focus on what's better for society overall.
If you put an upper limit, you'll have people stop once they hit that limit. Why would you go after that billion dollar idea when you are hard capped at millions? Nobody would ever go after moonshots.
If we're talking about fantasy economies, IMO we should move to a system where we don't need money at all. Money is basically a way to partition access to limited resources among people. Except, outside of this planet, resources are near infinite. With complete automation and unlimited access to space, everything would be free with our only real cost being energy - which luckily, is also near infinite given the billions of stars in the universe. Something like Wall-E but less dystopian.
If we're talking about fantasy economies, IMO we should move to a system where we don't need money at all. Money is basically a way to partition access to limited resources among people. Except, outside of this planet, resources are near infinite. With complete automation and unlimited access to space, everything would be free with our only real cost being energy - which luckily, is also near infinite given the billions of stars in the universe. Something like Wall-E but less dystopian.
>If you put an upper limit, you'll have people stop once they hit that limit.
By that logic most scientists, philosophers and mathematicians from ancient times till now wouldn't have had the incentive to do anything.
Einstein didn't discover relativity because he thought he would become a billionaire. Isn't that a "moonshot".
But the people whose contribution is fractional compared to intellectual giants think their ability to sell, market etc should be awarded with insane amount of wealth.
The rampant egotism is forgetting that we stand on shoulders of giants, on the contribution of entire society from the discovery of fire, invention of wheel, language etc till now. To ignore the casual chain of determinism, and claim "I" alone did it through my "efforts" is insane.
By that logic most scientists, philosophers and mathematicians from ancient times till now wouldn't have had the incentive to do anything.
Einstein didn't discover relativity because he thought he would become a billionaire. Isn't that a "moonshot".
But the people whose contribution is fractional compared to intellectual giants think their ability to sell, market etc should be awarded with insane amount of wealth.
The rampant egotism is forgetting that we stand on shoulders of giants, on the contribution of entire society from the discovery of fire, invention of wheel, language etc till now. To ignore the casual chain of determinism, and claim "I" alone did it through my "efforts" is insane.
Different people are motivated by different things.
While its true that scientists and engineers and everyone else have done a great deal in advancing things, the sad reality is that unless someone fronts the money, nothing will get done.
While its true that scientists and engineers and everyone else have done a great deal in advancing things, the sad reality is that unless someone fronts the money, nothing will get done.
>the sad reality is that unless someone fronts the money, nothing will get done.
Its not the natural law of universe which cannot be changed. We humans create the systems of economic organization. So if you agree that profit is not main motivation for many creative jobs, then perhaps the optimization function of the economy should not be to optimize for monetary profits.
So perhaps other modes of economic organization be explored?
Its not the natural law of universe which cannot be changed. We humans create the systems of economic organization. So if you agree that profit is not main motivation for many creative jobs, then perhaps the optimization function of the economy should not be to optimize for monetary profits.
So perhaps other modes of economic organization be explored?
Well, the natural law here is that we need access to resources to do anything. And money is basically a proxy for it. Until we solve the resource problem, I think other economic systems would eventually run into trouble as well. Its human nature to try to game the system.
Companies would still be able to accumulate money, and moonshots could still be pursued under corporate control. People would pursue billion dollar ideas in order to strengthen the companies they created rather than to enrich themselves.
They can already do it now and they aren't. If you have to convince the board, the shareholders etc to take on a risk that has a high chance of failure, it has even less chance of happening.
If a person has enough control at a company so as to be able to unilaterally spend its money, its not much different than having the money yourself.
If a person has enough control at a company so as to be able to unilaterally spend its money, its not much different than having the money yourself.
I don't know what system you're defending, but capitalism has nothing to do with getting wealth proportional to your individual hard work. There are plenty of Kid Bs who have much more money and income than Kid As because of they have more leverage in the free market (funds, education, even luck). I know a bunch of them...
In Capitalism, you profit from owning the means of production, not from working hard. Obviously, it can help, but not necessarily. There are plenty of start-up CEOs who worked just as hard as Jeff Bezos their entire lives, but aren't multi-billionaires, or even millionaires.
In Capitalism, you profit from owning the means of production, not from working hard. Obviously, it can help, but not necessarily. There are plenty of start-up CEOs who worked just as hard as Jeff Bezos their entire lives, but aren't multi-billionaires, or even millionaires.
> We put no such caps on anything else whether it be beauty, intelligence, number of friends, popularity even though all of these things cause disparity.
there are natural limits on those things whereas there are not natural limits on capital accumulation because capital isn't natural.
there are natural limits on those things whereas there are not natural limits on capital accumulation because capital isn't natural.
> I think in a perfect society, this sort of cash flow would be severely tempered.
The problem is if we had your society, there would be no Jeff Bezos or similar capitalistic-minded entrepreneurs to create these mega companies in the first place. Remember it started out small.
The problem is if we had your society, there would be no Jeff Bezos or similar capitalistic-minded entrepreneurs to create these mega companies in the first place. Remember it started out small.
I think most of the big players today would have started out just the same. People like Jobs & Woz, Page & Brin, Bezos, and Musk didn't get in the game to make billions, at least at first. They wanted to change the world, or maybe pursue an interesting opening, or perhaps chase after a fascinating new technology. In a more equal society, these instincts would hardly be curtailed.
And even if you're right, maybe a world without mega-companies wouldn't be such a bad place after all?
And even if you're right, maybe a world without mega-companies wouldn't be such a bad place after all?
Musk is a nice example. He probably would've started the same, but Tesla and SpaceX wouldn't have existed / been the same as today.
Remember that at some point Musk had poured all his wealth into those companies and they were one failure away from bankruptcy. If Musk had any less money after PayPal, he couldn't have done what he did.
Remember that at some point Musk had poured all his wealth into those companies and they were one failure away from bankruptcy. If Musk had any less money after PayPal, he couldn't have done what he did.
In this alternate universe, PayPal could have morphed into PayPalphabet and spawned other companies corresponding to Musk's interests. I think that would still work fine as long as the money stayed within the company and out of executives' hands.
nope, it wouldn't ever happen. without capitalism -- or greed, incentive, however you want to put it -- none of those companies would exist.
Yes, I think it absolutely would happen. Incentive would still be there. People won't sit around idle just because they can't make a million times more money than their peers.
The fundamental issue here is human behavior. Whatever system you come up with, people will come up with ways to turn it to their advantage.
there is a meaningful compromise position here somewhere. being able to accumulate $1 billion of personal wealth is still a mighty incentive even if we tax wealth enough so that accumulating $90 billion is almost impossible.
It's the flow graph of the $ thing that is of concern, not the terror of weaponry. Everyday life is terrifyingly unexamined.
In essence you're right, but i just wanted to point out that that's not how feudalism worked.
> "Farm here or I'll decapitate you."
I think you got confused, that's communism. :P And it's not decapitation (too messy) it is a bullet to the back of the head or death in a labor camp.
Feudalism is "you can farm here but you owe me and your promise to fight in my wars".
> The fact that you harbor a resentment as if the former is anything like the latter is slightly terrifying.
Really? Is it terrifying to compare a vassal's contract with the "work for me in the warehouse and I'll pay you a minimum wage, if you don't like, there is a line waiting at the door". They are not the same, it's a bit silly but is that sending shivers down our spine?
I think you got confused, that's communism. :P And it's not decapitation (too messy) it is a bullet to the back of the head or death in a labor camp.
Feudalism is "you can farm here but you owe me and your promise to fight in my wars".
> The fact that you harbor a resentment as if the former is anything like the latter is slightly terrifying.
Really? Is it terrifying to compare a vassal's contract with the "work for me in the warehouse and I'll pay you a minimum wage, if you don't like, there is a line waiting at the door". They are not the same, it's a bit silly but is that sending shivers down our spine?
> that's communism.
I think you're confused about communism. What you're talking about seems more about soviet russia and other countries that run/ran an authoritarian state-capitalism system (often calling it communism).
However, communism has nothing to do with enforcing people to work under a threat of death, rather the contrary.
I think you're confused about communism. What you're talking about seems more about soviet russia and other countries that run/ran an authoritarian state-capitalism system (often calling it communism).
However, communism has nothing to do with enforcing people to work under a threat of death, rather the contrary.
From Communist Manifesto:
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
Unsurprisingly this leads to labor camps in every communist government.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
Unsurprisingly this leads to labor camps in every communist government.
According to the communist manifesto, the point you mention should be put into effect during the transitory phase from capitalism to communism, where the State gathers the power in order to then build a class-less, state-less society.
That is just a mean to reach the final goal, and it does not mention labor camps or anything like that.
I'm curious on which communist government are you talking about, since pretty much all the "communist" revolutions so far did not actually implement communism but state capitalism (as Lenin himself said), except for some libertarian communist revolutions (e.g. revolutionary Catalogna, Ukraine) that were then defeated militarily.
On one thing I agree with you though, which is that putting all the power into the state is not a good way to achieve communism, as it is dangerous and it pretty much never worked so far.
That is just a mean to reach the final goal, and it does not mention labor camps or anything like that.
I'm curious on which communist government are you talking about, since pretty much all the "communist" revolutions so far did not actually implement communism but state capitalism (as Lenin himself said), except for some libertarian communist revolutions (e.g. revolutionary Catalogna, Ukraine) that were then defeated militarily.
On one thing I agree with you though, which is that putting all the power into the state is not a good way to achieve communism, as it is dangerous and it pretty much never worked so far.
I am not confused I lived in a communist country.
communism as an ideal seems impossible to implement in any way besides the authoritarian state-capitalism way that it has been implemented. that accomplishes the objectives of having a command economy with full employment (even if its monstrously inefficient), but it certainly doesn't come close to creating a just political order where the policies serve the people instead of the owners of the means of production (which is the state).
the Mondragon Corporation[1] is one of the few interesting experiments with a Communism-inspired system that does not immediately degenerate into authoritarian state-capitalism.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
the Mondragon Corporation[1] is one of the few interesting experiments with a Communism-inspired system that does not immediately degenerate into authoritarian state-capitalism.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
>communism as an ideal seems impossible to implement in any way besides the authoritarian state-capitalism way that it has been implemented.
>the Mondragon Corporation[1] is one of the few interesting experiments with a Communism-inspired system that does not immediately degenerate into authoritarian state-capitalism.
So there is no logical inconsistency in what you believe?
Mondragon Corporation is a worker syndicate , which is not a "communism inspired system", but a system aspiring for communism. If worker ownership can work in Mondragon, then saying that "communism is impossible without authoritarianism" is flawed.
>the Mondragon Corporation[1] is one of the few interesting experiments with a Communism-inspired system that does not immediately degenerate into authoritarian state-capitalism.
So there is no logical inconsistency in what you believe?
Mondragon Corporation is a worker syndicate , which is not a "communism inspired system", but a system aspiring for communism. If worker ownership can work in Mondragon, then saying that "communism is impossible without authoritarianism" is flawed.
No true communism.
saiya-jin(4)
You might still wonder whether, insofar as modern society works due to a sort of non-aggression pact, all of us are getting the same benefits from that pact.
in late stage capitalism the threat of violence is implicit (poverty) not explicit (men with weapons). the hyperbole in the post you responded to is a rhetorical device and it serves a purpose. is there anything substantively wrong with what OP said? I'm not sure why you find it important to attempt to treat figurative speech as if it was literal. It isn't literal and we all understand that.
>The fact that you harbor a resentment as if the former is anything like the latter is slightly terrifying.
[0]The "half poor" rally don't care about the top 2 rich.
[0]https://medium.com/incerto/inequality-and-skin-in-the-game-d...
[0]The "half poor" rally don't care about the top 2 rich.
[0]https://medium.com/incerto/inequality-and-skin-in-the-game-d...
Property is violence.
If I try to take something that "isn't my property", the state will intervene with violence (e.g. forced imprisonment, etc.) on behalf of the person deemed to be the "lawful owner".
If I try to take something that "isn't my property", the state will intervene with violence (e.g. forced imprisonment, etc.) on behalf of the person deemed to be the "lawful owner".
Can you propose any alternative system that doesn't involve the concept of property that manages to avoid violence?
Broadly speaking, demand is unlimited and supply is limited. With these two as a given, violence is essentially inevitable. Property near as I can tell, is a cultural tool that minimizes violence and maximizes supply.
Only when there is abundance outstripping demand of a population, is violence avoidable. A couple million people spread across North and South America 600 people enjoyed abundance, relatively speaking. 7 billion people spread across 7 continents is an entirely different scenario, and one where violence is unavoidable.
Broadly speaking, demand is unlimited and supply is limited. With these two as a given, violence is essentially inevitable. Property near as I can tell, is a cultural tool that minimizes violence and maximizes supply.
Only when there is abundance outstripping demand of a population, is violence avoidable. A couple million people spread across North and South America 600 people enjoyed abundance, relatively speaking. 7 billion people spread across 7 continents is an entirely different scenario, and one where violence is unavoidable.
Violence is inherent to living in our civilized, city-building way of life. That doesn't mean that property isn't a system for regulating violence. It is. We allow the state to monopolize the right to violence and entrust the state with the responsibility of settling property disputes in a legal framework so that we don't immediately resort to violence.
An alternative system that avoids violence is not living the way we live. That ship sailed tens of thousands of years ago though. Too late now. In our current state we just have violence and systems for regulating it.
An alternative system that avoids violence is not living the way we live. That ship sailed tens of thousands of years ago though. Too late now. In our current state we just have violence and systems for regulating it.
Yeah, I generally agree with everything you've said. And no, I can't propose any alternative system with those requirements. I'm not even sure if it's possible by definition.
Smart Contracts? https://www.ethereum.org/
I haven't seen opinion polls, but I doubt that's a widely held view. Why should people conform to your unusual position on property, as opposed to the mainstream one?
Personally, I quite like owning things that are mine. The cost, that other people can own things that are theirs and not mine, seems well worth it.
Personally, I quite like owning things that are mine. The cost, that other people can own things that are theirs and not mine, seems well worth it.
>Why should people conform to your unusual position on property, as opposed to the mainstream one?
That's a nice fallacy you've got here, and that would imply that his opinion is actually uncommon around people who have studied the subject (spoiler : it's not).
>Personally, I quite like owning things that are mine.
Possession and property are not the same thing.
That's a nice fallacy you've got here, and that would imply that his opinion is actually uncommon around people who have studied the subject (spoiler : it's not).
>Personally, I quite like owning things that are mine.
Possession and property are not the same thing.
If you interpret "property is violence" to mean that property is maintained by organizations willing to use violence - I.e. That something is "my property" because I can appeal to a police system who will help me defend, retain, or regain possession of it, then that's obviously true. I expect nobody disagrees with that. If that is the interpretation you're trying to defend then I have no objection beyond an arched eyebrow at something trivial being obfuscated to appear objectionable.
The interpretation I made, and challenged, is that property is violence. I.e. Owning things is violent towards other people.
The interpretation I made, and challenged, is that property is violence. I.e. Owning things is violent towards other people.
Owning thing isn't violent but property is about a lot more than "owning things".
I'm not making a moral point. And it's not an opinion, nothing in my explanation is outside of trivially observed reality.
I'm just trying to dispel the idea that capitalism (as we experience it, or otherwise) isn't maintained through violence. It very well is more pleasant for most people than feudalism, but they both perpetuate themselves through violence.
I'm just trying to dispel the idea that capitalism (as we experience it, or otherwise) isn't maintained through violence. It very well is more pleasant for most people than feudalism, but they both perpetuate themselves through violence.
Parent comment didn't lay forth a good argument, but I think there is something to be said for the societal cost of people owning investment capital. However, there is also something to be said for the benefit of incentives. It's important to balance these factors, for example by making capital gains tax progressive and raising the rate for high earners.
Property is a system for regulating (hopefully reducing) violence). I'm quite sure that is a widely held view.
I'm curious to understand how you've decided that your desire to take someone else's property makes it a trivial truth that only violence prevents you from having the natural right to take it.
I never suggested such a thing. Natural rights don't exist. That's just something some people make up. So what prevents me from taking someone else's stuff, if I really wanted it?
The same thing that prevents you from killing people that you really don't like, I guess? I assume you don't do it because you are at least a half-decent human being, and not because of the threat of violence. Same with taking property.
discredited rhetorical technique. you can do better.
Still, it could have been 10 or 100 rich people instead of just one.
First generation rich, yes. But then his riches will rely on the state's monopoly on violence to defend the "property" of his descendants.
"""
His maternal ancestors were settlers who lived in Texas, and over the generations acquired a 25,000-acre (101 km2 or 39 miles2) ranch near Cotulla. As of March 2015, Bezos was among the largest landholders in Texas. Bezos’s maternal grandfather was a regional director of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in Albuquerque.
"""
From Bezos wikipedia entry[0].
