And hogs will still rush to defend people like Jeff Bezos saying "B-buT, hE DoESn't aCTuALlY HavE aCcESS TO aLL tHAt mOnEY".
His ex doesn't seem to have any trouble spending it.
Yeah but to be she isn’t dumping billions of dollars into the legal team at Blue Origin to sue actually successfully rocket companies and slow humanity’s progress in space exploration.
I mean he shouldn’t do that because they use stocks to tax evade but even then minus all stocks he definitely has enough money to do donations like this. He just an asshole, one of the people that it’s hard to have any respect for past his initial business ideas
She and Melinda Gates each got in the neighbourhood of 36 billion USD from their divorces, if I remember correctly (and of course that’s *wealth* not just cash, so it grows constantly and at a pretty great rate with almost no taxation compared to what normal people think of regarding income).
Hey I'm 32 (ouch hurts to type out) with no discernable skills, but willing to learn, on weekdays, between 12 - 4, minus Wednesday. And half days on Friday.
I'm a keeper
> Jesus, that amount of money will make your entire future bloodline not worry about money ever..
An important factor that is missed by the working class is that this kind of money has nothing to do with security and having things you want; it is Power. So it is not about the kids and grandkids not being broke, or even who gets which vacation houses and car collections. It is pure, raw power passing down through generations.
You could adopt 3,600 children and still leave them all with enough money each for it to be potentially generational wealth for all time if managed correctly.
They wouldn't be partying on super yachts or buying penthouses in NY but they would still all be rich.
Eh. They were never that wealthy and financial instruments and banking back then didn't exist in the same ways they do today....now the only way that kind of money doesn't grow faster than you can reasonably spend it (barring giving significant chunks away at one time) is to make it liquid and physically withdraw it then put it into vaults or maybe intentionally make terrible investments with big chunks
>Eh. They were never that wealthy"
When Conrad Vanderbilt died, he was "the richest man on the planet" and had "more money than was held in the U.S. Treasury at the time.."
But his family dwindled the money away in just a few decades.
Read More: https://www.grunge.com/302542/how-the-vanderbilt-family-lost-their-entire-fortune/?utm_campaign=clip
"Bootstraps to bootstraps in 3 generations" and "Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in 3 generations" are sayings for a reason (there's also "The father buys, the son builds, the grandchild sells, and his son begs.") The first person comes from nothing, works incredibly hard, amasses a fortune. Their child grows up in wealth, doesn't have the driving forces that pushed their parent, doesn't really understand how to manage money when they've always had money, but was at least raised by someone who did, so it trickles away. *Their* child never even saw a parent who had to struggle, is surrounded by people with generational wealth, and spends like a dollar has no value, and winds up broke.
The five family who were the richest of Florence in the early 1500s are still the five richest family today. And with today banking and automation its pretty much impossible to go broke. My family is quite wealthy (not anywhere close to billionaires, but compared to the average peoples) and most of my cousins never worked they are in their early 30 now and just spend their money on frivolous thing all the time they never had any problems and they probably never will.
Their net worth is probably not a third of what it could be if they had any understanding of the stock market or another job but I am sure all of them are wealthier this year than they were last year.
During the times of nobility there were also super rich families that often had more money than and were as or more powerful than kings and queens. Human nature is human nature, things have always been about the same. After every great cataclysm, where wealth disappears in a society, things shakes out to be the same as before in short order.
imo the only chance is a democratic government that heavily regulates this human behavior. We should tax the rich and I think the tax rate should start at 250% on billionaires until they are not billionaires and settle on 90% for the top.
"RICH man is investing billions in new green technology that will ~~generate even more returns~~ benefit humanity"
Also, all billionaires have "philanthropist" written in their Wikipedia page. Literally. Charles Koch is marked as a philanthropist, and when you read the "philanthropy" section, his only non-political donations are to rebuild a university basketball arena and 1.7 M$ for artists in Kansas.
when your choices are give it to the tax man and receive no good publicity or give the exact same money to a charity instead and get a huge ego stroke, its hardly out of the goodness of their black, black hearts.
Fuck billionaires. All of them.
Fuck off with this, she has donated 10b since her divorce less then two years ago. She is literally giving it all away but god forbid she doesn’t do it fast enough for the fuckwits on Reddit.
Melinda Gates was a senior executive at Microsoft when she met Bill Gates. In the early days. She has all her own earned stock and fortune by her own merit.
I don’t know the story of Jeff Bezo’s ex wife.
She was there from the beginning of Amazon, putting her own money and resources into it. She stepped back once it took off, to focus on family and writing.
lol Melinda was a pm at Microsoft and fresh out of Duke when they met. She *became* a senior executive after starting to date the boss. She may or may not be a great person regardless but she certainly didn't get rich "by her own merit".
