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mostly under-compensated staff (who, I believe Bezos et al. actively prevented from unionising?) & the competition it annihilates using loss leadership, in new market segments cross-subsidised by other business units where competition has already been largely eliminated, allowing it to raise prices as the dominant player in that segment.
Then there's the social cost of having someone as obscenely wealthy as Bezos jetting around the place & funding frivolous unsustainable industries like... 2/n
... the luxury yacht and private space industries (among many others) that can only exist in the presence of billionaires willing to pump small amounts of their undeserved fortunes into them, which disappear overnight at the whim of such unworthy individuals.
Consider, too, the 'charities' which are used for reputation laundering because most people think that Amazon and Bezos are "generous" for giving away an immaterial portion of their wealth (they have many orders of magnitude more... 3/n
... wealth than they'd ever need to appease their every whim) to buy adoration from an hopelessly forgiving, oblivious population that doesn't realise that Amazon, et al. shouldn't have the ability to choose how to 'gift' the wealth it's concentrated in the first place. They 're the modern day practitioners of the self-proclaimed divine right of kings. What's more, Bezos only gives stuff away because it gives him tax benefits in excess to the amount donated. I could go on for a long time. 4/n
@lightweight
Nice to see the phrase "reputation laundering" used.
Remember that Amazon was a money loser for about 15 years. Cheap money/credit is how they really were able to carve out their present #neoFeudal #monopoly.
Its a recipe that many "#siliconValley" businesses try to repeat even today.
@lightweight
It should come as no surprise therefore that an ethical forms of money, ie. #bitcoin/monerp, fixes this.
The only ethical form of money is one that has an upper limit of ownership.
Once you have $100 million, say, you could never need (nor ever want) more.
@Downes @dsfgs @lightweight it's exactly as I saw commented once, 'Even with a 90% tax bracket, the rich were still in limousines, mansions, etc.'
@lightweight
In response to @lwriemen, who said something about people in top tax bracket driving fancy cars. Well yes that of course is a product of the current system but worse is when the #wellConnected are able to utilise their connections to avoid paying incomeTax altogether.
See #reinvestment.
IncomeTax is a scam on the less connected and middle/lower classes.
@lwriemen
All encompassing dragnet surveillance of all people's saving by a global entity is arbitary, in the hope of garnish a bit of money because they "have too much saved".
Those savings are not causing a problem, if you want a person to spend all that money to buy stuff they don't need then we are back at the current statusQuo being extreme waste.
So what you are then saying is watch all payments arbitrarily.
Its a massive violation.
@lwriemen if you reach those tax brackets, you don't need more money. Ever. @Downes @dsfgs