Hardly what i would call first generation rich... The foundation for his wealth (his education, social status etc) could - his ancestors being texan settlers and all - very well be based on very much violence (theft of land from native americans etc.)
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos
Hardly what i would call first generation rich... The foundation for his wealth (his education, social status etc) could - his ancestors being texan settlers and all - very well be based on very much violence (theft of land from native americans etc.)
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos
For people paying alimony and child support, you must work or go to jail. And buying cheap stuff goes along with that.
Were you forced into having that child in the first place? We don't need children for farm work anymore (in first world countries).
You said "For people paying alimony and child support, you must work or go to jail".
How does that play into rape? I don't understand.
How does that play into rape? I don't understand.
> Were you forced into having that child in the first place?
The victim of a rape had to play child support. So, he was forced into having a child.
In general, some men are forced into having children by women who lie about taking birth control, or even by collecting semen by used condoms.
The victim of a rape had to play child support. So, he was forced into having a child.
In general, some men are forced into having children by women who lie about taking birth control, or even by collecting semen by used condoms.
That really wasn't clear to me from initially reading your post.
Of course in those situations I would hope that a jury could pardon the responsibility of alimony if there was rape involved and the child is not wanted.
Of course in those situations I would hope that a jury could pardon the responsibility of alimony if there was rape involved and the child is not wanted.
There is no jury in family court, and as the article shows, child support wasn't waived. It's always justified by whatever is "in the best interest of the chilllldrrreeeenn"
Yes, I see what you're saying. I was not aware this was the case.
> I think that's a little hyperbolic. In feudalism the balance of power is enforced by violence
Tell that to the hordes of unemployed people. Amazon is doing it darndest to employ as few people as possible in their warehouses and now are testing drone delivery.
Tell that to the hordes of unemployed people. Amazon is doing it darndest to employ as few people as possible in their warehouses and now are testing drone delivery.
How is minimizing labor costs an act of violence?
The point was that Jeff Bezos did not violently force anybody to work for him. Nor did he force anybody to buy from him.
Your complaint is that Amazon is profitable because nobody works for them, and that's just feudalistic. That's an absurd argument.
The point was that Jeff Bezos did not violently force anybody to work for him. Nor did he force anybody to buy from him.
Your complaint is that Amazon is profitable because nobody works for them, and that's just feudalistic. That's an absurd argument.
If automation is so evil we should ban the loom.
Okay, but think of it this way.
Bill Gates is worth 90 Billion, sure fine.
What is the entire United States worth? GDP is 18 Trillion, expenditures are 4 trillion. So if you do something (admittedly kind of dumb), like take the GDP, subtract expenditures, let's pretend the earnings are 14 trillion?
Valuing the US at 10x earnings, that would put it at a valuation of 140 trillion dollars. This is horribly incorrect, but I think it still makes a very important point.
The richest person's entire net worth is orders of magnitude less than the yearly GDP of a moderately sized country.
The key thing in monarchial feudalism is that a single person is the state (Imagine a person worth 'only' 14 trillion dollars, he's got his own airforce, navy, army).
Jeff/Bill/Warren et al. aren't on that scale of wealth yet, and it seems that it would be difficult for them to get there without state intervention.
What is the entire United States worth? GDP is 18 Trillion, expenditures are 4 trillion. So if you do something (admittedly kind of dumb), like take the GDP, subtract expenditures, let's pretend the earnings are 14 trillion?
Valuing the US at 10x earnings, that would put it at a valuation of 140 trillion dollars. This is horribly incorrect, but I think it still makes a very important point.
The richest person's entire net worth is orders of magnitude less than the yearly GDP of a moderately sized country.
The key thing in monarchial feudalism is that a single person is the state (Imagine a person worth 'only' 14 trillion dollars, he's got his own airforce, navy, army).
Jeff/Bill/Warren et al. aren't on that scale of wealth yet, and it seems that it would be difficult for them to get there without state intervention.
"The richest person's entire net worth is orders of magnitude less than the yearly GDP of a moderately sized country."
Economically speaking, the US is not a "moderately sized country". It is the richest country in the world.
There are several moderately sized countries with lower GDP than Bill Gates net worth.
Economically speaking, the US is not a "moderately sized country". It is the richest country in the world.
There are several moderately sized countries with lower GDP than Bill Gates net worth.
I'm not considering US to be a moderately sized country.
While you are technically correct (the best kind of correct), this was kind of a brain-fart on my part and not really important to the point.
The point is that net worth includes the assumption of future earnings in the valuation. GDP is just one year's production.
Bill gates is orders of magnitude less wealthy than Ukraine, for example, even though his net worth is similar to Ukraine's GDP.
While you are technically correct (the best kind of correct), this was kind of a brain-fart on my part and not really important to the point.
The point is that net worth includes the assumption of future earnings in the valuation. GDP is just one year's production.
Bill gates is orders of magnitude less wealthy than Ukraine, for example, even though his net worth is similar to Ukraine's GDP.
I think it is important to the point, that one man is worth the annual GDP of countries that have millions of people. A country is not a person...it's millions of people, and it's nonsensical to say, "Oh, it's not such a big deal, because a nation of millions makes as much in a year as this guy's whole net worth."
That's a terrible argument for why the amount of money Bill Gates has is not absurd.
That's a terrible argument for why the amount of money Bill Gates has is not absurd.
I'm not saying it isn't absurd I'm saying it isn't comparable to feudalism.
(It is indeed a terrible argument for the point I'm not making).
In feudalism a single person is the entire state. His wealth isn't comparable, disregarding the extra rights that are conferred from literally being the law of the land as a monarch.
(It is indeed a terrible argument for the point I'm not making).
In feudalism a single person is the entire state. His wealth isn't comparable, disregarding the extra rights that are conferred from literally being the law of the land as a monarch.
Eh, I guess...but a feudal lord oversaw hundreds, maybe thousands of people. I'm not suggesting feudalism was better than what we have now, or necessarily agreeing with the argument made above about this being feudalism. Let's just all agree that Bill Gates isn't a feudal lord and this isn't feudalism, but rather something else that is probably bad, but it may take us a few generations to figure out exactly why it's so bad and how to avoid it.
>In feudalism a single person is the entire state. His wealth isn't comparable, disregarding the extra rights that are conferred from literally being the law of the land as a monarch.
No, that's not true. That's not at all true.
No, that's not true. That's not at all true.
> The key thing in monarchial feudalism is that a single person is the state
No, that's (approximately) monarchical absolutism. Feudalism is completely different, because the state (insofar as that term is even loosely valid for feudalism) is a bunch of people, arranged in heirarchy, but each with both rights and obligations both up and down the heirarchy, not one person with absolute power. That's why the transition from feudal government to absolute monarchies in much of Europe was a big deal.
No, that's (approximately) monarchical absolutism. Feudalism is completely different, because the state (insofar as that term is even loosely valid for feudalism) is a bunch of people, arranged in heirarchy, but each with both rights and obligations both up and down the heirarchy, not one person with absolute power. That's why the transition from feudal government to absolute monarchies in much of Europe was a big deal.
> expenditures are 4 trillion
Your calculation is making my head hurt. I assume by 'expenditures' you mean the US governments budget is about 4 trillion? If so, your $14trillion represents expenditures by the private sector. So if we build a bridge or something it doesn't count into your 10x, for some reason. Sorry this whole argument makes no sense to me.
Your calculation is making my head hurt. I assume by 'expenditures' you mean the US governments budget is about 4 trillion? If so, your $14trillion represents expenditures by the private sector. So if we build a bridge or something it doesn't count into your 10x, for some reason. Sorry this whole argument makes no sense to me.
I was trying to figure out what the "earnings" would be. I probably should have just used 18 trillion and been done with it.
Argument is humans aren't on the same scale as governments (even comparing exceptionally rich humans and middle of the road governments). It is easy to verify with a few minutes of thought.
Argument is humans aren't on the same scale as governments (even comparing exceptionally rich humans and middle of the road governments). It is easy to verify with a few minutes of thought.
There are 540 billionaires in the US. The top 400 combined are worth 2.4 trillion. That's a remarkable portion of the economy.
Putin kinda has '>... his own airforce, navy, army'.
Yeah, I was thinking about that too. He's definitely the closest.
>The key thing in monarchial feudalism is that a single person is the state (Imagine a person worth 'only' 14 trillion dollars, he's got his own airforce, navy, army).
This is entirely wrong. Other people have already commented on what feudalism is, but I wanted to provide a brief high-level history in case people were interested.
So let's take the historical look! How did we go from ancient Rome, an imperial monarchy, to feudalism being the law of the land?
The seeds of feudalism were sown from the Roman Emperor Diocletian's decision not to tax lords if all commerce took place within a lord's domain. Diocletian was a wonderful Emperor, one of the best, but he was around at a time when the Empire was cannibalizing itself with constant civil wars, making his main goal was peace and stability. To simplify, if I owned a city, and the city blacksmith supplied everyone else in my city, the state (i.e. the Roman Empire) would not take a cut of this. Only if goods flowed into a neighbouring lord's areas would the empire tax it.
What's the incentive structure here for the lords? Build up as much as you can within your domain and make it as self-sufficient as possible. It's legal tax avoidance, baby!
Because of all the civil wars there were labour shortages, both from bloodshed, devastated landscapes, and people fleeing. What's the solution to this? Outlaw moving, making peasants stay where they grew up and work the job of their father. This made economic planning much simpler, and Diocletian was an economic planner. In doing so, we get serfdom going hand in hand with the seeds of feudalism.
Over time, as the Roman Empire waned, this political structure stayed in effect. Power was increasingly ceded to the regional and away from the imperial. Basically, the state collapsed on itself. While we do get the Catholic Church springing up, it only sorta-kinda fills the power vacuum as it's clearly not a state in the same way Rome was.
Ambitious lords take more power, filling the vacuum of the the monolithic state. Without a single arbiter to enforce relationships between the lords, fealty and swearing allegiances become much more important. Literally the only thing holding these states together were a few lords word, some marriages, and often some hostages. If it was worth it to break those things, the 'state' would crumble, and everyone knew it.
That's basically it. From then, feudalism became the law of the land for around a thousand years (let's roughly say 300AD-1500AD). Then we're onto absolute monarchies, the renaissance, and the bourgeoisie throwing a wrench in everything.
In case all that hasn't helped, here's a (probably weak) analogy: monarchies are monoliths, feudalism is microservices.
FYI, Diocletian didn't use the word lord, he used dux. Which is where we get duke, doge, duce, etc. We also get the word dioceses here, which the Catholic Church still uses to this day.
This is entirely wrong. Other people have already commented on what feudalism is, but I wanted to provide a brief high-level history in case people were interested.
So let's take the historical look! How did we go from ancient Rome, an imperial monarchy, to feudalism being the law of the land?
The seeds of feudalism were sown from the Roman Emperor Diocletian's decision not to tax lords if all commerce took place within a lord's domain. Diocletian was a wonderful Emperor, one of the best, but he was around at a time when the Empire was cannibalizing itself with constant civil wars, making his main goal was peace and stability. To simplify, if I owned a city, and the city blacksmith supplied everyone else in my city, the state (i.e. the Roman Empire) would not take a cut of this. Only if goods flowed into a neighbouring lord's areas would the empire tax it.
What's the incentive structure here for the lords? Build up as much as you can within your domain and make it as self-sufficient as possible. It's legal tax avoidance, baby!
Because of all the civil wars there were labour shortages, both from bloodshed, devastated landscapes, and people fleeing. What's the solution to this? Outlaw moving, making peasants stay where they grew up and work the job of their father. This made economic planning much simpler, and Diocletian was an economic planner. In doing so, we get serfdom going hand in hand with the seeds of feudalism.
Over time, as the Roman Empire waned, this political structure stayed in effect. Power was increasingly ceded to the regional and away from the imperial. Basically, the state collapsed on itself. While we do get the Catholic Church springing up, it only sorta-kinda fills the power vacuum as it's clearly not a state in the same way Rome was.
Ambitious lords take more power, filling the vacuum of the the monolithic state. Without a single arbiter to enforce relationships between the lords, fealty and swearing allegiances become much more important. Literally the only thing holding these states together were a few lords word, some marriages, and often some hostages. If it was worth it to break those things, the 'state' would crumble, and everyone knew it.
That's basically it. From then, feudalism became the law of the land for around a thousand years (let's roughly say 300AD-1500AD). Then we're onto absolute monarchies, the renaissance, and the bourgeoisie throwing a wrench in everything.
In case all that hasn't helped, here's a (probably weak) analogy: monarchies are monoliths, feudalism is microservices.
FYI, Diocletian didn't use the word lord, he used dux. Which is where we get duke, doge, duce, etc. We also get the word dioceses here, which the Catholic Church still uses to this day.
Thank you, although I am quite familiar with history this was an extraordinary and simple analysis.
Sorry, I couldn't disagree more. While Jeff Bezos' upbringing isn't exact destitute, his rise from a modest background[1] to extreme riches is evidence to me that the American system still works to some degree. No offense but I think going all the way to conflating this with feudalism slightly discredits and damages efforts to fix real problems in our society such as increasing wealth gap.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos#Early_life_and_educ...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos#Early_life_and_educ...
Owning a 25,000-acre farm is a modest background and his rise therefore evidence that the American system still works? Rather sounds like he was born into a sufficiently privileged environment and all the benefits that come with it (Mainly an educated background and discipline to work hard). A Jeff Bezos from a "lesser" background might have strayed from this path earlier due to the circumstances of his upbringing.
Of course the status quo is hardly comparable with a feudalist system, but the stark inequality you are born into is very much - and even more so the difference in wealth and power between "regular people" and the super-rich.
Of course the status quo is hardly comparable with a feudalist system, but the stark inequality you are born into is very much - and even more so the difference in wealth and power between "regular people" and the super-rich.
Examples of something isn't proof of a system working. I'm more inclined to say that the low number of examples is proof that the system ISN'T working.
There should always be motivators (like money) for people to work harder, take risks, invent things, and fill a spectrum. I'm not sure if that spectrum needs to be in factors of millions though, instead of say, 100-1000s.
And I'm not saying anything about Bezos in particular. He really is self-made, but for everyone of him there are 100s of (patently less rich) inherited top 0.1%:ers.
But did he work millions of times harder than someone else? Did he risk that much?
I'll gladly work TWICE as much/hard for 5-10 times the reward. A lot of people do, for diminishing returns.
There should always be motivators (like money) for people to work harder, take risks, invent things, and fill a spectrum. I'm not sure if that spectrum needs to be in factors of millions though, instead of say, 100-1000s.
And I'm not saying anything about Bezos in particular. He really is self-made, but for everyone of him there are 100s of (patently less rich) inherited top 0.1%:ers.
But did he work millions of times harder than someone else? Did he risk that much?
I'll gladly work TWICE as much/hard for 5-10 times the reward. A lot of people do, for diminishing returns.
Absolutely. Did this person work more or does he have more merit than 100.000.000s of people? It's absurd.
He provided more economic/productive value to the world than 100,000,000s of people.
Idk about "working hard" or "merit" because who cares if someone has to work super hard for 2 days to produce the same results another person can produce in 10 minutes.
Idk about "working hard" or "merit" because who cares if someone has to work super hard for 2 days to produce the same results another person can produce in 10 minutes.
Nope, Bezos didn't create more value than 100,000,000s of people. How could he? He started it, sure, he owns it and he directs it, but Amazon employs 341,000 people. Those are the people who generate the bulk of the value produced by the Amazon company, yet they share in very little of the value they produced. Would you say a CEO is responsible for all the value the company makes? Would you say it's fair for a feudal lord that "owns" a land to keep for himself 90% of the value his land produces while 100 people toil for 12h a day and barely have enough to eat? It's absurd. You can't defend this.
> yet they share in very little of the value they produced.
Those employees are free to start their own companies. If you take the risk of starting a business then you should get the rewards if it succeeds.
Those employees are free to start their own companies. If you take the risk of starting a business then you should get the rewards if it succeeds.
Oh yeh, because creating a startup is a breeze isn't it ? And most anyone could simply drop every commitment in their lives and like 4 years later they're rich! Why doesn't everyone do that, given they're free to do it ? Well, because they're not free to, not at all.
90% of people are strapped into financial obligations and have families. None of these people can afford to risk starting a business, even if they would be good at it and had the money, support and contacts required. Even among the usually already wealthy people who can afford to risk a startup, 90% of them fail.
What you're really saying is: if you inherited the freedom to risk creating a startup, and you are one of the lucky 10% who make it a success, then you deserve to enjoy the rewards.
90% of people are strapped into financial obligations and have families. None of these people can afford to risk starting a business, even if they would be good at it and had the money, support and contacts required. Even among the usually already wealthy people who can afford to risk a startup, 90% of them fail.
