If you want to know why capitalism is Fu@#ked watch this interview with Jeff Bezos

Rainy Day wrote:

I wonder how many millionaires Amazon has made. Not Wall Street investors, but programmers and other management that earn a good living and got some equity in the last 10-15 years. I bet it’s a big number. Of course he makes the most, mainly in his ownership of the company.

He started it from scratch, not just some CEO that sits in his office and plays golf. It’s the ultimate American dream. Nobody is forced to work at Amazon.

Bezos got a $300,000 gift from his parents to start Amazon. No exactly starting "it from scratch".

How un-American: to provide goods and services at a price lower than your competition and pay your employees at least twice the minimum wage because you can afford it, not because the government told you to. Worst of all is that he gives money to WHOMEVER HE WANTS TO (ie $200 million to the Smithsonian) and the government can't stop him!

Man Bear Pig Man wrote:

Rainy Day wrote:

I wonder how many millionaires Amazon has made. Not Wall Street investors, but programmers and other management that earn a good living and got some equity in the last 10-15 years. I bet it’s a big number. Of course he makes the most, mainly in his ownership of the company.

He started it from scratch, not just some CEO that sits in his office and plays golf. It’s the ultimate American dream. Nobody is forced to work at Amazon.

Bezos got a $300,000 gift from his parents to start Amazon. No exactly starting "it from scratch".

It was $245K, and it was not a gift - they got shares in the company.

Also, you would have to be one naive and inexperienced person to think that $300K is some privileged windfall. In context, it is "starting from scratch" with respect to raising capital and all the other things a person has to do to get a company off the ground. Bezos started Amazon from scratch, and showed incredible ingenuity, hard work, skill and patience, and now liberals hate him for it.

Under capitalism the poor get richer... but at a slower rate than rich people. I'm okay with that trade off. Like just look at the average family in 1950 versus today. We are far better off and far more comfortable today.

Back in the day each family had one car and one tv that maybe only had like 3-4 channels on it. Today some families have more cars than people living there. We have a TV in almost every room. And the average house size is way bigger too. Capitalism rocks.

Sputnikie wrote:

Man Bear Pig Man wrote:

Bezos got a $300,000 gift from his parents to start Amazon. No exactly starting "it from scratch".

It was $245K, and it was not a gift - they got shares in the company.

Also, you would have to be one naive and inexperienced person to think that $300K is some privileged windfall. In context, it is "starting from scratch" with respect to raising capital and all the other things a person has to do to get a company off the ground. Bezos started Amazon from scratch, and showed incredible ingenuity, hard work, skill and patience, and now liberals hate him for it.

Arguing you need at least $300K in start up costs and actually Bezos was lucky to do it with such a small budget, isn't the greatest argument for the American Dream I've ever heard.

I had a job before amazon wrote:

pupil3142 wrote:

thank you jeff for providing so much employment and so many goods to purchase.

good to see you get personal benefit for all your hard work.

capitalism rocks

Is there less unemployment now that what we previously had before Amazon?

What are you doing with all the good purchases you made through amazon? Can you demonstrably tell me how your life is better?

What? Material standard of living is very important to quality of life for all but about maybe... a few million people on Earth. Easy, cheap, and fast access to goods is absolutely a quality of life improvement.

Tatar... wrote:

Sputnikie wrote:

It was $245K, and it was not a gift - they got shares in the company.

Also, you would have to be one naive and inexperienced person to think that $300K is some privileged windfall. In context, it is "starting from scratch" with respect to raising capital and all the other things a person has to do to get a company off the ground. Bezos started Amazon from scratch, and showed incredible ingenuity, hard work, skill and patience, and now liberals hate him for it.

Arguing you need at least $300K in start up costs and actually Bezos was lucky to do it with such a small budget, isn't the greatest argument for the American Dream I've ever heard.

I didn't propose any "greatest argument for the American Dream." Never even mentioned such an exalted thing. I corrected an erroneous post about the successful entrepreneur Jeff Bezos.

Anyway, in your mind, what's the greatest argument for the American dream you've ever heard? $100k start up funds and no luck at all? $25K and bad luck?

Amazon had nothing to do with the rise of grocery stores selling better produce. Whole Foods grew their business into a national chain a long time before Amazon bought it.

But Bezos gets credit for seeing the commercial possibilities for selling stuff on the "net" and creating a modern version of Sears and Roebuck. Amazon also gets credit for seening the opportunities with cloud computing and for understanding that eventually almost all commerce will flow through the internet.

robert678 wrote:

Under capitalism the poor get richer... but at a slower rate than rich people. I'm okay with that trade off. Like just look at the average family in 1950 versus today. We are far better off and far more comfortable today.

Back in the day each family had one car and one tv that maybe only had like 3-4 channels on it. Today some families have more cars than people living there. We have a TV in almost every room. And the average house size is way bigger too. Capitalism rocks.