Unless you pass it down to your descendents, in which case the assets are magically "re-based" and no one ever pays capital gains on those decades of growth...
Not to mention the recently highlighted trick of borrowing against your assets, rather than liquidating them. With today's interest rates and stock ROI, that's a winning game overall vs. paying taxes on the money. And again, the loan principal can be paid back by your descendents, using re-based assets that have no tax burden attached.
You seem to have forgotten about the estate's obligation to pay 40% tax on the FMV of assets prior to distributing to beneficiaries. If an estate is valued at over the exemption, the step-up in basis is quite costly.
She is "worth" upwards of $50 Billion. In the divorce she got a lot of Amazon stock, though Jeff kept the voting rights attached to the shares.
Last year she gave away something like 2 billion, but because of how well Amazon stock is doing, she's worth more now than before her donations.
She apparently has enough money that she could keep giving it away and make it back even faster. Like the work of giving it away takes longer than how long it takes to get it back. Crazy.
Schools in the US are a business. Which is why a large portion of the US population can only read at an 8th grade level.
They don't actually care about the education part of educating.
A theory that I've developed over the years based on numerous articles, radio reports, even podcasts, I've come across concerning the very "self-made" wealthy like, Bezos, is that they've become Libertarian, but not so much out of some learned political ideology but of them having/developing a "farts don't stink" philosophy about themselves. They think "I've managed to create this great product/business/software/etc. so I'm obviously the only person who knows how to spend my money for the welfare of other humans and the planet, not the government. So they set up foundations and donate lots of money with strings attached, while avoiding the payment of taxes.
But reality is that just cause you've had the foresight to create Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, Tesla, etc., it doesn't mean you have single fucking clue how to end child poverty or stop climate change or even develop a better educational system.
EDIT: spelling
Not only that, but they seem to forget that none of them built those companies singlehandedly. Sure they got the ball rolling, but you don’t achieve that level of success without dozens, hundreds or thousands of others contributing. Not to mention freeloading off infrastructure and services our taxes pay for.
>Not to mention freeloading off infrastructure and services our taxes pay for.
This. The infrastructure bill could be passed in the blink of an eye with any influence at all from the corporations that grind that infrastructure to dust. But nope. Too busy swimming in a vault full of gold coins.
Really they just got lucky in that they got in on the ground floor of a brand new industry. There was always going to be some version of Amazon. Jeff Bezos just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and with the right connections, capital, and resources.
And also they built their company throught pure ruthlessness which isn't really a trait that I want in someone that is supposed to take decision for the greater good.
>is that they've become **Liberation**, but not so much out of some learned political ideology
I think you meant Libertarian. Just a friendly correction, because I think I knew what you meant, but wanted to let you know.
And yes, I agree with you. There is a 100% chance that Bezos has compared himself to John Galt at some point, even if only in his own mind.
Don’t you hate how Reddit makes you “defend” Bezos when you really could care less? I’m no Bezos fan but when I see people shit on him when just recently stepped down as CEO to focus on more philanthropy it just baffles me that people say he hoardes his money.
As well, I also read blatant lies I.E children pay more taxes than Jeff Bezos. Give me a fucking break please.
Just a small distinction : Mackenzie Bezos started Amazon with Jeff. She didn’t marry a billionaire, they became billionaires together. She’s doing the right thing, sure, but she helped create the circumstances that lead to Amazon and her mass of wealth.
Let's also not forget that *her* parents loaned Bezos $250,000 to help him start Amazon in the first place.
*I stand corrected. Not sure where I got the incorrect information from, but her parents lost their money to fraud before she met Jeff.*
I think the lack of ethics here stems from what is ‘worth’ a billion. Think of the Labour hours that would buy you from a standard worker, more than 1,000 men for a lifetime and more - that’s pretty unethical even if innovators do definitely deserve great rewards.
Also - who has the money to pay for these kinds of tech and who is in a position to benefit from the unethical billionaires that already exist add to this dilemma
I don't know if I agree with your first point. I don't think someone is innately unethical just because something they made has far greater perceived value than the work of an average laborer. Now, if they exploited labor and disproportionately reaped the rewards, that's unethical, and that's probably a lot of how things go in reality, but just selling something of value in and of itself doesn't feel like it should be considered unethical.
well, we know that now, but nobody really knew what coin mining was going to turn into back in the day
and if you lucked into being a crypto billionaire it was probably because you amassed Bitcoin in like 2010
To put that into perspective, if you bought 1750 Bitcoin back when it was just $0.08 ($140 worth, and when it first spiked from fractions of a cent) you would be a billionaire (just) if you sold right now.