What you're really saying is: if you inherited the freedom to risk creating a startup, and you are one of the lucky 10% who make it a success, then you deserve to enjoy the rewards.
Absolute nonsense. People start companies in extremely difficult positions in life and only some of them succeed. No one said it's easy.
But that doesn't change the fact that every single one of Amazon employees is free to leave the company and start their own tomorrow. You don't have to have complete financial security to be "free" to do something.
But that doesn't change the fact that every single one of Amazon employees is free to leave the company and start their own tomorrow. You don't have to have complete financial security to be "free" to do something.
you are living in a dream world
No, I just don't assume that you need to have a million dollars in your bank account to start a business. There's way too many people on HN who think that to run a startup you need investment money, offices, dozen employees, marketing campaigns etc etc.
You don't. You can start small, out of your own bedroom if you have to, and then grow from there. There's plenty of stupid advice like "if you're not making million dollars within 3 years of starting then there's no point" but it's just not true.
You don't. You can start small, out of your own bedroom if you have to, and then grow from there. There's plenty of stupid advice like "if you're not making million dollars within 3 years of starting then there's no point" but it's just not true.
> 90% of people are strapped into financial obligations and have families.
So they have to prioritise what is important, if they feel that starting a business is more important, they will avoid getting financial obligations and starting a family.
This is also part of the overall risks, you might be better off just being an employee with a normal life instead of being a failed entrepreneur.
So they have to prioritise what is important, if they feel that starting a business is more important, they will avoid getting financial obligations and starting a family.
This is also part of the overall risks, you might be better off just being an employee with a normal life instead of being a failed entrepreneur.
They don't have to choose to prioritise, they don't have a choice! Which brings your entire argument down.
If you are going to count poor people then I agree most of them dont have a choice, I am talking about people who visit HN.
wait, didn't you time-travel in your argument ? You said if you feel like starting a business, go back in time and not have a family or take-on debt - may as well say they should have been born into a rich family with a good education, contacts and an inheritance to gamble with
If you are young and your inner voice is telling to work on your idea then it's better not to take debt like a house loan or an expensive car loan. Similarly tell your partner to wait for marriage/kids.
Of Course a rich kid won't have to do these sacrifices but the rich kid will probably not have the same intensity and drive as the middle class person who wants to succeed.
Of Course a rich kid won't have to do these sacrifices but the rich kid will probably not have the same intensity and drive as the middle class person who wants to succeed.
You're begging the question (and yes, that's proper use): why should all the rewards go to those who've taken some risk?
What of the risks taken by others? Are there uncompensated risk-bearing activities?
Are there activities with low risk but high return?
Suppose, say, dropping a drill bit next to the guy who's just blown in a gusher? Or securing control of the pipelines, railroads, and refineries by which that oil must make its way to market?
What of the risks taken by others? Are there uncompensated risk-bearing activities?
Are there activities with low risk but high return?
Suppose, say, dropping a drill bit next to the guy who's just blown in a gusher? Or securing control of the pipelines, railroads, and refineries by which that oil must make its way to market?
> What of the risks taken by others?
What risks do employees take, they are getting a salary. If they are not happy they can leave and get another job. The founder has to put everything in it, his money, time, relationships, reputation. This is not "some risk", he cannot just walk away.
What risks do employees take, they are getting a salary. If they are not happy they can leave and get another job. The founder has to put everything in it, his money, time, relationships, reputation. This is not "some risk", he cannot just walk away.
What prevents a founder from walking away and getting a job exactly?
I did it, so I know it can be done.
Founders reap rewards of their risk-taking almost immediately, and it accelerates exponentially from there.
This really cuts to a major point of contention in modern politics - exaggerated pity party for the hardships of the most powerful people in society.
It is a privilege to take such risks, and if you are in doubt, go get a soul-crushing treadmill job and watch the fruits of your labour flow elsewhere.
I did it, so I know it can be done.
Founders reap rewards of their risk-taking almost immediately, and it accelerates exponentially from there.
This really cuts to a major point of contention in modern politics - exaggerated pity party for the hardships of the most powerful people in society.
It is a privilege to take such risks, and if you are in doubt, go get a soul-crushing treadmill job and watch the fruits of your labour flow elsewhere.
> What prevents a founder from walking away and getting a job exactly?
He/she can do that but the sacrifices are greater compared to just being an employee.
> go get a soul-crushing treadmill job and watch the fruits of your labour flow elsewhere
I am from India, I have seen abject poverty. I know it's a privilege to take such risks, my original point was focussed more on HN demographics not the poor people who I know cannot take such risks. Poor people who cannot take such risks is a totally different conversation
He/she can do that but the sacrifices are greater compared to just being an employee.
> go get a soul-crushing treadmill job and watch the fruits of your labour flow elsewhere
I am from India, I have seen abject poverty. I know it's a privilege to take such risks, my original point was focussed more on HN demographics not the poor people who I know cannot take such risks. Poor people who cannot take such risks is a totally different conversation
the sacrifices are greater compared to just being an employee.
Sunk cost fallacy.
Sunk cost fallacy.
Of late, employee risks include being on the short side of an extremely unbalanced power relationship. This includes unilateral and eternal NDAs, claims on all work, non-competes (including in such "industries" as sandwich shops, hairstyling, and auto repair), drugs tests (which risk drugs convictions), and more.
Jobs mobility may be limited by blacklists or other forms of discrimination: H1-B visas or other immigration status, social, religious, gender/sex, issues (not legally, in most cases, but de-facto), and more.
Employees are committing just as much of their fungible time, and often appreciably all of their available resources, which for roughly half the population net out to roughly zero. Figures I've seen suggest that about that number could not come up with $500 - $2000 (amount varies) on a 1-2 week notice -- that's far less than the amount required for, say, a business-appropriate wardrobe, transit or transport access, apartment deposit, and a month's food.
And that's within the US/EU/AU/JP/UK. It's considerably worse in much the rest of the world.
Jobs mobility may be limited by blacklists or other forms of discrimination: H1-B visas or other immigration status, social, religious, gender/sex, issues (not legally, in most cases, but de-facto), and more.
Employees are committing just as much of their fungible time, and often appreciably all of their available resources, which for roughly half the population net out to roughly zero. Figures I've seen suggest that about that number could not come up with $500 - $2000 (amount varies) on a 1-2 week notice -- that's far less than the amount required for, say, a business-appropriate wardrobe, transit or transport access, apartment deposit, and a month's food.
And that's within the US/EU/AU/JP/UK. It's considerably worse in much the rest of the world.
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What risk? That they'd spend money on something that made them no/less money?
Other than their initial investments business owners are protected from almost all the risks their businesses take on. Company debts aren't personal debts and individuals can't be forced to work to repay the debts they cause the business to take on. Worse still these safety nets aren't paid for as these companies don't make a profit.
Whilst I won't discount the work Bezos has done the reason he's come out 1000s of times better off than other Amazon workers is because of his initial gamble.
It's not like the workers don't take on risks either. Almost all paid work is paid after the fact. If your employer goes bust you don't get paid
Other than their initial investments business owners are protected from almost all the risks their businesses take on. Company debts aren't personal debts and individuals can't be forced to work to repay the debts they cause the business to take on. Worse still these safety nets aren't paid for as these companies don't make a profit.
Whilst I won't discount the work Bezos has done the reason he's come out 1000s of times better off than other Amazon workers is because of his initial gamble.
It's not like the workers don't take on risks either. Almost all paid work is paid after the fact. If your employer goes bust you don't get paid
> What risk?
Financial, health, relationships, reputation, opportunity are some of the risks.
Are you saying that an employee getting a salary has the same risks as an entrepreneur?
Financial, health, relationships, reputation, opportunity are some of the risks.
Are you saying that an employee getting a salary has the same risks as an entrepreneur?
In what way do employees not also take all of those risks?
The degree of risk might be different but employees are also betting on the success of your business.
You only have to look at the recent US election to see that people are taking all these risks.
Whilst I imagine a lot of people on HN see these risks as negligible they do still exist and it can go wrong.
Whilst I imagine a lot of people on HN see these risks as negligible they do still exist and it can go wrong.
> The degree of risk might be different but employees are also betting on the success of your business.
The degree of risk is completely different. We can keep on arguing but there are some things you will only understand when you take the leap yourself.
The degree of risk is completely different. We can keep on arguing but there are some things you will only understand when you take the leap yourself.
It was far less risky for Bezos to start his business than most of his current employees. He was wealthy before he started.
If you believe in your idea get a loan from family, friends or banks or get a high paying job save money and then start your business.
Starting and running a successful business is not easy which is why the rewards should go to the risk taker.
Starting and running a successful business is not easy which is why the rewards should go to the risk taker.
> If you believe in your idea get a loan from family, friends or banks or get a high paying job save money and then start your business.
I don't understand if this is supposed to be a joke or you are really that sheltered and clueless. Just get a loan from your family and get started? You are aware that for the vast, vast, vast majority of people this is not an option that's available to them, right? Get a high paying job and save money? Jesus Christ, but how?? How do you do that if there are no such jobs for you, either because of your location or because of your lack of education? Surely you would tell a 14 year old working 12h a day making cheap sneakers in Bangladesh to either ask his parents for money or to save his 0.25$ an hour salary and start a company, without an education. After all, this is perfectly feasible and if you don't so it you deserve to stay poor.
It's frightening.
I don't understand if this is supposed to be a joke or you are really that sheltered and clueless. Just get a loan from your family and get started? You are aware that for the vast, vast, vast majority of people this is not an option that's available to them, right? Get a high paying job and save money? Jesus Christ, but how?? How do you do that if there are no such jobs for you, either because of your location or because of your lack of education? Surely you would tell a 14 year old working 12h a day making cheap sneakers in Bangladesh to either ask his parents for money or to save his 0.25$ an hour salary and start a company, without an education. After all, this is perfectly feasible and if you don't so it you deserve to stay poor.
It's frightening.
You are comparing apples to oranges, my comment was for people who visit HN not for poor people in US or elsewhere. I agree poor people cannot afford to take such risks.
Someone working in a fulfillment center making ~40-50K each year won't be able to put together 100K capital to risk, even with family and friends.
A large portion of HN readers are entrepreneurs, a lot of stories here tell the tale of failure, the burden and how to bear it. Yes it's not easy.
And then there are people for the "not easy" is virtually impossible. Because they can't even start a business with any chance to succeed.
I'm not saying, that because of this Bezos should give more to the employees, but it'd be good if these inherent inequalities were better managed by society.
A large portion of HN readers are entrepreneurs, a lot of stories here tell the tale of failure, the burden and how to bear it. Yes it's not easy.
And then there are people for the "not easy" is virtually impossible. Because they can't even start a business with any chance to succeed.
I'm not saying, that because of this Bezos should give more to the employees, but it'd be good if these inherent inequalities were better managed by society.
> but it'd be good if these inherent inequalities were better managed by society
I am not talking about the people making ~40-50K each year. I am talking about the software engineers in Amazon.
Creating a better managed society is a complete different conversation.
I am not talking about the people making ~40-50K each year. I am talking about the software engineers in Amazon.
Creating a better managed society is a complete different conversation.
I bootstrapped my business with far less than 40k. It is definitely possible.
Yes, he did. This value doesn't come from all the "monkey" jobs that most of his employees do. It comes from the ability to produce ideas and making them happen by managing that 341,000 people. You completely underestimate the value of directing a company like Amazon.
Except Jeff Bezos doesn't produce those ideas, or make them happen, or directly manage 341,000 people.
All of that is done by his employees. The ideas, the innovation and the execution are done by people other than him, while the credit and most of the value they create is taken by him.
All of that is done by his employees. The ideas, the innovation and the execution are done by people other than him, while the credit and most of the value they create is taken by him.
Imagine I find a way to create bread from thin air and don't tell anyone else how to do it. Assume the value of a loaf of bread to a consumer is 1 dollar. I sell 100 loaves for 99 cents each, because that's what the market will bear. How much money have I made? 99 dollars. How much value have I created for everyone else? 1 dollar.
Now imagine instead I give away 100 loaves for free. How much value have I created for everyone else? 100 dollars. How much money have I made? Zero.
Do you now see the problem with estimating a person's usefulness to society by looking at their net worth?
Now imagine instead I give away 100 loaves for free. How much value have I created for everyone else? 100 dollars. How much money have I made? Zero.
Do you now see the problem with estimating a person's usefulness to society by looking at their net worth?
That's not really how consumer surplus works. Just because "the market will bear" a certain price, does not mean the value to a given buyer is that price. In reality, there are probably some who really do only value the loaf at $1, but others would be willing to pay $1.10, $1.20, or even more before the transaction was no longer break-even. You might make an attempt to capture this surplus as well (this is called price discrimination), but it's notoriously difficult to do with commodities.
Also, there is no actor in the world economy who is having an effect like your metaphorical bread-give-away-er. So while it might hypothetically have been better if someone had built Amazon out of the goodness of their heart and operated at cost to all users, that is not one of the alternatives we have to decide between. There doesn't seem to be any evidence that such altruists are out there waiting in the wings. If anything, they'd have a competitive advantage, if they did exist, because they'd be able to offer lower prices.
Also, there is no actor in the world economy who is having an effect like your metaphorical bread-give-away-er. So while it might hypothetically have been better if someone had built Amazon out of the goodness of their heart and operated at cost to all users, that is not one of the alternatives we have to decide between. There doesn't seem to be any evidence that such altruists are out there waiting in the wings. If anything, they'd have a competitive advantage, if they did exist, because they'd be able to offer lower prices.
Amazon uses lots of open source software created in large part by altruists for free.
That's a fantasy. An analogy taken too literally. People lionize John Galts and imagine that they are their organizations. They aren't. Just because he started it and called the shots doesn't mean he literally is Amazon. That's a fanciful way of thinking and it's disastrous for us mortals to take it literally. Amazon is all the people working there, who, while well-paid compared to all the other serfs, actually get a paltry share of the fortune they generate collectively.
Very complicated systems, like computer hardware and software systems, particularly services and distributed systems, do have this un-intuitive property of amplifying competence differences.
healthcare.gov is one visible and notable example where thousands of "trained and certified professionals" made a huge mess, and like 10 volunteers from silicon valley cleaned it up.
You could hire 100000 or 200000 such contracted professionals and the value produced would be even lower. Sure, most of the blame is with the management structure, which the ~10 volunteers bypassed and overrode. But the results stand. A few people in the right place can produce more value than orders of magnitude more people doing the wrong thing for whatever reason.
EDIT to better address your point: very few people could have done as well as Bezos in his position. Take any of the CEOs HP has had in the last decade, put them at the head of Amazon, and it would have done a lot worse. Put them all there, it would have done worse. Bezos gets a huge value multiplier for practical reasons.
healthcare.gov is one visible and notable example where thousands of "trained and certified professionals" made a huge mess, and like 10 volunteers from silicon valley cleaned it up.
You could hire 100000 or 200000 such contracted professionals and the value produced would be even lower. Sure, most of the blame is with the management structure, which the ~10 volunteers bypassed and overrode. But the results stand. A few people in the right place can produce more value than orders of magnitude more people doing the wrong thing for whatever reason.
EDIT to better address your point: very few people could have done as well as Bezos in his position. Take any of the CEOs HP has had in the last decade, put them at the head of Amazon, and it would have done a lot worse. Put them all there, it would have done worse. Bezos gets a huge value multiplier for practical reasons.
I never said he "was amazon". I am talking about his contribution to amazon.
All those "serfs" are not really risking their own personal wealth. They take home their pay win or lose for amazon. They are not serfs. They are getting paid for their work.
All those "serfs" are not really risking their own personal wealth. They take home their pay win or lose for amazon. They are not serfs. They are getting paid for their work.
Neither. He had money which he risked. Capitalism isn't about working harder, it's about getting a return on risk.
That's not about what he did do or did not do. In reality there's no concept of "fair pay" or "just earnings". In fact, Bezos doesn't even matter, personally. What matters is that he owns an asset (Amazon) that appreciated in value. Obviously, his "net worth" is tied to this holding. It appreciated because it provided desirable services.
Now, preventing it can be done in two ways, and only two ways - either limit Amazon's appreciation in value (curb the company), or limit the person's holding in Amazon, meaning that if you started as a founder of a company having 50% of the total shares, your holdings will decline as the company's worth rises. Does this seem reasonable to you?
Now, preventing it can be done in two ways, and only two ways - either limit Amazon's appreciation in value (curb the company), or limit the person's holding in Amazon, meaning that if you started as a founder of a company having 50% of the total shares, your holdings will decline as the company's worth rises. Does this seem reasonable to you?
This isn't thinking far enough outside the tiny box of this specific economic order at this specific point in history. For example, we could have co-ops instead of corps.
The vast majority of businesses fail, and many businesses go through cycles where they make less money than they spend. How can the average person take on the risk of not getting paid for years? One year of non-profitability would be a death sentence for a co-op if people can't get paid and flee.
A corporation allows the average person to get paid while someone else takes on a risk with their money.
A corporation allows the average person to get paid while someone else takes on a risk with their money.
"Merit" could refer to many things, but yes, I think he directly/indirectly added more utility to people's lives than 100,000s of other people.
I don't think money is a good proxy for "adding utility to people's lives". It's a good proxy for "good at playing the money game". A nurse won't be paid $1B if she saves a CEO's life, and he is able to go and make his company billions as a result. A clever business person might, if she saves the CEO in some other aspect, as she can setup a provision first.
That being said, I don't think money has much to do with merit, either. It's just the output of a function that you are either good at optimizing or not.
That being said, I don't think money has much to do with merit, either. It's just the output of a function that you are either good at optimizing or not.
Yes, supply comes into it too.
A nurse will be paid a substantial sum if she is one of very few that can save the CEO's life.
A nurse will be paid a substantial sum if she is one of very few that can save the CEO's life.
The CEO can die and the company will continue functioning 95% as well. Or maybe 105%, or 10%, or 1,000%.
If he's eating the shareholder's money like that, they should fire him.
Not saying that what you are implying is wrong, but empirically speaking working hard/relative merit do not correlate to proportionate monetary rewards in our current system. The idea of a pure meritocracy is an interesting one, I wonder what some of the outcomes would be.
There is also the fact that money (and value) is not a zero sum game.
Bezos making billions doesnt mean that the money was taken from someone else in the sense that that person cannot have it anymore.
The opposite is also true. If he was poor it doesn't mean that I would have more money.
Value creation is a weird but beautiful thing.
Bezos making billions doesnt mean that the money was taken from someone else in the sense that that person cannot have it anymore.
The opposite is also true. If he was poor it doesn't mean that I would have more money.
Value creation is a weird but beautiful thing.
I don't think that's the entirely the case. True it's not zero sum, but it's not free either. There is absolutely wealth transfer. For example, if he were poor, many middle class Seattle residents would have far more purchasing power in their current real estate market. Amazon have expanded rapidly and transplanted most of the cogs who are building the Bezos empire.
The many displaced multi-generational residents of Seattle and San Francisco might not refer to this phenomenon as beautiful.
The many displaced multi-generational residents of Seattle and San Francisco might not refer to this phenomenon as beautiful.
Perils of capitalism in it's absolute form. We celebrate these people for becoming rich and we will celebrate again for giving back their money like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.
Are you suggesting we shouldn't thank them? Now that's a perilous idea.
For accruing wealth for themselves? Why should we?
Funny to find this top comment, since I just had this exact train of thought an hour ago. It went something like this. It's a common unexamined platitude that it takes a huge amount of work, and especially sacrifice to be able to live well. That might well be true under certain conditions of, say, undeveloped agrarian civilizations. It shouldn't still be true of ours, and yet it is. Our infrastructure and supply chain create so much abundance of every imaginable thing, from necessities, to frivolities, to luxuries. There's no way that it actually requires a huge amount of toil and pious sacrifice for each person to earn their share of this abundance. And yet it does. Every time I try to discern why, it always comes back to the same thing. Everything is owned. On the very large scale, everything is owned by a relatively tiny handful of people. And those people absolutely depend, for their absurdly outsized fortunes, on everybody else working for them. The owners of everything want you to work for them.
It's exactly as you say. It's feudalism. Wealth inequality is feudalism.
It's exactly as you say. It's feudalism. Wealth inequality is feudalism.
The problem is that without those pople up there we lose quote a bit of efficiency as a sosiety. Game theory does not work out without owners.
Such arguments are such nonsense, that you should probably not make them without going into much more detail. It is common knowledge that almost all macro economic models we currently have are very crude approximations, so you are in no position to deduce anything with the certainty and "it's game theory" attitude that you seem to have.
In other words: Economics is not physics, there you say something like "Well, energy is always conserved" or "This does not work because of the second law of thermodynamics", you can't do that with "Game theory".
In other words: Economics is not physics, there you say something like "Well, energy is always conserved" or "This does not work because of the second law of thermodynamics", you can't do that with "Game theory".
Yeah, the people the very people who will snigger at someone selling "quantum healing" defend economic theories which have no scientific rigor. And the worse part is the dominant theories operate in a manner that they are self fulfilling.
Capitalism promotes monetary profits as the incentive because humans are self interested.
is one among them, but is it the other way around? Is the system manufacturing behaviors that it takes for as a cause?
I was reading Debt : The 5000 years, where the author, an anthropologists makes the case of how capitalism destroyed the communal behavior of tribes in different parts of the world.
Capitalism promotes monetary profits as the incentive because humans are self interested.
is one among them, but is it the other way around? Is the system manufacturing behaviors that it takes for as a cause?
I was reading Debt : The 5000 years, where the author, an anthropologists makes the case of how capitalism destroyed the communal behavior of tribes in different parts of the world.
His wealth doesn't really come at the cost of the wealth of others though - he has probably been a net benefit to society through job creation and investments and things like that. If wealth was a zero-sum game it would be different, but it is not.
Amazon quite frequently makes my life better. On the other hand, I can't remember ever experiencing a difficult situation because Bezos is rich.
> Amazon quite frequently makes my life better
because you can finally buy more things and own more things and consume more things. how does this make your life better?
because you can finally buy more things and own more things and consume more things. how does this make your life better?
That is not your call since you're not in a position to assess the profound meaning of the word 'better' in the mind of another individual. In my case 'consuming' a lot of books costs money and definitely makes my life better but someone else's choices are for them to make and not for me to pontificate over.
The problem is not that there are people with huge sums of money. The problem is that groups of those people have an acute control over legislation and policy.
According to Oxfam, you too have more wealth than hundreds of millions of people. They're counting net worth, and lots of people are in debt.
If you use a metric which is more in line with subjective wealth -- say, assets or sustainable annual consumption -- then the it doesn't seem anywhere near as crazy.
Basically, Oxfam is exploiting a bug in how people misunderstand wealth.
If you use a metric which is more in line with subjective wealth -- say, assets or sustainable annual consumption -- then the it doesn't seem anywhere near as crazy.
Basically, Oxfam is exploiting a bug in how people misunderstand wealth.
Its pretty amazing that it isn't someone with a surname like Rockfeller or Ford...
If you want more blue whales you need more ocean.
And if the ocean don't have its few blues, krill and algae explode and the whole system, sooner or later collapses. Nature has had a long time to find alternate ways of keeping ecosystems temporarily stable and everywhere you look in nature you see hierarchies prop up.
The only difference with humans is we can "choose" who to collectively prop up.
And if the ocean don't have its few blues, krill and algae explode and the whole system, sooner or later collapses. Nature has had a long time to find alternate ways of keeping ecosystems temporarily stable and everywhere you look in nature you see hierarchies prop up.
The only difference with humans is we can "choose" who to collectively prop up.
A person with a single dollar to their name will have a higher net worth than a significant fraction of the world. I have never found "more wealth than" to be a useful relation to think about.
That fraction of the world is significant though.
You're talking about millions of people who have so much less than nothing that they will have to work for years just to get to $0.
With all our technology, our wealth, our sophistication; all the work of our ancestors and the sacrifices they made, all the works and understandings they developed, and the ability to transmit this knowledge at the speed of light and for damn near free; with the incredible bounties of the earth, the ocean, the sun, plants, animals, fungi - with all that, why should so many people be in such a hole, working their arses off as they make wealthy people wealthier?
While you may feel privileged to have a single dollar to your name, 8 people have more dollars than 3.5 billion people. That points to real, catastrophic injustice endemic in our systems and societies, even our belief systems.
You're talking about millions of people who have so much less than nothing that they will have to work for years just to get to $0.
With all our technology, our wealth, our sophistication; all the work of our ancestors and the sacrifices they made, all the works and understandings they developed, and the ability to transmit this knowledge at the speed of light and for damn near free; with the incredible bounties of the earth, the ocean, the sun, plants, animals, fungi - with all that, why should so many people be in such a hole, working their arses off as they make wealthy people wealthier?
While you may feel privileged to have a single dollar to your name, 8 people have more dollars than 3.5 billion people. That points to real, catastrophic injustice endemic in our systems and societies, even our belief systems.
Thought experiment: if you could destroy half of Bezo's wealth with the push of a button, would you do it? (Not dollars, but actual wealth -- imagine he has thousands of houses and you are allowed to legally demolish them with the push of a button).
It would reduce inequality, and increase everyone else's relative economic standing, and probably make many people feel better in comparison.
It would reduce inequality, and increase everyone else's relative economic standing, and probably make many people feel better in comparison.
Why destroy? Why not tax it and use it?
Stop worrying about inequality. It fixes itself.
http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/apocalypse-is-the-only-path...
http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/apocalypse-is-the-only-path...
Should we celebrate that a single individual has provided millions of dollars worth of value to society through innovation and willful exchange by all parties?
Or should we be saddened that most of society fails to provide similar value, despite having similar access to education, ability, and capital?
Or should we be saddened that most of society fails to provide similar value, despite having similar access to education, ability, and capital?
It might or might not be unjust, but feudalism is all about the hierarchy of oaths- it is about distribution of power - you give power to those sworn to you and in turn they give it to those beneath them.
Jeff bezos having lots of money is an oligarchy, not feudalism.
Jeff bezos having lots of money is an oligarchy, not feudalism.
Board of directors hires a CEO. Gives them funding and requires they produce a return. CEO hires upper management. Gives them funding, requires return. Upper management hires middle management. Funding, demands return. Etc...
This is a hierarchy of oaths. It's just not as ceremonial as you've put it. It's also not directly agrarian (and territorial) as you'd expect from a medieval feudalist regime, but the basic structure is still present.
This is a hierarchy of oaths. It's just not as ceremonial as you've put it. It's also not directly agrarian (and territorial) as you'd expect from a medieval feudalist regime, but the basic structure is still present.
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You should start a company, grow it to a multi billion dollar market cap, and give away your generated wealth.
That's pretty much exactly what Jeff will end up doing. He can either give it away or the government will take more than half of it. Unless he manages to crack that whole mortality thing.
Many other multi-billionaires in the US have signed the Giving Pledge [0], promising to give away more than half of their net worth to charity. Gates, Paul Allen, Warren Buffett, Carl Icahn, Mark Zuckerberg, Marc Benioff, Michael Bloomberg have all signed. Even Larry Ellison! But not (yet) Jeff Bezos, or for that matter Sergei Brin or Larry Page.
[0] https://givingpledge.org/
[0] https://givingpledge.org/
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I don't see anything wrong in people becoming super rich by exploiting their talents in the free market. That's the opposite of feudalism.
The alternative was tried in Soviet Union and Maoist China. The results were not exactly pretty.
The alternative was tried in Soviet Union and Maoist China. The results were not exactly pretty.
There is no "alternative". Government can be approached from a million different ways. To say it's black or white (capitalism vs communism) is completely self-serving and offers no real insight into the fundamental complexity of human civilization.
I just don't get this complaining about wealth concentration - for every person capable of complaining on an online forum that some people have 100 to 1000x the wealth they do, there are also likely to be more people that exist who have 1000x less than you. How exactly am I any more entitled to the wealth of those richer than me, than are those poorer than me entitled to my (relative) wealth?
It seems to me that the problem with the totem pole is that each level is logarithmic, but always talked about in absolute terms. If my boss makes 10x and her boss makes 10x of what she makes, aspiring to 100x my wealth looks like a completely impossible goal in my lifetime - but it's really just two promotions.
An argument could be made that some people try to sabotage those attempting to climb the totem pole, but once someone has reached the top and did not illegally interact with anyone they passed on the climb, why all the hate?
It seems to me that the problem with the totem pole is that each level is logarithmic, but always talked about in absolute terms. If my boss makes 10x and her boss makes 10x of what she makes, aspiring to 100x my wealth looks like a completely impossible goal in my lifetime - but it's really just two promotions.
An argument could be made that some people try to sabotage those attempting to climb the totem pole, but once someone has reached the top and did not illegally interact with anyone they passed on the climb, why all the hate?
Capitalism, when it works right is a meritocracy that rewards business acumen - the more merit, the more money you get. The problem is that the reward - money - is itself a substitute for merit. Having success is much, much easier, if you already have money (hence the saying 'the first million dollars is always the hardest'). This is also what Capital in the Twenty-First Century highlighted: Owning wealth is rewarded more than working. But it is (or at least can be) a largely passive 'activity' that anyone can do (just how much talent does it take to hand some money to a hedge fund manager and live off the interest?). Even just at a smaller scale, people can mismanage a business and still succeed if they have a big enough marketing budget to drown out their (objectively better) competitors. So the argument is that we are doing a suboptimal distribution of resources, because the people that have the most money are in a positive feedback loop that awards them more money, and that is a local optimization that prevents us from finding the global optimum where that money was in the hands of someone with more business acumen.
The problem with such line of reasoning is an underlying assumption that we have to create a social order that "optimizes" the distribution of wealth in order to achieve some "just" result.
I find this assumption incorrect, and desired result unachievable.
Every person has a different picture of what a "just" distribution of wealth is, and what "optimal" society is. Some think that humanity should concentrate on art & philosophy, and those professions should be rewarded the best. Others are more concerned with our self-preservation, and think that science, and foremost climate science should be rewarded the most. Third just want to enjoy the good life right now, and don't really give a crap about any of those global goals or future generations.
Of course, you may consider some of those people to be more correct and others, and it's not the point. Democracy didn't arise in order to get to the truth - democracy have arisen as a tool for people who think each other as complete idiots and fools to solve their differences without killing each other. If you decide that one of those goals should be the goal of the whole humanity, the problem isn't that you will be incorrect - the problem is that a lot of people will disagree with you, and will defend their point of view. Quite possibly, with violence. And whatever your goal for the humanity was, you won't be able to built a society optimized about that metric anyway.
The capitalist system that we have instead is much wiser. It's not built with a "purpose" in mind. It's built for each person to pursue his own purpose, giving him an ability do compete with others. Any kind of influence, any kind of resource other people want that you have - you can use them in a capitalist system to pursue your goals, and you can keep the exploits. If you don't have what other people want, you don't have the influence. The fact that other people think that "an english major shouldn't have to work at McDonalds" don't mean shit unless they're willing to put their money where their mouth is and donate to your literature-related Kickstarter instead of having a Happy Meal.
Of course it's not "fair". Such a concept doesn't exist across many different minds. But it's a system that individual people decide to build using their own resources over series of small decisions and needs throughout their lives. Seems like a much more stable system than something built out of abstract concept of "justice" and "higher purpose" forced by some people on others.
I find this assumption incorrect, and desired result unachievable.
Every person has a different picture of what a "just" distribution of wealth is, and what "optimal" society is. Some think that humanity should concentrate on art & philosophy, and those professions should be rewarded the best. Others are more concerned with our self-preservation, and think that science, and foremost climate science should be rewarded the most. Third just want to enjoy the good life right now, and don't really give a crap about any of those global goals or future generations.
Of course, you may consider some of those people to be more correct and others, and it's not the point. Democracy didn't arise in order to get to the truth - democracy have arisen as a tool for people who think each other as complete idiots and fools to solve their differences without killing each other. If you decide that one of those goals should be the goal of the whole humanity, the problem isn't that you will be incorrect - the problem is that a lot of people will disagree with you, and will defend their point of view. Quite possibly, with violence. And whatever your goal for the humanity was, you won't be able to built a society optimized about that metric anyway.
The capitalist system that we have instead is much wiser. It's not built with a "purpose" in mind. It's built for each person to pursue his own purpose, giving him an ability do compete with others. Any kind of influence, any kind of resource other people want that you have - you can use them in a capitalist system to pursue your goals, and you can keep the exploits. If you don't have what other people want, you don't have the influence. The fact that other people think that "an english major shouldn't have to work at McDonalds" don't mean shit unless they're willing to put their money where their mouth is and donate to your literature-related Kickstarter instead of having a Happy Meal.
Of course it's not "fair". Such a concept doesn't exist across many different minds. But it's a system that individual people decide to build using their own resources over series of small decisions and needs throughout their lives. Seems like a much more stable system than something built out of abstract concept of "justice" and "higher purpose" forced by some people on others.
Are you sure you meant to reply to my comment and not some other one? Because the argument that you're arguing against (that there is some 'just' distribution of wealth) was not the one I was making (though I'd be happy to make that one too if you'd like).
The problem isn't that Bezos has 1,000x my net worth. He has 1,000,000x my (approximate) net worth. One millionth of my net worth is seven cents, so Bezos:me is me:$0.07.