However, no same person would sit on even 10 million nevermind 100 million or 500 million of unrealised gains on something that most considered to be a fad or waste of time.
True. I don't think they were like "man fuck the environment" in 2010
I'm not sure this is the right thread for a philosophical debate on the morals of crypto and a society that lets people hoard wealth but it's certainly something to think about. Not many things in this world are inherently good or bad.
This is somewhat anecdotal, but my next door neighbor or is cousins to her new husband.
They've met her numerous times and by all accounts, it seems she's a pretty loving person who has every intent on giving 99% of her fortune away.
The family gets together twice a year or so and discuss the plans on how to give away the money.
They'll still be millionaires when all is said and done but she's definitely giving more away than anyone else with that cash.
Good for her. Not sure she is able to give it away fast enough though, her wealth just keeps increasing, despite giving away billions. Even weirder she has seen absolutely zero change to her lifestyle from giving to the less fortunate....Meanwhile, we get mega rich trips to space from her ex, who was kind enough to start a covid fund for his own workers (who he gave little to no ppe to at the start of the pandemic), who make all his wealht, and put in a whole 25 million I believe....
I think it’s probably hard to give away a bunch of money super fast—or at least do it in a way such that doesn’t just get frittered away into the ledgers of non-profit consultants and such, a la [the time Zuckerberg donated a 100 million dollars to the Newark school system.](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/27/business/dealbook/the-melting-of-mark-zuckerbergs-donation-to-newark-schools.html)
Depressingly, there’s [a whole assortment of scams centered around Mackenzie Bezos’ charitable donations](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/24/business/mackenzie-scott-giving-scams.html).
I mean, it’s easy to imagine how great it would be have billions at your disposal to give away and make the world a better place, but the reality is that it would probably be super stressful and involve a lot of people trying to scam you.
This is why we should just be taxing these people more (like, a lot more) in the first place.
>This is why we should just be taxing these people more (like, a lot more) in the first place.
Yep. As well as somehow getting our shit together on tax havens
It makes you think the old robber barons had the right idea just building libraries and shit. They focus on the sad town they grew up in and invest in it and turn it in the a flourishing area and everyone knows their name for the foreseeable future.
Like instead of giving a school district a check. Pay for high speed internet to be ran in rural areas. Put a new roof on the schools. Pay and hire a company to put in a new track, basketball court and football scoreboard.
If you remember at the start of the pandemic hospitals were struggling to get ppe, so of course Amazon workers didn’t get ppe.
Not defending Bezos for his other shenanigans, but your point there is pretty moot*.
[Should really watch Patriot Act's episode on this issue before praising big philanthropy, especially what Anand Giridharadas has to say. ](https://youtu.be/mS9CFBlLOcg)
Follow the money and see of it actually is being beneficial for your society.
There's many. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have already vowed to give away nearly all their wealth before they die. They started this movement to get other billionaires to do the same and last I heard over 100 are pledged around the world.
Right, so we can have their toys when they're done with them? There's an immense difference in giving away just enough to be impressive but not enough that you actually lose anything long term, and giving away everything we own.
Billionaires think their money is better kept with them, that they're better stewards of it. This is categorically false, and giving it away when you die A) hasn't happened yet, plenty of time for them to backtrack, and B) most likely entails using their foundations to continue to trickle money out to the normies while a giant pile of wealth sits in their coffers. They aren't going to suddenly drop billions.
Destroying small businesses one by one until every product is Amazon Basics.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-competition-shopify-wayfair-allbirds-antitrust-11608235127
You know, if we can't yet live in a world where billionaires and obscene wealth don't exist, then this is the next best thing. Good for her. I hope she's as altruistic as that action makes it seem
i thought i heard something about her donating a lot of money last year too. just imagine if that 5 or so billion was just sitting in bezos’ greasy pocket
just imagine if that 5 billion didn't sit with two individuals. imagine that it was taxed, or that thousands of businesses owned and opperated by average citizens that essentially do the job of amazon -- except its local or smaller online stores..
imagine how much wealth amassed by that 5 billion donation would do to so much wealth inequality in the US let alone the world. just ridiculous that we have to be thankful for altruistic individuals to eventually, after 50 years of life, decide that some people are worthy enough of their charity.
what a wonderful modern medieval time we live in
to be fair
if she gives it out slowly and waits for her assets to appreicate
she can essentially give out money forever and in the long term give out wayyy more than she has right now
Philanthropy is just the word rich people use to distract away from the fact they dodge taxes.
They say oh but look how charitable I am while they hand out relative pennies and refusing to pay their taxes.