The graph isn't logarithmic. It's shaped like this:
The graph isn't logarithmic. It's shaped like this:
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____________|What difference is there between 1000x and 1,000,000x ? Should there be a cap somewhere? I just completely fail to see how this is anything other than being jealous of someone elses's success. Please do explain.
really? you can only think of it as being about jealousy? that seems like a rhetorical trick you're attempting to use to shut down the debate by an appeal to (your perception of) the irrational emotional states of others.
spend a few minutes thinking about the politics of wealth and the premise of representative democracy and popular sovereignty.
spend a few minutes thinking about the politics of wealth and the premise of representative democracy and popular sovereignty.
It's not about being jealous of a particular person's success, it's more about observing the problems with a world where a tiny fraction of the population capture and control over half of the wealth.
If that were problem free, then fine. But it's not. Think of it as a symptom of an illness, and we should work to get the fever down.
If that were problem free, then fine. But it's not. Think of it as a symptom of an illness, and we should work to get the fever down.
But you're treating the symptom then. Shouldn't the illness be the target?
one step at a time. this is triage. first you get the fever down so the patient doesn't die. then you identify the pathogen and get your hygiene and medicine in a place where they can prevent future infections.
ok, so what exactly has Jeff done wrong or what he should do differently?
Norway has a $900 billion sovereign wealth fund. Is that a problem too? If you never heard about Bezos's wealth, would you suffer any troubles because of it? I think it's fine.
Norway's sovereign wealth fund is managed on behalf of all the people of Norway and there are political systems in place that grants those people some influence over how that money is used, and who benefits from it.
Bezos' wealth (and all the massive political power it represents) is almost totally unaccountable. This is the real problem of wealth inequality. It's not that some people have more material goods than others. It's that levels of wealth like that undermine the political systems that we have constructed to seek fair, just, and peaceful resolution of disputes. It is a road to tyranny.
Bezos' wealth (and all the massive political power it represents) is almost totally unaccountable. This is the real problem of wealth inequality. It's not that some people have more material goods than others. It's that levels of wealth like that undermine the political systems that we have constructed to seek fair, just, and peaceful resolution of disputes. It is a road to tyranny.
I don't understand your point. Norway is 5 million people, so that's only 180k per capita.
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You seem to be missing basic irrational aspects of human nature.
Kudos to him, hopefully he will go all in on some crazy idea eventually. I still have this feeling amazon (as in online store) isn't all that big outside of US/english-speaking world.
I do have a question though. When you have that much net worth and you get plastered all over the press about how much you have... What do you do then? What's your life then like? Seems like a nightmare, especially if you have kids and family. Do you become a prisoner of your own wealth then, guarded by people - never be able to just roam about, take a random tourist tour with your spouse, a road trip or whatever? Money is nice to have, but there are things you definitely lose, it seems. Is it worth it to be at that level?
I do have a question though. When you have that much net worth and you get plastered all over the press about how much you have... What do you do then? What's your life then like? Seems like a nightmare, especially if you have kids and family. Do you become a prisoner of your own wealth then, guarded by people - never be able to just roam about, take a random tourist tour with your spouse, a road trip or whatever? Money is nice to have, but there are things you definitely lose, it seems. Is it worth it to be at that level?
At his stage he's got the ability to fund his ideas effectively and still stop well short of 'all in'. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Origin
>hopefully he will go all in on some crazy idea eventually
Blue Origin? He does have his own space ship company.
Blue Origin? He does have his own space ship company.
until the competition is completely annihilated, jeff is not content.
You say that like it's a bad thing.[0] If you had a business (assuming you don't for the sake of argument), no competition would be amazing! People could ONLY come to you for your product or service.
[0] The truth is in the middle.
[0] The truth is in the middle.
Monopolies are only good fore the monopoly and bad for everyone else in society.
Monopolies mean no choice, no competition, low innovation and high prices
Monopolies mean no choice, no competition, low innovation and high prices
Thanks to you. And me. Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffet have our paychecks covered. Warren's companies take most of what we spend offline, Jeff's companies take most of what we spend online.
I know that I'll get skewered for this, but here goes: recently I've convinced myself we are on the verge of a very serious Amazon stock correction. Just today I saw three separate articles (without seeking them out) giving umpteen reasons Amazon is going to a trillion, or that Amazon is only getting started. Then I turned on CNBC during lunch and what are they talking about? Amazon.
There's simply too much positive sentiment around this company and it makes me very nervous. It reminds me of 2007 when everyone was making a killing on real estate and the idea was laughable that the market would reverse. The stock is way overbought and the only questions I have are "by how much?" And "when is the reversal coming?"
There are other reasons I'm skeptical about Amazon remaining at its current valuation. One major one is that the meteoric rise in the stock price has coincided nicely with the economic recovery. Amazon's ecommerce business is one that's built for good times. It remains to be seen how they fare in downtimes. What I mean by that is that much of what I see people buy on Amazon (myself included) are largely frivolous gadgets that one simply wouldn't buy in a time of economic fear. Right now people largely feel wealthy and feel comfortable shelling out for prime memberships and willing to pay a premium for convenience. In a down economy that's the first thing to go.
Of course a down economy will weigh heavily on most companies, but I believe especially so on Amazon because it is a stock that is already overbought and relies on people buying shit they don't need for the sake of convenience.
Apart from that I believe they will face increasing competition from Alibaba, Walmart, and others.
Finally, there are the numbers. Despite the $400+ billion valuation, Amazon did less that a billion in profit from their ecommerce business last quarter! The stock shot up because that was higher than analysts predicted!
I have serious doubts about the long term profitability of Amazon's ecommerce business. Physical delivery of goods, particularly last mile delivery is just too expensive. Sure, drones might come but I wouldn't base an investment on that hope.
My prediction is that an economic downturn is going to send this stock into a tailspin.
There's simply too much positive sentiment around this company and it makes me very nervous. It reminds me of 2007 when everyone was making a killing on real estate and the idea was laughable that the market would reverse. The stock is way overbought and the only questions I have are "by how much?" And "when is the reversal coming?"
There are other reasons I'm skeptical about Amazon remaining at its current valuation. One major one is that the meteoric rise in the stock price has coincided nicely with the economic recovery. Amazon's ecommerce business is one that's built for good times. It remains to be seen how they fare in downtimes. What I mean by that is that much of what I see people buy on Amazon (myself included) are largely frivolous gadgets that one simply wouldn't buy in a time of economic fear. Right now people largely feel wealthy and feel comfortable shelling out for prime memberships and willing to pay a premium for convenience. In a down economy that's the first thing to go.
Of course a down economy will weigh heavily on most companies, but I believe especially so on Amazon because it is a stock that is already overbought and relies on people buying shit they don't need for the sake of convenience.
Apart from that I believe they will face increasing competition from Alibaba, Walmart, and others.
Finally, there are the numbers. Despite the $400+ billion valuation, Amazon did less that a billion in profit from their ecommerce business last quarter! The stock shot up because that was higher than analysts predicted!
I have serious doubts about the long term profitability of Amazon's ecommerce business. Physical delivery of goods, particularly last mile delivery is just too expensive. Sure, drones might come but I wouldn't base an investment on that hope.
My prediction is that an economic downturn is going to send this stock into a tailspin.
Amazon already went through 2 downturns. Dot com bubble and the last recession. During the recession they faired extremely well.
they've been facing tough competition from Walmart since the late 90s. Alibaba is still miles away from competing in the same areas as Amazon although that will change with time. For now, if you're a consumer, aliexpress is only good for buying cheap low quality items.
If there's something they've figured out, it's logistics and how to deliver a product as fast and cheap as possible. Everything about their system is optimized for this. Now with their venture into contract companies to deliver goods they can bypass more expensive UPS delivery.
Now do I think they're stock is overvalued? Yes, but I don't see a doomsday scenario happening.
they've been facing tough competition from Walmart since the late 90s. Alibaba is still miles away from competing in the same areas as Amazon although that will change with time. For now, if you're a consumer, aliexpress is only good for buying cheap low quality items.
If there's something they've figured out, it's logistics and how to deliver a product as fast and cheap as possible. Everything about their system is optimized for this. Now with their venture into contract companies to deliver goods they can bypass more expensive UPS delivery.
Now do I think they're stock is overvalued? Yes, but I don't see a doomsday scenario happening.
The difference to me is the valuation- during previous downturns they weren't trading at a $400 billion market cap.
I think a lot of people assume that because they're amazon that they'll crack the last mile delivery problem, a problem that FedEx and ups, two exceedingly smart and successful and well run companies have not, not to mention the usps. FedEx and UPS want no part of last mile delivery because there's no money in it. The money is in flying it across the country with 300,000 other parcels. I'm very skeptical that Amazon can warehouse and deliver goods to your door with a significant margin, and a significant profit margin is what will eventually be required to justify a $400 billion valuation.
To date, this has not been the case, and the fact is that while they've made shopping an amazingly easy process, they haven't made a lot of money doing so, certainly not compared to the few other companies trading at similar valuations.
I'm not predicting a doomsday scenario in that amazon is going to go belly up. I just think the stock is headed for a dive.
I think a lot of people assume that because they're amazon that they'll crack the last mile delivery problem, a problem that FedEx and ups, two exceedingly smart and successful and well run companies have not, not to mention the usps. FedEx and UPS want no part of last mile delivery because there's no money in it. The money is in flying it across the country with 300,000 other parcels. I'm very skeptical that Amazon can warehouse and deliver goods to your door with a significant margin, and a significant profit margin is what will eventually be required to justify a $400 billion valuation.
To date, this has not been the case, and the fact is that while they've made shopping an amazingly easy process, they haven't made a lot of money doing so, certainly not compared to the few other companies trading at similar valuations.
I'm not predicting a doomsday scenario in that amazon is going to go belly up. I just think the stock is headed for a dive.
Not having net profits does not mean that parts of your business are not profitable.
You may want to take a closer look at Amazon's financials and see what kind of free cash flow they're generating before they reinvest that cash in expansion and new businesses. Net operating cash flow for 2016 was $16B and the trend is strongly upwards.
https://secure.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/AMZN/financia...
You may want to take a closer look at Amazon's financials and see what kind of free cash flow they're generating before they reinvest that cash in expansion and new businesses. Net operating cash flow for 2016 was $16B and the trend is strongly upwards.
https://secure.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/AMZN/financia...
Right, but free cash flow is one of the most common areas of a balance sheet to use deceptive accounting to show huge numbers. Amazon is notorious for this, actually, particularly with their widespread use of capital leases. A big reason that that number has jumped so much is because of their increased investment in AWS hardware which they lease instead of purchasing.
Why is leasing equipment considered deceptive rather than a cost-cutting measure?
My understanding is that Amazon makes their money from aws, then builds their brand through their eCommerce site and other gadgets/projects. Those projects (like aws) have the potential to make bucko bucks, but as long as Americans income continues to diminish, the profitability of Amazon's core business will stall.
But I agree that Amazon will become the first $1 trillion dollar enterprise, but after weathering another economic downturn. Amazon is the Walmart of today, and is ruthlessly out competing every retailer (retail is in a recessive state, and I'm wondering what happens when SEARS goes under).
To throw a curve ball back, I do think Amazon is politically vulnerable. I don't shop with Amazon, and I tell everyone not to shop at Amazon. The company doesn't treat their average employees well, and should allow all their workers to form and join a union if they want. USPS is a great place to work, FedEx and USPS are pretty great too, Amazon is a garbage place to work---
But I agree that Amazon will become the first $1 trillion dollar enterprise, but after weathering another economic downturn. Amazon is the Walmart of today, and is ruthlessly out competing every retailer (retail is in a recessive state, and I'm wondering what happens when SEARS goes under).
To throw a curve ball back, I do think Amazon is politically vulnerable. I don't shop with Amazon, and I tell everyone not to shop at Amazon. The company doesn't treat their average employees well, and should allow all their workers to form and join a union if they want. USPS is a great place to work, FedEx and USPS are pretty great too, Amazon is a garbage place to work---
I don't necessarily think that's the case. Amazon did make more from AWS than their ecommerce business last quarter, but it wasn't a lot more (less than a billion in profit). They will face as much or more competition in this area than in the ecommerce space.
In any case, since a lot (I would say most) of Amazon's market cap is based on perceived value and growth of its distribution and ecommerce business, if the fundamentals aren't there to make larger profits long term, there's no way the stock can maintain its current valuation.
I do shop on Amazon a lot, because I live in a city where the convenience factor is too great to drive to a store, and believe all this in spite of that. I agree that their working conditions are awful, but unfortunately I don't think most people care when shopping. Wal-Mart has taken a lot of flack for that over the years and it hasn't slowed them. In fact it was only about five years ago that there was a best selling book about how Wal-Mart was taking over the world and had to be stopped at all costs. I don't hear that as much these days and in fact it seems that they are viewed as an underdog. Things can change very quickly.
In any case, since a lot (I would say most) of Amazon's market cap is based on perceived value and growth of its distribution and ecommerce business, if the fundamentals aren't there to make larger profits long term, there's no way the stock can maintain its current valuation.
I do shop on Amazon a lot, because I live in a city where the convenience factor is too great to drive to a store, and believe all this in spite of that. I agree that their working conditions are awful, but unfortunately I don't think most people care when shopping. Wal-Mart has taken a lot of flack for that over the years and it hasn't slowed them. In fact it was only about five years ago that there was a best selling book about how Wal-Mart was taking over the world and had to be stopped at all costs. I don't hear that as much these days and in fact it seems that they are viewed as an underdog. Things can change very quickly.
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Just today I saw three separate articles (without seeking them out) giving umpteen reasons
Amazon is going to a trillion, or that Amazon is only getting started.
Would it be possible for a guy like Jeff to sell all his stock and convert his wealth to, let’s say, gold? The motivation for my question is my doubt that the different sources of wealth are comparable. So this ranking is hypothetical. Wouldn’t the stock price drop if someone was to sell so many shares?
Actually, very large blocks of stock are often worth more than a simple (number of shares) * (most recent trading price per share) formula suggests because of the control premium [FN1].
As further proof, corporate-level transactions like mergers and acquisitions typically see prices exceed recent public trading prices.
It's true that selling a large block of stock without influencing price can be difficult, but that's actually a relatively 'solved' problem in modern finance - banks regularly enter into complex transactions with clients that need to liquidate large blocks of stock and are worried about the impact on share price.
So in a sense, his wealth is "all on paper" and somewhat abstract. But especially for a company like Amazon, it's certainly not predictably less value than a back-of-the-envelope calculation would suggest.
For large sums, you always run into expense and abstraction problems: real estate is highly iliquid, gold is expensive to transport and store plus subject to market volatility itself, banks sometimes charge fees for exceptionally large cash accounts... sovereign debt and high-quality short-term corporate debt are often used for holding huge sums of cash-like wealth.
Basically, it's risk and abstractions and hand waiving all the way down.
[FN1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_premium
As further proof, corporate-level transactions like mergers and acquisitions typically see prices exceed recent public trading prices.
It's true that selling a large block of stock without influencing price can be difficult, but that's actually a relatively 'solved' problem in modern finance - banks regularly enter into complex transactions with clients that need to liquidate large blocks of stock and are worried about the impact on share price.
So in a sense, his wealth is "all on paper" and somewhat abstract. But especially for a company like Amazon, it's certainly not predictably less value than a back-of-the-envelope calculation would suggest.
For large sums, you always run into expense and abstraction problems: real estate is highly iliquid, gold is expensive to transport and store plus subject to market volatility itself, banks sometimes charge fees for exceptionally large cash accounts... sovereign debt and high-quality short-term corporate debt are often used for holding huge sums of cash-like wealth.
Basically, it's risk and abstractions and hand waiving all the way down.
[FN1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_premium
Yep. Bezos owns around 16%. He recently sold about 1% in May 2016 (May 3-5), then another 1% in August 2016 (Aug 2-4). These caused roughly a 1% and 2% decline in the stock, respectively. In both cases it recovered within 3 days.
Obviously if he continued to liquidate his stock at around 2% absolutely per year, he'd reach zero in eight years. Bezos owning zero Amazon shares would be very weird if he was CEO, though. I imagine he could comfortably get down to owning 4-5% of Amazon without damaging the stock too much.
Disclaimer: I own Amazon through VFINX, and if you are Jeff Bezos and taking advice from my comment, uh, don't I guess.
Obviously if he continued to liquidate his stock at around 2% absolutely per year, he'd reach zero in eight years. Bezos owning zero Amazon shares would be very weird if he was CEO, though. I imagine he could comfortably get down to owning 4-5% of Amazon without damaging the stock too much.
Disclaimer: I own Amazon through VFINX, and if you are Jeff Bezos and taking advice from my comment, uh, don't I guess.
Would it drop? Yes.
Would just about any bank be willing to write a multi-million dollar loan to Bezos? Also yes, so there's no need for him to sell. He can take out a loan and collateralize it with AMZN stock and thus spend as much as he likes without selling the stock.
Would just about any bank be willing to write a multi-million dollar loan to Bezos? Also yes, so there's no need for him to sell. He can take out a loan and collateralize it with AMZN stock and thus spend as much as he likes without selling the stock.
Make him an offer. How much do you think you'd have to pay him to give you all that stock? That's how much it's worth.
He could, but it would be at some healthy discount to the current price.
Normally what people like Bezos do when they want to cash out is take out a big loan using the stock as collateral. That way they don't flood the market with shares.
Normally what people like Bezos do when they want to cash out is take out a big loan using the stock as collateral. That way they don't flood the market with shares.
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I believe you are correct. In theory he would be able to turn all his assets into money, but probably he would loose huges amount of it in the process due to the effect you mentioned.
I guess these rankings are just rankings. It's an abstract way to value what someone have (or could potentially have) with no relationship to absolute truth.
I guess these rankings are just rankings. It's an abstract way to value what someone have (or could potentially have) with no relationship to absolute truth.
I am sorry for sidetracking on this, but I need to understand why I am reading so much 'loose' here on HN.
Is this error being used with intent? I have no interest in shaming grammar errors, it's just that I am seeing this too often here, in the same place where I read great arguments.
English is not my native language, so maybe this is a colloquial use of the word?
Is this error being used with intent? I have no interest in shaming grammar errors, it's just that I am seeing this too often here, in the same place where I read great arguments.
English is not my native language, so maybe this is a colloquial use of the word?
Ahhhhhhhh I'm sorry! In fact English is not my native language and I hate making these errors.
Thanks to you that specific error is not gonna happen anymore as it was public pointed out. It will help me remember next time.
Thanks to you that specific error is not gonna happen anymore as it was public pointed out. It will help me remember next time.
No problem at all dude, as I said I have no interest in shaming for grammar, my english is not perfect as well.
I just wanted to check if there was some colloquial use of 'loose' that I was not aware of, as I am seeing this a lot and HN sometimes is a benchmark for me of good writing.
I am glad you received that with sportsmanship, I am totally for having my errors checked out too, have a good one!
I just wanted to check if there was some colloquial use of 'loose' that I was not aware of, as I am seeing this a lot and HN sometimes is a benchmark for me of good writing.
I am glad you received that with sportsmanship, I am totally for having my errors checked out too, have a good one!
Me too!!
Nah its an error.. I don't know why it's made so often..
Maybe it was happening all the time and we only started noticing it?
It irritates me far less than your/you're tho ;)
Nah its an error.. I don't know why it's made so often..
Maybe it was happening all the time and we only started noticing it?
It irritates me far less than your/you're tho ;)
Serious comment to compensate for my silly comment: loose/lose actually bugs me more than your/you're errors - because it disrupts my reading of the sentence, especially if read aloud. In most cases the latter error can be glossed over like nothing happened.
World's two richest men from Seattle tech companies. I hope some of this money translates to venture capital. Number of successful startups in Seattle pale in comparison to SV
Founders choosing to live outside the biggest metro areas (e.g. NYC, SF Bay Area, LA) are often more "control-motivated" as opposed to "wealth-motivated" [1], and thus bootstrap their companies longer while keeping more equity. Google, Apple, Facebook, Netflix, etc took more rounds of financing. If you go one step further, in small businesses in rural areas the founders have almost 100% equity.
[1] N. Wasserman. The Founder's Dilemmas. 2012.
[1] N. Wasserman. The Founder's Dilemmas. 2012.
They're also neighbors who live in the same neighborhood:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medina,_Washington
You can kinda see both of their mansions (covered by privacy hedges) when driving across the SR-520.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medina,_Washington
You can kinda see both of their mansions (covered by privacy hedges) when driving across the SR-520.
That's just nuts. Should have bought a property in Medina back in the day. Would have seen great appreciation by today.
it is amazing how Bill Gates remain richest person in the world despite donating billions to Melinda & Gates foundation.
Well, he is worth over 80Bn, so even if he gets only 5% return...
You know what would have been even more amazing? If Microsoft had not landed in its monopolistic position it had. Then all that money that landed at bill gates which is even more, could have been spent earlier on philanthropic means.
Why do you think that money would have necessarily gone to philanthropy?
That is not necessarily true. That money might not have saved lives. You cannot say that for sure.
It is interesting to know that Bill Gates is still the world's richest. Thinking about how little I have directly spent with Microsoft is interesting.
I bought Windows 3.11 from a computer fair. I got Windows 95 from school (proper CD, not a pirate). I bought a computer that came with Windows 98 (and a lame Cyrix processor), got an XP licence from a case someone was throwing out, skipped Vista, bought Windows 7 Pro system builder from eBay (proper version, no pirate copy, I don't like pirating software). I then got a free upgrade to Windows 10.
Hardware, I think I bought an xbox 360 controller for the PC. I got given an old generation 1 xbox (since retired) and a load of games. Bought Office 2003 from eBay (proper version, OEM with hardware to satisfy licence) when Office 2007 was all the rage (so it was cheap). I think my brother once bought a Sidewinder joystick (had the footprint of a large dinosaur, such a big piece of hardware).
Then I used the Express editions of SQL Server (MSDE before that), Express editions of Visual Studio and now the Community as I am a Lone Ranger developer at home.
Oh and I bought a laptop that had Windows 10 on it so I guess they had a cut of its value.
So basically Microsoft have had very little direct money from me, despite basically being responsible for my employment for the last 15 years (I write apps under Windows).
I have spent more money with Parallels Inc as they force me to "upgrade" every year (every other year if I can help it) despite Apple introducing a new virtualisation layer a couple of releases ago.
So thanks Bill.
I bought Windows 3.11 from a computer fair. I got Windows 95 from school (proper CD, not a pirate). I bought a computer that came with Windows 98 (and a lame Cyrix processor), got an XP licence from a case someone was throwing out, skipped Vista, bought Windows 7 Pro system builder from eBay (proper version, no pirate copy, I don't like pirating software). I then got a free upgrade to Windows 10.
Hardware, I think I bought an xbox 360 controller for the PC. I got given an old generation 1 xbox (since retired) and a load of games. Bought Office 2003 from eBay (proper version, OEM with hardware to satisfy licence) when Office 2007 was all the rage (so it was cheap). I think my brother once bought a Sidewinder joystick (had the footprint of a large dinosaur, such a big piece of hardware).
Then I used the Express editions of SQL Server (MSDE before that), Express editions of Visual Studio and now the Community as I am a Lone Ranger developer at home.
Oh and I bought a laptop that had Windows 10 on it so I guess they had a cut of its value.
So basically Microsoft have had very little direct money from me, despite basically being responsible for my employment for the last 15 years (I write apps under Windows).
I have spent more money with Parallels Inc as they force me to "upgrade" every year (every other year if I can help it) despite Apple introducing a new virtualisation layer a couple of releases ago.
So thanks Bill.
He would be wise to cash out now while the getting is good. Amazon has an enormous problem with counterfeit goods in many categories. Unfortunately, when the implosion happens it will likely be incredibly fast and catastrophic. How might this happen? People get sketched out by their own, or other's experiences with fraud on Amazon, and simply decide to buy from other sources. I suspect this is a tipping point situation where it's not a slow decline, but instead a very fast one. For instance, my wife and I used to do most of our non-grocery shopping on Amazon. But recent horrific experiences (in spite of Jeff and his team stepping in to rectify things) and questions about what we'd actually get if we order something from Amazon means that now we don't buy nearly as much--mostly just Kindle books now. I just think that at some point most of their customers will stop shopping with them all at once because of fraud concerns, they'll stop subscribing to Prime, and next thing we know the company will be broken up and sold piecemeal.
I'm afraid Amazon thinks they have a lot more time than they actually do to think about what, if anything, they want to do about the problem.
I'm afraid Amazon thinks they have a lot more time than they actually do to think about what, if anything, they want to do about the problem.
With a little math, we are not-too-many years from the world's first US$ trillionaire.
Using Mr. Bezos as the example:
US$ 72,000,000,000
Annualized gain of, say, 10% on AMZN stock
Over a period of 27.6 years
1.1^27.6 * US$72,000,000,000 = ~US$ 1,000,000,000,000
Just in time for his 80th birthday.
Using Mr. Bezos as the example:
US$ 72,000,000,000
Annualized gain of, say, 10% on AMZN stock
Over a period of 27.6 years
1.1^27.6 * US$72,000,000,000 = ~US$ 1,000,000,000,000
Just in time for his 80th birthday.
Assuming 27 years of 10% compounding is quite the leap.
Since 1990 (27 years ago) McDonald's has returned 10.87%, including the Internet Bubble and Subprime Mortgage crashes.
March 30, 1990: $7.38
March 29, 2017: $128.84
I am not saying it'll be Bezos, but someone will get there within the next 2-3 decades.
[edit] And while I'm at it, AMZN has returned 36%, annualized, over the last 10 years, encompassing the Subprime Mortgage crash.
March 30, 1990: $7.38
March 29, 2017: $128.84
I am not saying it'll be Bezos, but someone will get there within the next 2-3 decades.
[edit] And while I'm at it, AMZN has returned 36%, annualized, over the last 10 years, encompassing the Subprime Mortgage crash.
Inflation alone means eventually someone will. (Just like Rockefeller's adjusted fortune is 300-400billlion)
Rockefeller's adjusted fortune is not $300-$400 billion. It's a lot closer to $30 to $40 billion in fact.
That huge fake number - which has been thrown around the Web for more than a decade - is derived from the GDP share.
It goes like this. Rockefeller in 1915 (pick the year), was worth the equivalent of 1/37th of the US GDP. Therefore, adjusted to today, Rockefeller would be worth $bazillion (1/37th of $19 trillion; which used to be more like $12b-$14b when the fake premise originally started floating about).
If you dig into the calculation that was / is used on that $300-$400 billion, that's where it's coming from in every instance.
In fact, Gates is objectively far richer than Rockefeller ever was, just not in relation to the US economy size at present. Rockefeller was worth between $1 and $2 billion at his peak, in his time. The inflation adjustment on $1 from 1910 to now, is not 300x or 400x. It's closer to 20x to 30x. If it were 300x, Ford's famous $5 per day pay rate (from 1914), would be ... $1500 per day. Laughable obviously; the 300x+ doesn't pass any challenge thrown at it.
That huge fake number - which has been thrown around the Web for more than a decade - is derived from the GDP share.
It goes like this. Rockefeller in 1915 (pick the year), was worth the equivalent of 1/37th of the US GDP. Therefore, adjusted to today, Rockefeller would be worth $bazillion (1/37th of $19 trillion; which used to be more like $12b-$14b when the fake premise originally started floating about).
If you dig into the calculation that was / is used on that $300-$400 billion, that's where it's coming from in every instance.
In fact, Gates is objectively far richer than Rockefeller ever was, just not in relation to the US economy size at present. Rockefeller was worth between $1 and $2 billion at his peak, in his time. The inflation adjustment on $1 from 1910 to now, is not 300x or 400x. It's closer to 20x to 30x. If it were 300x, Ford's famous $5 per day pay rate (from 1914), would be ... $1500 per day. Laughable obviously; the 300x+ doesn't pass any challenge thrown at it.
Yes, not in terms of buying power, but success in terms of proportion of GDP seems a reasonable measure. It must be harder to make the same amount of money in a smaller market. It also shows how well you did relative to others, and may be a better measure of how much actual power you have over others.
Just use the proportion 1/37 instead of converting to dollars, or I agree it's misleading.
Also: perhaps, $1500 per day today is reflective of our buying power in a way, if we consider new inventions like TV, smartphones, internet, air-travel, when the closest equivalents back then were much more expensive.
Just use the proportion 1/37 instead of converting to dollars, or I agree it's misleading.
Also: perhaps, $1500 per day today is reflective of our buying power in a way, if we consider new inventions like TV, smartphones, internet, air-travel, when the closest equivalents back then were much more expensive.
> Also: perhaps, $1500 per day today is reflective of our buying power in a way
(A little sarcastic, sorry:) Yes, if we ignore all of the things we buy that have gotten more expensive, it's like prices have deflated.</s>
Overall inflation measures a collection of consumer prices, the average of which has trended up since that time. It is a general reflection of buying power, dollar for dollar.
(A little sarcastic, sorry:) Yes, if we ignore all of the things we buy that have gotten more expensive, it's like prices have deflated.</s>
Overall inflation measures a collection of consumer prices, the average of which has trended up since that time. It is a general reflection of buying power, dollar for dollar.
Of course you're right that the accepted measures of inflation would have already considered and addressed the issue. And I would guess that fundamentals like food and land/housing have indeed gotten more expensive.
I'm a little intrigued though: shouldn't technological progress and "accelerating returns" have made things cheaper? I do see for land, that location is a monopoly ("they aren't making any more" - at least, in that spot, in that community, with that access). I wonder how much similar market effects have "artificially" kept other prices high? An oligopoly or silent collusion/combination between sellers (e.g. as happened for flat TVs).
Also, I wonder if a different lifestyle is possible, leaning more heavily on those aspects that have gotten cheaper (one e.g. living remotely and working remotely or independently).
Anyway, I'm glad you agreed with my other points, I'm assuming.
I'm a little intrigued though: shouldn't technological progress and "accelerating returns" have made things cheaper? I do see for land, that location is a monopoly ("they aren't making any more" - at least, in that spot, in that community, with that access). I wonder how much similar market effects have "artificially" kept other prices high? An oligopoly or silent collusion/combination between sellers (e.g. as happened for flat TVs).
Also, I wonder if a different lifestyle is possible, leaning more heavily on those aspects that have gotten cheaper (one e.g. living remotely and working remotely or independently).
Anyway, I'm glad you agreed with my other points, I'm assuming.
> And I would guess that fundamentals like food and land/housing have indeed gotten more expensive.
>
> I'm a little intrigued though: shouldn't technological progress and "accelerating returns" have made things cheaper? I do see for land, that location is a monopoly ("they aren't making any more" - at least, in that spot, in that community, with that access).
Healthcare and education costs have increased hugely, housing costs moderately (moreso in the big cities). Overall inflation is somewhat offset by food and electronics getting much cheaper.
> I wonder how much similar market effects have "artificially" kept other prices high? An oligopoly or silent collusion/combination between sellers (e.g. as happened for flat TVs).
The healthcare marketplace is pretty terrible. Perverse incentives, no pricing transparency, etc is at least part of rapidly increasing costs. Oddly education has gotten much more expensive as well, including K-12, and there doesn't seem to be an obvious reason there.
> Also, I wonder if a different lifestyle is possible, leaning more heavily on those aspects that have gotten cheaper (one e.g. living remotely and working remotely or independently).
Yeah. If you can swing a remote tech job living in a low or moderate cost of living area, you can save enough to retire (in that LCOL location) in a couple years. It can really be single digit years if you can keep your saving rate above 90%.
Healthcare and education costs have increased hugely, housing costs moderately (moreso in the big cities). Overall inflation is somewhat offset by food and electronics getting much cheaper.
> I wonder how much similar market effects have "artificially" kept other prices high? An oligopoly or silent collusion/combination between sellers (e.g. as happened for flat TVs).
The healthcare marketplace is pretty terrible. Perverse incentives, no pricing transparency, etc is at least part of rapidly increasing costs. Oddly education has gotten much more expensive as well, including K-12, and there doesn't seem to be an obvious reason there.
> Also, I wonder if a different lifestyle is possible, leaning more heavily on those aspects that have gotten cheaper (one e.g. living remotely and working remotely or independently).
Yeah. If you can swing a remote tech job living in a low or moderate cost of living area, you can save enough to retire (in that LCOL location) in a couple years. It can really be single digit years if you can keep your saving rate above 90%.
Interesting, it's a bit different here in Australia, we have free healthcare, free education and incredibly high house prices (eg ordinary house in suburbs > $1 million; 2br unit almost $0.5 million). Of course, those first two aren't actually "free" and eg drug prices can be very high.
Patented drugs are at least something new - you're getting better tech, enhancing or even saving your life, to an extent previously impossible. The "standard" cost of drugs increases with our expectations, but also their true value. Inflation measures mightn't account for this. eg basics like aspirin and ibuprofen are dirt cheap these days.
House and education prices are above their actual utility; a bubble, an insidious monopoly, or something else.
Isn;t educatiin high because it's a false ticket to a "good job"? i.e. people get it for that reason (not for the education itself, or for a market demand for that specific skillset/knowledge), but the jobs aren't there, so they double down. Demand for education exceeds supply so the price goes up. Yes, more places are made available to meet demand, but they lack the prestige (and network effects) of the top institutions... On it goes. Mightn't apply to K12 though (that's highschool I guess?).