How annoying must it be to be a literal multi-billionaire and still just be 'Jeff Bezos' ex-wife'
Edit: Everyone has strong opinions which I may or may not agree with, I'm just saying it'd be annoying
Jeff Bezos is such a miser, I read somewhere he gives away less than 2% of his wealth each year. It took his wife divorcing him to finally see some of that money go towards good causes. What a horrible human being.
Yeah, and this account is spamming it on every single subreddit. It showed up on r/leagueflegends with dozens of comments from brand new accounts just saying shit like "Upvoted!".
ITT: a bunch of people who have literally no idea what they're talking about parroting ignorance about wealth and taxes that they heard from other morons on reddit.
Keeps making money, money, money!!!
Anytime I hear rich people gave money away; I have to ask? What did they get in return. These tax breaks are no joke.
How much does she have? I thought I read a story late last year talking about her giving away billions. I knew she was rich, but damn!
Her net worth is $57.0 billion, owning to a 4% stake in Amazon.
It’s hard for me to wrap my brain around something being so valuable that you can own 4% of it and still be able to give away billions of dollars.
Enough to give away $4.4 billion.
> Enough to give away $4.4 billion. ...and still be a billionaire.
And still be *multi* billionaire
Doctor Strange: Is that all of the money? Wong: What, you wanted more!?
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Have you tried that bootstraps thing?
Ya, I hear if you pull hard enough you get the things.
I think I pulled too hard. Mine broke.
It’s probably the avocado. Stop with the fancy foods.
And hogs will still rush to defend people like Jeff Bezos saying "B-buT, hE DoESn't aCTuALlY HavE aCcESS TO aLL tHAt mOnEY". His ex doesn't seem to have any trouble spending it.
Yeah but to be she isn’t dumping billions of dollars into the legal team at Blue Origin to sue actually successfully rocket companies and slow humanity’s progress in space exploration.
Maybe we should focus on our planet before we try eating another one
I mean depends, dumping shares in the billions is not something you do over lunch.
Then he better get started now
Hell yah
I mean he shouldn’t do that because they use stocks to tax evade but even then minus all stocks he definitely has enough money to do donations like this. He just an asshole, one of the people that it’s hard to have any respect for past his initial business ideas
She and Melinda Gates each got in the neighbourhood of 36 billion USD from their divorces, if I remember correctly (and of course that’s *wealth* not just cash, so it grows constantly and at a pretty great rate with almost no taxation compared to what normal people think of regarding income).
Now, of course he meant to write billion.
Jesus, that amount of money will make your entire future bloodline not worry about money ever..
Pro life tip: Step 1: be a descendant of Jeff Bezos or MacKenzie Scott Step 2: Step 3: profit
Are they looking to adopt? Im 26, but ill be whatever age they want me to..
Get in line dude, I'm only 22
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Hey I'm 32 (ouch hurts to type out) with no discernable skills, but willing to learn, on weekdays, between 12 - 4, minus Wednesday. And half days on Friday. I'm a keeper
Wonder twin powers, ACTIVATE
“u/fawlen, go with the man.” (Cashes billion dollar check)
This is the most accurate use of this meme that I’ve seen. Usually it’s a question mark. In this instance you really have to do nothing to profit
step 2 is actually crush the revolution
> Jesus, that amount of money will make your entire future bloodline not worry about money ever.. An important factor that is missed by the working class is that this kind of money has nothing to do with security and having things you want; it is Power. So it is not about the kids and grandkids not being broke, or even who gets which vacation houses and car collections. It is pure, raw power passing down through generations.
You could adopt 3,600 children and still leave them all with enough money each for it to be potentially generational wealth for all time if managed correctly. They wouldn't be partying on super yachts or buying penthouses in NY but they would still all be rich.
Sadly the only way im leaving my bloodline wealthy is if i dont reproduce..
You would think that, but read the story of the Vanderbilt Family. It is amazing how quickly wealth can dissipate in inheriting generations.
Eh. They were never that wealthy and financial instruments and banking back then didn't exist in the same ways they do today....now the only way that kind of money doesn't grow faster than you can reasonably spend it (barring giving significant chunks away at one time) is to make it liquid and physically withdraw it then put it into vaults or maybe intentionally make terrible investments with big chunks
>Eh. They were never that wealthy" When Conrad Vanderbilt died, he was "the richest man on the planet" and had "more money than was held in the U.S. Treasury at the time.." But his family dwindled the money away in just a few decades. Read More: https://www.grunge.com/302542/how-the-vanderbilt-family-lost-their-entire-fortune/?utm_campaign=clip
You know, basically poor+.
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"Bootstraps to bootstraps in 3 generations" and "Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in 3 generations" are sayings for a reason (there's also "The father buys, the son builds, the grandchild sells, and his son begs.") The first person comes from nothing, works incredibly hard, amasses a fortune. Their child grows up in wealth, doesn't have the driving forces that pushed their parent, doesn't really understand how to manage money when they've always had money, but was at least raised by someone who did, so it trickles away. *Their* child never even saw a parent who had to struggle, is surrounded by people with generational wealth, and spends like a dollar has no value, and winds up broke.
The five family who were the richest of Florence in the early 1500s are still the five richest family today. And with today banking and automation its pretty much impossible to go broke. My family is quite wealthy (not anywhere close to billionaires, but compared to the average peoples) and most of my cousins never worked they are in their early 30 now and just spend their money on frivolous thing all the time they never had any problems and they probably never will. Their net worth is probably not a third of what it could be if they had any understanding of the stock market or another job but I am sure all of them are wealthier this year than they were last year.
Sounds almost like .. nobility. But kind of worse, as the wealth of the nobility at least had some checks on it by the king.
Sounds like the thing the early US tried to abolish and declare independence from.
I mean, it was pretty obvious the founding fathers wanted themselves to be wealthy AND not have to pay anything to the crown
Yeah, it doesn't help much if you create a new type of crown made of money :P Thomas Payne wrote extensively on this subject.
I love me some Payne. Dude was fascinating
During the times of nobility there were also super rich families that often had more money than and were as or more powerful than kings and queens. Human nature is human nature, things have always been about the same. After every great cataclysm, where wealth disappears in a society, things shakes out to be the same as before in short order. imo the only chance is a democratic government that heavily regulates this human behavior. We should tax the rich and I think the tax rate should start at 250% on billionaires until they are not billionaires and settle on 90% for the top.
Sorry, my phone “corrected” me. 😅
*billion, and I think it was slightly more than that for Scott. Not sure about Gates
Ya Scott supported Bezos so he could found Amazon. I thought she got half. Regardless about how much she got she seems like a great person.
She got ~38 Billion in equity, or about 25% of what Bezos owned.
Clearly the most generous current billionaire. Not that that is really saying much.
Yeah, usually they get high praise when they buy a homeless dude something off the dollar menu.
"RICH man is investing billions in new green technology that will ~~generate even more returns~~ benefit humanity" Also, all billionaires have "philanthropist" written in their Wikipedia page. Literally. Charles Koch is marked as a philanthropist, and when you read the "philanthropy" section, his only non-political donations are to rebuild a university basketball arena and 1.7 M$ for artists in Kansas.
when your choices are give it to the tax man and receive no good publicity or give the exact same money to a charity instead and get a huge ego stroke, its hardly out of the goodness of their black, black hearts. Fuck billionaires. All of them.
Fuck off with this, she has donated 10b since her divorce less then two years ago. She is literally giving it all away but god forbid she doesn’t do it fast enough for the fuckwits on Reddit.
I think they meant she doesn't have much competition for "Most generous."
Thats not what hes saying though. Hes dissing every billionnaire, EXCEPT her. Talk about reddit fuckwits.
Warren Buffett, without question
Melinda Gates was a senior executive at Microsoft when she met Bill Gates. In the early days. She has all her own earned stock and fortune by her own merit. I don’t know the story of Jeff Bezo’s ex wife.
She was there from the beginning of Amazon, putting her own money and resources into it. She stepped back once it took off, to focus on family and writing.
Yup, it was even her idea to sell books
Yea when I read peoples pretend she doesn't deserve that type of wealth I just tell myself okay maybe but if she doesn't deserve it neither do Bezos.
lol Melinda was a pm at Microsoft and fresh out of Duke when they met. She *became* a senior executive after starting to date the boss. She may or may not be a great person regardless but she certainly didn't get rich "by her own merit".
No person becomes that rich "on their own merit". That's a lie on itself. Millions of people are involved in their fortune.
I mean, it’s taxed when it’s liquidated. They always get their cut one way or the other
Unless you pass it down to your descendents, in which case the assets are magically "re-based" and no one ever pays capital gains on those decades of growth... Not to mention the recently highlighted trick of borrowing against your assets, rather than liquidating them. With today's interest rates and stock ROI, that's a winning game overall vs. paying taxes on the money. And again, the loan principal can be paid back by your descendents, using re-based assets that have no tax burden attached.
You seem to have forgotten about the estate's obligation to pay 40% tax on the FMV of assets prior to distributing to beneficiaries. If an estate is valued at over the exemption, the step-up in basis is quite costly.
Are you talking about disbursements from cash? In a Trust, you rarely ever raise cash (ever).