LCOL is it. BTW I used to want to retire, now I want to be able to work on projects. That's a subset, I guess.
Patented drugs are at least something new - you're getting better tech, enhancing or even saving your life, to an extent previously impossible. The "standard" cost of drugs increases with our expectations, but also their true value. Inflation measures mightn't account for this. eg basics like aspirin and ibuprofen are dirt cheap these days.
House and education prices are above their actual utility; a bubble, an insidious monopoly, or something else.
Isn;t educatiin high because it's a false ticket to a "good job"? i.e. people get it for that reason (not for the education itself, or for a market demand for that specific skillset/knowledge), but the jobs aren't there, so they double down. Demand for education exceeds supply so the price goes up. Yes, more places are made available to meet demand, but they lack the prestige (and network effects) of the top institutions... On it goes. Mightn't apply to K12 though (that's highschool I guess?).
LCOL is it. BTW I used to want to retire, now I want to be able to work on projects. That's a subset, I guess.
It's actually 11.4% with dividends, and 12.5% if you reinvested the dividends in more shares when you got them!
It is in the S&P; I'd argue that 10% compounding may not be an absurd stretch for a company like Amazon
The S&P 500 index is close to that (inflation contributes a bit) for the last 30 years.
Not at all unreasonable.
Not at all unreasonable.
Well, he's not buying treasury bonds.
AMZN average annual return last 10 years: 36.07%
One variable is missing from your math - the inevitable stock market crash.
You should probably use king abdullah or vladimir putin as your baseline instead of gates/bezos
Worth noting that Gates leads by a $10 billion margin.
And that's after Bloomberg weirdly adjusted his net worth down by about $12-$15 billion recently, right before he was about to cross $100 billion again for the first time since the dotcom bubble.
They left a note on his profile in the billionaires list that says:
"The net worth history for Bill Gates was changed to reflect a revised approach to the valuation that was applied on Jan. 27, 2017."
Which is probably another way of saying, that he put in a favor with Michael Bloomberg to not show him crossing $100 billion, as he doesn't want the headlines.
They left a note on his profile in the billionaires list that says:
"The net worth history for Bill Gates was changed to reflect a revised approach to the valuation that was applied on Jan. 27, 2017."
Which is probably another way of saying, that he put in a favor with Michael Bloomberg to not show him crossing $100 billion, as he doesn't want the headlines.
For all the hype Silicon Valley gets, the companies of the world's 2 richest people are in the Seattle area.
One of the reasons Bezos picked Seattle was due to Microsoft having a lot of software engineers he could get. So MSFT is a big reason that Bezos is in Seattle. Also it was close to one of the biggest book distributors. Amazon was originally a book store.
I read somewhere that it was related to tax optimization. That is, if you sell a book from California, you have to apply state tax to California residents (38M) but if you sell it from Washington, you don't. So the fact that Washington had fewer potential customers than California (or New York, where Jeff Bezos was working previously), meant a smaller tax bill for its country-wide customer base.
I've heard this also, and it makes sense. Although Amazon is now finally going to charge sales tax everywhere, it undoubtedly helped their growth that they could undercut others in large markets like NY and CA by not charging sales tax. I'm sure this wasn't the only factor, but if it meant a 9% pricing advantage in CA, it could have been a real consideration.
They also sold under MSRP since their product was basically virtual (aka just in time).
In the book, The Everything Store, the writer tells about Bezos intentions for Washington. It was combination of fewer customers there and a close distance to a large book publisher, there were a few other smaller accompanying reasons like another poster mentioned about msft being in the area as well.
That is the same reason many Seattle startups picked being in Seattle. Software engineers, cost efficient to run a startup (office space), a great startup ecosystem, 2 hours from the valley, and decent ability to raise capital.
Seattle* is an anomaly. Roughly the 100th city worldwide by size, yet has 2 of the 5 largest companies in the world by market cap.
* Technically Seattle metro area
* Technically Seattle metro area
Incredibly, Seattle gets only 2.61% of all venture investment. #8 in the US, behind San Diego [1].
[1]: http://www.citylab.com/tech/2016/02/the-spiky-geography-of-v...
[1]: http://www.citylab.com/tech/2016/02/the-spiky-geography-of-v...
I think that's the point....for all the hype SV gets, Seattle should get some too....
Houses are going for 500k+, please, less hype actually. All we want to do is build cool product and enjoy our life. I don't think anyone in Seattle wants the SV arrogance and lifestyle.
Heh, this is the Seattleite party line. Don't kid yourself into thinking people in Seattle are more humble than the people in SV. They're just not as overt about it. I agree with you that the flashy culture of SV doesn't exist as much here, and that's a good thing, but I'd say Seattleites are some of the most arrogant, standoffish, and surface-polite people I've met anywhere in the world.
I'd say Seattleites are some of the most arrogant,
standoffish, and surface-polite people I've met
anywhere in the world.
[1]The 10 most livable cities in the world http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-10-most-livable-cities-...
>>Could you perhaps expand on this observation? I genuinely find it interesting.
Look up "Seattle freeze". It's a real phenomenon sociologists have studied.
Essentially, it's easy to make acquiantences in Seattle, but extremely difficult to make friends. Everyone is polite and friendly on the surface, but any attempt to get to know someone is met with (polite) stonewalling.
Look up "Seattle freeze". It's a real phenomenon sociologists have studied.
Essentially, it's easy to make acquiantences in Seattle, but extremely difficult to make friends. Everyone is polite and friendly on the surface, but any attempt to get to know someone is met with (polite) stonewalling.
Could you list a few other cities which are known for such peculiar mannerisms? I was told Boston has its own stripe of the "Seattle Freeze".
I find all of this incredibly interesting. If I could, I'd at least make a quick wiki of these observations. Frankly I think this is one of the elements that would figure prominently when considering places to move to, whether within the U.S. or globally. More so than weather or abundance of restaurants or even neighborhood walk scores!
edit: Earlier, HN didn't let me reply to you perhaps due to some time threshold I'm not aware of. So replied to myself. Deleted that post now.
edit: Earlier, HN didn't let me reply to you perhaps due to some time threshold I'm not aware of. So replied to myself. Deleted that post now.
It looks like Wikipedia beat you to it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_nice (and pointers within).
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see: Frasier.
That's happening in Vancouver, New York City, hell, any place even remotely worth living.
unlike SF, we've got land to build on, and are doing so. lots of new apartments south and east of Lake Union - aka Amazonia.
San Francisco has tons of land to build on. The density there is an absolute joke. Whenever someone proposes building something one story too high the local neighborhood groups lose their collective shit and shut it down.
Unrelated, but I wonder what the sweet spot is height/floor wisefor developing affordable units. That is, given zero pushback from local citizenry and groups, if a locality wanted dense housing due to lack of space, at what point does adding a story make average cost per unit slightly more expensive instead of slightly less expensive (assuming it actually is cheaper to add a second or third story than a single story complex).
It's really a function of land cost. A high rise unit costs about $30k more per unit according to here: http://www.humphreys.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/MFT_FL-0...
There are also costs that developers do not directly pay for but a city pays for. Maintaining all of the miles and miles of road, metro, pipes, power lines, police patrols and so on is more expensive than the equivalent amount of people in a smaller space.
There are also costs that developers do not directly pay for but a city pays for. Maintaining all of the miles and miles of road, metro, pipes, power lines, police patrols and so on is more expensive than the equivalent amount of people in a smaller space.
Thanks, that's useful information, but it looks like it's already heavy on one one of the spectrum. 40 unit and 160 unit comparisons are interesting, but I assume those are already from 6-8 floors to 30-40 floors. I'm also interested in the costs of units between 2-3 floors to 5-6 floors. As floors increase, that report shows an increase in construction costs (I assume because of the pain of building higher and the extra support needed to bear the load). If it's not always an entirely smooth curve of cost as floors increase, there may be some sweet spots (local maxima) in there were you maximize per-unit value. E.e. if an 11 floor building requires different, more costly building methods, it's entirely possible that a 10 floor building may be a better investment than 11, 12 or 13 floor building, and then at 14 floors it's a better value than 10 floors again. It would make sense to have building and ordinance codes line up with building realities, but they likely don't.
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Judging by rental and house prices in my neighbor I think we get plenty of hype.
Turns out reality is more evenly distributed than HN.
Seattle has one of the lowest amounts of sun per year of all metros in the USA. It selects for those who are serious about work, more than weather.
The weather isn't that bad here. It's overcast a lot and there are a lot of "rainy" days but it's usually a light mist or sprinkle. It rarely drops below freezing in the winter and the summers, while short, have long days and are quite dry. Maybe the bay area has better weather but I'd take Seattle weather over most of the US (Chicago, Austin, NY, DC, etc)
Perhaps this is because I am from California, but having lived in Seattle for the last 3 years, the hardest part isn't the rain or cold but the lack of sun.
My previous manager at Amazon told me he recommended everyone who came from California to take a vacation back during the winter lest they get too depressed.
My previous manager at Amazon told me he recommended everyone who came from California to take a vacation back during the winter lest they get too depressed.
I will take my Southern Cali weather - 75 and sunny all year round.
> It selects for those who are serious about work, more than weather.
Uhhh, Seattle, Portland, and the rest of the PNW have some of the most outdoorsy people in the country. We're less than 2 hours from the ocean or the mountains.
Uhhh, Seattle, Portland, and the rest of the PNW have some of the most outdoorsy people in the country. We're less than 2 hours from the ocean or the mountains.
eh. But also filters people who are serious about work but also serious about their mental health.
I know myself well enough to know that I am less productive when I don't get sunlight. I suspect many other people are the same.
I know myself well enough to know that I am less productive when I don't get sunlight. I suspect many other people are the same.
The results of Seattle area companies beg to differ. I live in Seattle and I find that if I walk outdoors during the day at least once per day, I'm fine.
What does mental health of people living there have to do with the success of a few companies?
There are successful companies that eat their workers alive, employee happiness isn't related with their success in a lot of cases.
There are successful companies that eat their workers alive, employee happiness isn't related with their success in a lot of cases.
Tech companies can only produce what their employees output. If people were so miserable in Seattle there's no way that any company based there would thrive enough to be a top company in the world.
I used to live in Seattle and that was a major contributing factor that caused me to move to Atlanta.
Seattle isn't going to suffer a fresh-water shortage any time soon, either.
You would think, but just because it frequently rains doesn't mean it is all captured and can be treated for use. In the late 80s there were water shortages in King County.
There's a wide gulf between what can be captured and what is being captured.
I guarantee you anyone with a roof and a rain barrel is not hurting for water for their plants.
I guarantee you anyone with a roof and a rain barrel is not hurting for water for their plants.
If you count the number of billionaire, Palo Alto alone has 13 billionaires in a town of 66,000 people.
It's ranked #25 on the list of cities with most billionaires and Seattle is not even on the list.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilycanal/2016/03/09/the-citie...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilycanal/2016/03/09/the-citie...
i think (based on the patterns of life/work/commuting around here) that palo alto should not count so much as a town as the rich neighbourhood of the bay area.
and Palm Beach has 29 billionaires in a town of 10.5k people.
How do you get to this data? I would like to see the number of billionaires in my town if at all.
Forbes & local Palm Beach news: http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/news/local/island-rich-ter...
Homes in the Bingham / Hunters Island (south of Mar-A-Lago) and Manalapan areas of Palm Beach are some of the most expensive and outrageous in the world.
Fun to fly around there on Google Maps: https://www.google.com/maps/@26.6676348,-80.0368289,548a,35y...
Homes in the Bingham / Hunters Island (south of Mar-A-Lago) and Manalapan areas of Palm Beach are some of the most expensive and outrageous in the world.
Fun to fly around there on Google Maps: https://www.google.com/maps/@26.6676348,-80.0368289,548a,35y...
I think it's moreso the fact that nothing 'new' has really come out of Seattle.
Kind of hard to build hype if your two main talking points are 20+ and 40+ year old companies.
Kind of hard to build hype if your two main talking points are 20+ and 40+ year old companies.
I bought my house through Redfin and I think Twilio and Box originally started in Seattle.
Well that's def not true: Tableau, Rover, OfferUp, and countless more http://www.geekwire.com/startup-list/ and that's with only 2.61% of venture investment.
People are usually including Amazon and MS when they use the metonym "Silicon Valley".
I've never heard someone say SV to include Washington.
Though now that you mention it, I have heard that commute times around the valley are terrible....
Though now that you mention it, I have heard that commute times around the valley are terrible....
Similar to how the term "Wall Street" isn't limited to the firms physically located on Wall Street in lower Manhattan.
Really meant San Fran. An extreme disproportionate amount of investment dollars go there considering just how much value has come out of Seattle with much less starting capital.
Wasn't Microsoft founded in Albuquerque?
Yes, but Bill Gates grew up in and returned to Seattle to build the company up
a) "San Fran" is not used by most locals.
b) Silicon Valley is 30 miles or so south of San Francisco.
b) Silicon Valley is 30 miles or so south of San Francisco.
A) I'm not a local. Never claimed to be
B) 30 miles makes it part of the same metropolitan area.
B) 30 miles makes it part of the same metropolitan area.
It's a long valley!
cause seattle never sleeps
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108160/)
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108160/)
Buffett should just buy a bunch of $AMZN so he keeps on par with Bezos. Buffett is not greedy, but he is ultra competitive. I look forward to going to my first annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting this May.
I am failing to see how someone who founded a company that hasn't made > $1B in profit over each of the last twenty years can have a fortune of $75B
It's pretty simple. The market has been valuing Amazon - from day one since its IPO - with an eye on the future value of its cash flow / net income. Certainly many investors and competitors have regarded that constant pushing off of the profitability expectations (for two decades), as unfair.
Since Amazon began showing off AWS financial figures, the stock has more than doubled. The market has priced in AWS as being worth perhaps $150 billion or more. AWS is making a lot of money, and it's going to make a lot more over the next five years.
Investors likely expect that given the immense scale of the business and the fact that it's still growing at 20%+ (remarkably), the future prospect of Amazon generating, say, $16+ billion in net income, is reasonable to expect. One can then debate whether it's rational to be granting that valuation to Amazon today, if it'll take another ten years to produce the $16 billion annually (pulling future returns forward, the cause of Microsoft's 15 years of stagnation in regards to its stock).
Since Amazon began showing off AWS financial figures, the stock has more than doubled. The market has priced in AWS as being worth perhaps $150 billion or more. AWS is making a lot of money, and it's going to make a lot more over the next five years.
Investors likely expect that given the immense scale of the business and the fact that it's still growing at 20%+ (remarkably), the future prospect of Amazon generating, say, $16+ billion in net income, is reasonable to expect. One can then debate whether it's rational to be granting that valuation to Amazon today, if it'll take another ten years to produce the $16 billion annually (pulling future returns forward, the cause of Microsoft's 15 years of stagnation in regards to its stock).
Because Amazon has continually reinvested it's revenue into more capital and the value of that capital is worth significantly more than $75B?
First, profit is after paying your staff (including him). Regardless, he owns a bunch of stock, and that stock has a price. It's not like all those billions are in cash.
I think when computing profit you subtract capital investments into the company. These capital investments become assets/equity on the balance sheet, contributing to the wealth of the shareholders without being counted as "profit". Amazon did this a lot.
How is Bezos making money? Amazon doesn't seem to generate enough dividends to reach this amount of wealth, or does it?
Bezos owns about 83M[1] shares of Amazon which are currently $875.
[1] https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-Amazon-does-Jeff-Be...
[1] https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-Amazon-does-Jeff-Be...
It's only by choice that Amazon doesn't generate dividends.
That's speculation. Maybe the low prices are the real reason why Amazon is doing so well.
It's not cash, it's equity.
Some fun facts: Jeff Bezos owns 80.9 million shares of AMZN (or did in September), which is about 17% of the company. Over 60% of the company is held by institutional shareholders, led by Vanguard. His annual salary is $100K. He appeared in Star Trek Beyond as a Star Fleet official. In his spare time, he runs a spaceship company.[1]
I've always admired Amazon and have been a customer of theirs since the late 90s when it was mainly a bookseller. For a while I owned a few hundred shares, but sold them for a slight profit. Had I held onto them... sigh...
Jeff Bezos is one of America's great entrepreneurs, along with Gates, Musk, Ellison, and a handful of others. This is America at its best. We could do worse than to produce such amazing and successful technology innovators.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos
I've always admired Amazon and have been a customer of theirs since the late 90s when it was mainly a bookseller. For a while I owned a few hundred shares, but sold them for a slight profit. Had I held onto them... sigh...
Jeff Bezos is one of America's great entrepreneurs, along with Gates, Musk, Ellison, and a handful of others. This is America at its best. We could do worse than to produce such amazing and successful technology innovators.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos
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So is Bezos our modern day Carnegie or Rockefeller?