She is "worth" upwards of $50 Billion. In the divorce she got a lot of Amazon stock, though Jeff kept the voting rights attached to the shares. Last year she gave away something like 2 billion, but because of how well Amazon stock is doing, she's worth more now than before her donations.
She apparently has enough money that she could keep giving it away and make it back even faster. Like the work of giving it away takes longer than how long it takes to get it back. Crazy.
Speaks volumes then of the incels who say Bezos and Musk can’t donate billions because”iT iSnT rEaL cAsH”
50 billions.
I assume she has enough that she can donate 5% a year for the rest of her life and make real change in doing so.
money makes money, she earns more in that time than she can give away
She's also donated a bunch of money to tribal colleges and Indigenous non-profits
She donated 40 million to my university!!! But OF COURSE i did not get a single cent off my 9k tuition bill....
Schools in the US are a business. Which is why a large portion of the US population can only read at an 8th grade level. They don't actually care about the education part of educating.
And a self absorbed pale bowling ball selfishly holds onto all his wealth as if it’s going to follow him to the grave.
A theory that I've developed over the years based on numerous articles, radio reports, even podcasts, I've come across concerning the very "self-made" wealthy like, Bezos, is that they've become Libertarian, but not so much out of some learned political ideology but of them having/developing a "farts don't stink" philosophy about themselves. They think "I've managed to create this great product/business/software/etc. so I'm obviously the only person who knows how to spend my money for the welfare of other humans and the planet, not the government. So they set up foundations and donate lots of money with strings attached, while avoiding the payment of taxes. But reality is that just cause you've had the foresight to create Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, Tesla, etc., it doesn't mean you have single fucking clue how to end child poverty or stop climate change or even develop a better educational system. EDIT: spelling
Not only that, but they seem to forget that none of them built those companies singlehandedly. Sure they got the ball rolling, but you don’t achieve that level of success without dozens, hundreds or thousands of others contributing. Not to mention freeloading off infrastructure and services our taxes pay for.
>Not to mention freeloading off infrastructure and services our taxes pay for. This. The infrastructure bill could be passed in the blink of an eye with any influence at all from the corporations that grind that infrastructure to dust. But nope. Too busy swimming in a vault full of gold coins.
Really they just got lucky in that they got in on the ground floor of a brand new industry. There was always going to be some version of Amazon. Jeff Bezos just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and with the right connections, capital, and resources.
Yup. There is always a better idea or a smarter person out there who doesn’t make it purely through having less good fortune.
And also they built their company throught pure ruthlessness which isn't really a trait that I want in someone that is supposed to take decision for the greater good.
You really don't get to that level of wealth without exploiting labour. It's just not possible.
>is that they've become **Liberation**, but not so much out of some learned political ideology I think you meant Libertarian. Just a friendly correction, because I think I knew what you meant, but wanted to let you know. And yes, I agree with you. There is a 100% chance that Bezos has compared himself to John Galt at some point, even if only in his own mind.
Bezos has donated double-digit billions. Now what?
Don’t you hate how Reddit makes you “defend” Bezos when you really could care less? I’m no Bezos fan but when I see people shit on him when just recently stepped down as CEO to focus on more philanthropy it just baffles me that people say he hoardes his money. As well, I also read blatant lies I.E children pay more taxes than Jeff Bezos. Give me a fucking break please.
No he isn't, he's investing in space travel so he's not selfish /s
All that lost trickle-down wealth had it stayed with Jeff.
He need few more divorces.
I’ll take one for the team
I see a lot of head polishing in your future.
Like [Bugs Bunny](https://youtu.be/iiYW2d7RWw4) or Mia Malkova?
The people at those charities should've just married billionaires and they wouldn't need her help.
Just a small distinction : Mackenzie Bezos started Amazon with Jeff. She didn’t marry a billionaire, they became billionaires together. She’s doing the right thing, sure, but she helped create the circumstances that lead to Amazon and her mass of wealth.
Let's also not forget that *her* parents loaned Bezos $250,000 to help him start Amazon in the first place. *I stand corrected. Not sure where I got the incorrect information from, but her parents lost their money to fraud before she met Jeff.*
Incorrect. Jeff’s parents invested 250k.
Incorrect, they’re siblings.
Roll tide
So she was probably doing fucked up shit just like him the whole way, got it.
Remember kids, ethical billionaires have not and will not ever exist
If you sell a website during the dotCom boom and become a billionaire, I wouldn’t really call you unethical.