As a reference example, Rockefeller was worth over $300 billion in 2007 dollars:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Rockefeller&oq=Rockefeller&a...
https://www.google.com/search?q=Rockefeller&oq=Rockefeller&a...
The $300 billion was estimated by assuming that his assets expand with US economic output. That makes no sense because the US population grew substantially (and the US economy has diversified into many new fields).
One thing about Carnegie (as opposed to either Bezos or Gates) is that he came from very humble circumstances and in fact poverty.
Both Bezos and Gates had a bit of a leg up as they came from moderately well off families and were afforded expensive educations and opportunities. (Not attributing their wealth exclusively to this but think it was necessary in these cases).
Both Bezos and Gates had a bit of a leg up as they came from moderately well off families and were afforded expensive educations and opportunities. (Not attributing their wealth exclusively to this but think it was necessary in these cases).
Nope. Those guys managed to be quite a bit richer, by a substantial factor.
Unless Putin is on this list I doubt its veracity.
It's a lot harder to quantify or accurately estimate his wealth. Most of the numbers usually associated with Putin are anecdotal.
maybe they dont count corruption?
maybe they should.
When you're embezzling money the last thing you want is to reveal enough information about your stash to show up on these lists.
Saddam Hussein obviously had tons of liquid assets but the totality of them was never truly known. It was all squirreled away, and likely stolen by the caretakers when his regime imploded and the threat of retribution was removed.
How much did Pablo Esbobar have at his peak? We can only guess, but given the staggering cash-flow rate of an estimated $500 million per week, perhaps as much as $30 billion. This is 1980s dollars, too. Adjusted for inflation that's absolutely nuts.
Saddam Hussein obviously had tons of liquid assets but the totality of them was never truly known. It was all squirreled away, and likely stolen by the caretakers when his regime imploded and the threat of retribution was removed.
How much did Pablo Esbobar have at his peak? We can only guess, but given the staggering cash-flow rate of an estimated $500 million per week, perhaps as much as $30 billion. This is 1980s dollars, too. Adjusted for inflation that's absolutely nuts.
in the /r/conspiracy realm - it is widely believed that the reason for Gaddafi's execution was to go after the billions he had - and to take him down. The idea is that the Benghazi fiasco was let loose by the state dept so that HRC could loot Libya... its not provable - but the fact is that Gaddafi was one of the worlds richest ppl - and the rumor is that HRC and cabal stole all his loot.
He was worth a reportable 70 billion.... and unknown amount off-books...
He was murdered for his money. And anyone who says that is not true is fucking clueless about what the fuck is actually happening in this world at that level.
http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/573aeac75632a39...
He was worth a reportable 70 billion.... and unknown amount off-books...
He was murdered for his money. And anyone who says that is not true is fucking clueless about what the fuck is actually happening in this world at that level.
http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/573aeac75632a39...
OK, I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but this is just crazy.
So, in your scenario, HRC wants Gaddafi's money. So she orchestrates an attack on a US embassy nearly a year after he died, as a false flag operation. And then we sent people in get the money. Of course, officially we didn't send anyone in Libya in response to the attacks except some more marines to guard the embassy, so this group that went in to get the money did so secretly. But then why did they need to orchestrate the attack on the embassy? Why not just send spies in under cover? Also, where is the money in scenario? Is there some big fucking safe filled with gold bars in his palace that none of the militants have touched in that last year?
Oh, also you don't think Gaddafi's execution had anything to do with a prolonged civil war and numerous human rights violations? Or did Clinton also invent the Arab Spring and force Gaddafi to be a brutal dictator for decades?
So, in your scenario, HRC wants Gaddafi's money. So she orchestrates an attack on a US embassy nearly a year after he died, as a false flag operation. And then we sent people in get the money. Of course, officially we didn't send anyone in Libya in response to the attacks except some more marines to guard the embassy, so this group that went in to get the money did so secretly. But then why did they need to orchestrate the attack on the embassy? Why not just send spies in under cover? Also, where is the money in scenario? Is there some big fucking safe filled with gold bars in his palace that none of the militants have touched in that last year?
Oh, also you don't think Gaddafi's execution had anything to do with a prolonged civil war and numerous human rights violations? Or did Clinton also invent the Arab Spring and force Gaddafi to be a brutal dictator for decades?
Sorry - but you're accusing me of a timeline I had not stated.
I said that fuckery was afoot -- I didn't give any timeline or sequence to events...
I simply stated that Gaddafi was murdered for his money (and the fact that he refused to bow to the Rothschild central banks, and wanted to run his system on a gold standard) -- I did NOT stand up for anything regarding his character, dictatorship or anything. And yes - I personally do believe that HRC is a criminal (as is trump) I only put faith in Sanders, but almost exclusively I am apolitical.
So keep fucking on topic - Gaddafi got killed for a reason we will never know, and his ~$70 billion dollars evaporated to who-knows-where.
I said that fuckery was afoot -- I didn't give any timeline or sequence to events...
I simply stated that Gaddafi was murdered for his money (and the fact that he refused to bow to the Rothschild central banks, and wanted to run his system on a gold standard) -- I did NOT stand up for anything regarding his character, dictatorship or anything. And yes - I personally do believe that HRC is a criminal (as is trump) I only put faith in Sanders, but almost exclusively I am apolitical.
So keep fucking on topic - Gaddafi got killed for a reason we will never know, and his ~$70 billion dollars evaporated to who-knows-where.
> Sorry - but you're accusing me of a timeline I had not stated.
That was my best guess at a timeline for your conspiracy theory. Would you care to give an alternative?
You're also kind of all over the road here. First you say "I simply stated that Gaddafi was murdered for his money" but in the next paragraph you say "Gaddafi got killed for a reason we will never know". And you follow that up with "and his ~$70 billion dollars evaporated to who-knows-where" when just before you proposed that the money was taken by HRC. And you seem really certain at least some part of this is true, saying "He was murdered for his money. And anyone who says that is not true is fucking clueless about what the fuck is actually happening in this world" but then respond to someone calling your theory "a rumor". I honestly don't know what you believe or don't
That was my best guess at a timeline for your conspiracy theory. Would you care to give an alternative?
You're also kind of all over the road here. First you say "I simply stated that Gaddafi was murdered for his money" but in the next paragraph you say "Gaddafi got killed for a reason we will never know". And you follow that up with "and his ~$70 billion dollars evaporated to who-knows-where" when just before you proposed that the money was taken by HRC. And you seem really certain at least some part of this is true, saying "He was murdered for his money. And anyone who says that is not true is fucking clueless about what the fuck is actually happening in this world" but then respond to someone calling your theory "a rumor". I honestly don't know what you believe or don't
OK - thats a fair comment...
I apologize for not being salient in my sentiment.
Gaddafi was killed, he MAY have been the richest person alive at the time, the US had many reasons to want him gone... HRC MAY have profited off his death - and we do not know where his money went.
Perhaps the people who worked for/with Gaddafi stole it (at least some of it) -- perhaps HRC profited off it.
its all out in the ether and we shall never know the truth.
I apologize for not being salient in my sentiment.
Gaddafi was killed, he MAY have been the richest person alive at the time, the US had many reasons to want him gone... HRC MAY have profited off his death - and we do not know where his money went.
Perhaps the people who worked for/with Gaddafi stole it (at least some of it) -- perhaps HRC profited off it.
its all out in the ether and we shall never know the truth.
OK, first, I am not trolling - and I didn't state that this was my belief per-se...
I do find all the Benghazi BS to be super weird - but thats just me without all the facts...
However, it is a documentable fact that Gaddafi may have been the richest documentable person (clearly we are ignoring the Rothschilds etc...) in the world...
He had vast assets and liquid cash all over the place. This is known - so do not accuse me of trolling on facts...
Further, it is known that HRC is a corrupt person (proven via her emails and many many other resources -- if you are unaware of this, then you're simply unaware and I am not trolling)
I said that it is RUMORED to have been financial motivation to go after Gaddafi... did you ever see the list of countries that Clark said the .gov was going to go after? Libya was on that list...
now, I shall admit my ignorance - as I am not entirely familiar with the libyan civil war, but I know my CIA history a fair bit... arab spring was an op. to foment a varied amount of things... civil wars here, uprisings there, extremests wherever... and change all over.
I never said Gaddafi was some benevolent anything -- I said he was sought for his money and executed CIA fashion.
so.. let me ask you: What happened to all the 70+++ billion dollars Gaddafi had? He was killed - what happened to his wealth?
I know that you have no fucking clue. So... what is your speculation?
Where did his funds go?
http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/573aeac75632a39...
I do find all the Benghazi BS to be super weird - but thats just me without all the facts...
However, it is a documentable fact that Gaddafi may have been the richest documentable person (clearly we are ignoring the Rothschilds etc...) in the world...
He had vast assets and liquid cash all over the place. This is known - so do not accuse me of trolling on facts...
Further, it is known that HRC is a corrupt person (proven via her emails and many many other resources -- if you are unaware of this, then you're simply unaware and I am not trolling)
I said that it is RUMORED to have been financial motivation to go after Gaddafi... did you ever see the list of countries that Clark said the .gov was going to go after? Libya was on that list...
now, I shall admit my ignorance - as I am not entirely familiar with the libyan civil war, but I know my CIA history a fair bit... arab spring was an op. to foment a varied amount of things... civil wars here, uprisings there, extremests wherever... and change all over.
I never said Gaddafi was some benevolent anything -- I said he was sought for his money and executed CIA fashion.
so.. let me ask you: What happened to all the 70+++ billion dollars Gaddafi had? He was killed - what happened to his wealth?
I know that you have no fucking clue. So... what is your speculation?
Where did his funds go?
http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/573aeac75632a39...
I'd imagine a lot of his liquid assets were seized by militants. From some googling, it seems some portion of his wealth was in a bunch of real estate he owned. I imagine those have also been seized, those that weren't destroyed. But the most part his wealth was invested in several western countries. Per http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/21/world/la-fg-kadafi-m... that money has been seized by the governments in question. But before you go "see, HRC took the money!" those assets were seized over a year before the war in Libya, so it's unrelated. That which hasn't been seized has probably been taken by his various money managers.
People that are very good at hiding money for the ludicrously and criminally rich are also, not surprisingly, very good at making money disappear.
If your biggest client just got killed in a coup do you really think you'd go through a lot of trouble to track down his various relatives as they're being systematically captured and/or executed by the uprising? No, you'd quietly wrap up all those trusts and funnel the money to safer places, like the bank accounts of yourself and people you trust.
If your biggest client just got killed in a coup do you really think you'd go through a lot of trouble to track down his various relatives as they're being systematically captured and/or executed by the uprising? No, you'd quietly wrap up all those trusts and funnel the money to safer places, like the bank accounts of yourself and people you trust.
You're just a hypocritical person...
You denigrate my comments yet you just state a reinforcement of my speculation "criminally rich are also, not surprisingly, very good at making money disappear.
this was the premise of my post!
Money went someplace, and we dont know where it went - did HRC profit off it or not....
You denigrate my comments yet you just state a reinforcement of my speculation "criminally rich are also, not surprisingly, very good at making money disappear.
this was the premise of my post!
Money went someplace, and we dont know where it went - did HRC profit off it or not....
You can't just speculate. Maybe it was the Pope! Trump! Elvis! Fucking aliens!
Come back with a shred of proof, okay?
Come back with a shred of proof, okay?
> now, I shall admit my ignorance...
You've already demonstrated it in spades.
When something seems odd, maybe you don't have all the facts that would instead paint a much better picture. You're like someone with two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle who's convinced it's something perverted but really it's just a fruit bowl.
You've already demonstrated it in spades.
When something seems odd, maybe you don't have all the facts that would instead paint a much better picture. You're like someone with two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle who's convinced it's something perverted but really it's just a fruit bowl.
You've literally provided nothing to this conversation other than talking shit to me. So fuck off unless you have a better contribution. Answer the following question with some fact, Astroturf:
* Where has Gaddafi's money gone?
* Where has Gaddafi's money gone?
You're slinging far more shit in this thread than are the people replying to you, and you know perfectly well that accusing other posters of commenting in bad faith or of astroturfing isn't acceptable here.
If you're going to bring speculation from the "/r/conspiracy" crowd onto this forum, which you won't even admit to believing yourself, you should expect and tolerate the inevitable reaction that follows.
If you're going to bring speculation from the "/r/conspiracy" crowd onto this forum, which you won't even admit to believing yourself, you should expect and tolerate the inevitable reaction that follows.
As long as you recognize that this is just nutjob conspiracy nonsense, then yeah... I guess it's entertaining?
Cool - thanks - so rather than provide any refuting evidence to something I stated was a RUMOR, you post this drivel. So - if you are so informed, please update me.
Oh samstave the omniscient,
Can you please tell us which other people are billionaires?
OR
Are you trusting the same publications that George W Bush and republicans turned into paid propaganda to say that Iraq as Le weaponzzz of mass destruction? Remember NYT, WaPo, CNN were the major trusted news orgs that GOP bought.
Can you please tell us which other people are billionaires?
OR
Are you trusting the same publications that George W Bush and republicans turned into paid propaganda to say that Iraq as Le weaponzzz of mass destruction? Remember NYT, WaPo, CNN were the major trusted news orgs that GOP bought.
evidently they already are... ;)
Any reason why the Rothchilds never show up in these lists? My best guess there is some sort of "who's the richest game" for some new money players (who's fortune can be tracked), where old money prefers obscurity.
http://www.snopes.com/rothschild-family-wealth/
Basically, after three generations a single persons wealth is distributed out enough to get dropped from these sorts of lists. Jeff might be the 2nd richest in the world - it's highly unlikely his grandchildren will be ranked as such.
Basically, after three generations a single persons wealth is distributed out enough to get dropped from these sorts of lists. Jeff might be the 2nd richest in the world - it's highly unlikely his grandchildren will be ranked as such.
Good point. One family that is directly measurable however: offspring of Sam Walton. Bill G is a distant second by that yard stick: https://www.forbes.com/profile/walton-1/
The Rothschilds aren't that rich, and there's a lot of them. Old money may prefer obscurity, but it also doesn't go that far anymore.
There being alot of them is, I think, precisely how they became so wealthy. Until the modern financial era, banking was predominantly built around personal relationships, and especially family relationships.
A bank in London had no reason to cash a check drawn on a bank in Paris, or value a Letter of Credit given by a bank in Frankfurt, unless the London bank trusted the other bank would honor the liability, and honor it timely. This was especially true the larger and more complex the transaction.
As a banking consumer you wanted to use a bank that would honor instruments from and have its instruments honored by the most and the most important banks across Europe. Those banks were often part of a consortium of family-owned banks, because under economic stress the family-owned banks would always honor their commitments to each other, and offer each other low-interest loans to help another member bank stay afloat.
A bank in London had no reason to cash a check drawn on a bank in Paris, or value a Letter of Credit given by a bank in Frankfurt, unless the London bank trusted the other bank would honor the liability, and honor it timely. This was especially true the larger and more complex the transaction.
As a banking consumer you wanted to use a bank that would honor instruments from and have its instruments honored by the most and the most important banks across Europe. Those banks were often part of a consortium of family-owned banks, because under economic stress the family-owned banks would always honor their commitments to each other, and offer each other low-interest loans to help another member bank stay afloat.
Or they're just not as wealthy as conspiracy theorists say they are.
They may have it spread across a larger family and in opaque investment vehicles, etc.
Most extremely wealthy people hide their wealth through corporations / trusts / etc and never show up on these lists.
This sort of info isn't technically pure public knowledge, right? It's mostly estimated based on stock ownership figures where they're publicly listed I would guess? Probably less a matter of hiding than just not-public-info.
Woot! Go go Seattle billionaire club!
funny thing is.. announcement to be made later
aka legalized https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme
> Amazon’s founder has added $10.2 billion this year to his wealth...
It's not even April yet...
It's not even April yet...
End of financial year tomorrow.
eh is it? I thought it's end of Q2 tomorrow only. The $10 billion is probably the addition of Q1 and Q2 so far this fiscal year.
FTA: "Amazon’s founder has added $10.2 billion this year to his wealth and $7 billion since [Nov 8th]" - I'm going to interpret that as meaning that it's 10 billion over the course of a full year, which makes more sense than making losing 3 billion in December and making 10 billion in Q1/Q2 which would be necessary for your interpretation (of 10 billion in Q1/Q2) to make those numbers make sense.
Sorry I'm mistaken. The end of the fiscal year is the 5th of April in the UK.
In the US, I think this is different. So this is a more dramatic result considering.
In the US, I think this is different. So this is a more dramatic result considering.
The US fiscal year ends on September 30, but companies can set their own fiscal year. (Many C corps do end it at specific quarters)
[1] https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/...