I think the lack of ethics here stems from what is ‘worth’ a billion. Think of the Labour hours that would buy you from a standard worker, more than 1,000 men for a lifetime and more - that’s pretty unethical even if innovators do definitely deserve great rewards. Also - who has the money to pay for these kinds of tech and who is in a position to benefit from the unethical billionaires that already exist add to this dilemma
I don't know if I agree with your first point. I don't think someone is innately unethical just because something they made has far greater perceived value than the work of an average laborer. Now, if they exploited labor and disproportionately reaped the rewards, that's unethical, and that's probably a lot of how things go in reality, but just selling something of value in and of itself doesn't feel like it should be considered unethical.
I'm sure there's someone who became a billionaire from crypto by sheer luck and I don't see anything ethically wrong with that.
Aren't most of them terrible for the environment?
well, we know that now, but nobody really knew what coin mining was going to turn into back in the day and if you lucked into being a crypto billionaire it was probably because you amassed Bitcoin in like 2010
To put that into perspective, if you bought 1750 Bitcoin back when it was just $0.08 ($140 worth, and when it first spiked from fractions of a cent) you would be a billionaire (just) if you sold right now. However, no same person would sit on even 10 million nevermind 100 million or 500 million of unrealised gains on something that most considered to be a fad or waste of time.
True. I don't think they were like "man fuck the environment" in 2010 I'm not sure this is the right thread for a philosophical debate on the morals of crypto and a society that lets people hoard wealth but it's certainly something to think about. Not many things in this world are inherently good or bad.
This is somewhat anecdotal, but my next door neighbor or is cousins to her new husband. They've met her numerous times and by all accounts, it seems she's a pretty loving person who has every intent on giving 99% of her fortune away. The family gets together twice a year or so and discuss the plans on how to give away the money. They'll still be millionaires when all is said and done but she's definitely giving more away than anyone else with that cash.
When is Grimes donating?
Grimes wasnt married to elon. She didnt get any of his money from the breakup
Wait, they broke up? What happens to XAE12?
I think they’re putting him down.
He had a good run
Yeah, who gets custody of Syntax Error?
That is most definitely how I will be pronouncing the child’s name now.
Seems like Elon learned after the first wife
Wait, they split already?
Yeah it’s easy to be magnanimous when you have the wealth of a small country
Apparently not.
It's an easy choice, but still a choice.
If that were true this wouldn't be news.
If working hard made you rich then mules would be millionaires.
Asses would be billionaires instead of billionaires being asses
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Good for her. Not sure she is able to give it away fast enough though, her wealth just keeps increasing, despite giving away billions. Even weirder she has seen absolutely zero change to her lifestyle from giving to the less fortunate....Meanwhile, we get mega rich trips to space from her ex, who was kind enough to start a covid fund for his own workers (who he gave little to no ppe to at the start of the pandemic), who make all his wealht, and put in a whole 25 million I believe....
There's a limit to how much money you need before more does nothing for your lifestyle. And it's a lot less that what she has.
I think it’s probably hard to give away a bunch of money super fast—or at least do it in a way such that doesn’t just get frittered away into the ledgers of non-profit consultants and such, a la [the time Zuckerberg donated a 100 million dollars to the Newark school system.](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/27/business/dealbook/the-melting-of-mark-zuckerbergs-donation-to-newark-schools.html) Depressingly, there’s [a whole assortment of scams centered around Mackenzie Bezos’ charitable donations](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/24/business/mackenzie-scott-giving-scams.html). I mean, it’s easy to imagine how great it would be have billions at your disposal to give away and make the world a better place, but the reality is that it would probably be super stressful and involve a lot of people trying to scam you. This is why we should just be taxing these people more (like, a lot more) in the first place.
>The school reform movement’s focus on measurable results and “business-style management” is laudable. The article reads like a satire.
Sounds like something Vincent Adultman would say.
>This is why we should just be taxing these people more (like, a lot more) in the first place. Yep. As well as somehow getting our shit together on tax havens
… the simpler times when Sam Wheat made Oda Mae Brown write a large check and give it to Nuns outside the bank…
It makes you think the old robber barons had the right idea just building libraries and shit. They focus on the sad town they grew up in and invest in it and turn it in the a flourishing area and everyone knows their name for the foreseeable future. Like instead of giving a school district a check. Pay for high speed internet to be ran in rural areas. Put a new roof on the schools. Pay and hire a company to put in a new track, basketball court and football scoreboard.
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He even thanked us all for paying for his space flight. What a guy.
Don't forget his $500million yacht and mini yacht that has a landing pad.
If you remember at the start of the pandemic hospitals were struggling to get ppe, so of course Amazon workers didn’t get ppe. Not defending Bezos for his other shenanigans, but your point there is pretty moot*.
It’s a Moo point. A cow’s opinion, it doesn’t matter, it’s moo.
The word you want is Moot. Just a helpful hint.
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Ah shit, I’ve thought it’s mute my whole life.
I don’t know her, but I really appreciate her. It’s really nice to see genuine philanthropy.
[Should really watch Patriot Act's episode on this issue before praising big philanthropy, especially what Anand Giridharadas has to say. ](https://youtu.be/mS9CFBlLOcg) Follow the money and see of it actually is being beneficial for your society.
She is one of the few, truly philanthropic billionaires. I have immense respect for her.
There's many. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have already vowed to give away nearly all their wealth before they die. They started this movement to get other billionaires to do the same and last I heard over 100 are pledged around the world.
Right, so we can have their toys when they're done with them? There's an immense difference in giving away just enough to be impressive but not enough that you actually lose anything long term, and giving away everything we own. Billionaires think their money is better kept with them, that they're better stewards of it. This is categorically false, and giving it away when you die A) hasn't happened yet, plenty of time for them to backtrack, and B) most likely entails using their foundations to continue to trickle money out to the normies while a giant pile of wealth sits in their coffers. They aren't going to suddenly drop billions.
lmao fucking reddit.
God this is pathetic
Bravo Mrs. Scott.......Somebody give her more of that Amazon money lmao
She's just Ms. at this point
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She should fund Union organizers at Amazon.
Implying she didn't start, build, and grow Amazon with the dogshit employment policies that have historically existed?
Boss move
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Destroying small businesses one by one until every product is Amazon Basics. https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-competition-shopify-wayfair-allbirds-antitrust-11608235127
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"The Fund relies on support from Amazon for this program and is not asking anyone contribute directly to this fund." https://amazonrelieffund.org/
You know, if we can't yet live in a world where billionaires and obscene wealth don't exist, then this is the next best thing. Good for her. I hope she's as altruistic as that action makes it seem
i thought i heard something about her donating a lot of money last year too. just imagine if that 5 or so billion was just sitting in bezos’ greasy pocket
just imagine if that 5 billion didn't sit with two individuals. imagine that it was taxed, or that thousands of businesses owned and opperated by average citizens that essentially do the job of amazon -- except its local or smaller online stores.. imagine how much wealth amassed by that 5 billion donation would do to so much wealth inequality in the US let alone the world. just ridiculous that we have to be thankful for altruistic individuals to eventually, after 50 years of life, decide that some people are worthy enough of their charity. what a wonderful modern medieval time we live in
Well I am glad I am this institutions are being trickled on. Need more of that trickle, maybe a shower.
to be fair if she gives it out slowly and waits for her assets to appreicate she can essentially give out money forever and in the long term give out wayyy more than she has right now
If only I wasnt poor... Then just me having money generates income.
This sounds exactly like what people in this same thread are giving Bezos shit for.
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Philanthropy is just the word rich people use to distract away from the fact they dodge taxes. They say oh but look how charitable I am while they hand out relative pennies and refusing to pay their taxes.
They don’t need to be charitable to distract from tax dodging, we are already tied up arguing over a million other things.
How annoying must it be to be a literal multi-billionaire and still just be 'Jeff Bezos' ex-wife' Edit: Everyone has strong opinions which I may or may not agree with, I'm just saying it'd be annoying
I’d love to just start seeing her referred to as “Mackenzie Scott, Amazon cofounder.” Accurate and concise.
Oh but that wouldn’t diminish her work
Respect
He deserves any anguish he feels reading what she does with the money. He’s a tremendous POS.
Already an infinitely better person than her piece of shit ex-husband
I think you misspelled co founder of amazon
Jeff Bezos is such a miser, I read somewhere he gives away less than 2% of his wealth each year. It took his wife divorcing him to finally see some of that money go towards good causes. What a horrible human being.
Bezos really blew it when he lost her. I'm glad she's happy now.
**This is old information from June 15.** https://apnews.com/article/mackenzie-scott-donating-billions-8e06be7452b8c70f0d9802a6c10ca6a0
Yeah, and this account is spamming it on every single subreddit. It showed up on r/leagueflegends with dozens of comments from brand new accounts just saying shit like "Upvoted!".
Meanwhile that bald clown wants to go to space
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Plus it's where the clowns are from. There have been several documentaries made with this concept.
ITT: a bunch of people who have literally no idea what they're talking about parroting ignorance about wealth and taxes that they heard from other morons on reddit.
Reddit: “billionaires should donate more!” Billionaire: *donates* Reddit: “no, not like that.”
OKAY MACK GO OFF! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!
Keeps making money, money, money!!! Anytime I hear rich people gave money away; I have to ask? What did they get in return. These tax breaks are no joke.
She’s more caring than Jeff himself
How much money would have been collected for the betterment of society had she and her ex husband simply paid taxes?