That just isn't true. In the 1950s even on a mediocre salary you could buy a house and have at least two children and a pension and maybe even a car. All by your mid 20s.

Today, just to start you need two incomes and at least 10 years of full time work between you, while both living with your parents and paying the minimum off your college loan.

"We have a TV in every room" lol

Sputnikie wrote:

Tatar... wrote:

Arguing you need at least $300K in start up costs and actually Bezos was lucky to do it with such a small budget, isn't the greatest argument for the American Dream I've ever heard.

I didn't propose any "greatest argument for the American Dream." Never even mentioned such an exalted thing. I corrected an erroneous post about the successful entrepreneur Jeff Bezos.

Anyway, in your mind, what's the greatest argument for the American dream you've ever heard? $100k start up funds and no luck at all? $25K and bad luck?

You said that $300k is not a "privileged windfall" which is remarkably out of touch even for $200k/year hot wife Letrunners. So you are implying that that without hundreds of thousands of dollars you have no chance of ever making it as an entrepreneur? Seems like a pretty strong indictment of the American Dream to me...

To back up Tatar, google "income inequality US" and let me know just how much richer the poor are getting in the past 50 years.

yepppppp wrote:

The irony about McCarthyism is that many of those he identified publically [sic] as communists, were in fact, communists.

Do you know what irony is?

Man Bear Pig Man wrote:

Rainy Day wrote:

I wonder how many millionaires Amazon has made. Not Wall Street investors, but programmers and other management that earn a good living and got some equity in the last 10-15 years. I bet it’s a big number. Of course he makes the most, mainly in his ownership of the company.

He started it from scratch, not just some CEO that sits in his office and plays golf. It’s the ultimate American dream. Nobody is forced to work at Amazon.

Bezos got a $300,000 gift from his parents to start Amazon. No exactly starting "it from scratch".

Not sure it was a "gift" but that was only part of the $1M he raised. Here is a news flash for you: getting people to invest in your business idea is part of starting something from scratch.

"easy, cheap, and fast access to goods" ==> I don't know why this overconsumption is being hailed wholesale as an improvement. There are advantages to this level of convenience, sure. But one of the inherent oversights of capitalism is the failure to acknowledge that we live on a planet with finite resources. I'd be interested to see how the rise of easy, cheap, fast access to goods has impacted our collective resource extraction and carbon emissions.

The irony of Bezos wanting to get into space and start creating outposts of humanity so we that we can keep GROW GROW GROWING and colonize other systems without any regard for any life that might be out there shouldn't be lost on us. It's what landed us in our current climate change crisis.

vaIjean wrote:

yepppppp wrote:

The irony about McCarthyism is that many of those he identified publically [sic] as communists, were in fact, communists.

Do you know what irony is?

Do you? Lol.

reasonable reasoner wrote:

Sputnikie wrote:

I didn't propose any "greatest argument for the American Dream." Never even mentioned such an exalted thing. I corrected an erroneous post about the successful entrepreneur Jeff Bezos.

Anyway, in your mind, what's the greatest argument for the American dream you've ever heard? $100k start up funds and no luck at all? $25K and bad luck?

You said that $300k is not a "privileged windfall" which is remarkably out of touch even for $200k/year hot wife Letrunners. So you are implying that that without hundreds of thousands of dollars you have no chance of ever making it as an entrepreneur? Seems like a pretty strong indictment of the American Dream to me...

It seems like a "strong indictment of the American Dream" to you are Tatar because, in addition to knowing very little about the subject, you are both pedantic, scoffing twits who like inventing red herrings. Never once did I imply "that without hundreds of thousands of dollars you have no chance of ever making it as an entrepreneur." I implied, if not flat out stated, there was nothing remarkable or privileged about a $300K investment in the kind of company Bezos wanted to start. That is quite different than implying $300K is necessary for all start up businesses.

Some start ups require virtually nothing at all, some require a few thousand, some hundreds of thousands, and some require hundreds of millions. It depends on the start-up company and its goals and business plan. The ability to attract some measure of start-up capital, if one decides to go that route at all, is part of the entrepreneurship. There is nothing particularly noteworthy in leveraging stock for a $300K (actually $245K) investment in the type of company Bezos envisioned, NOR does the fact that he was able to attract that capital make it a requirement for all start up businesses. You two buffoons can rest easy that your "American Dream" is not indicted because you can't raise $245K for a business idea, and I never implied anything of the kind.

"... you would have to be one naive and inexperienced person to think that $300K is some privileged windfall...

In context, it is "starting from scratch" with respect to raising capital and all the other things a person has to do to get a company off the ground..."

"Bezos started Amazon from scratch, and showed incredible ingenuity, hard work, skill and patience..."

The poster your were defending - "He started it from scratch, not just some CEO that sits in his office and plays golf. It’s the ultimate American dream."

We've obviously got it wrong but you can see where we went wrong can't you.

sorry, no wrote:

The irony of Bezos wanting to get into space and start creating outposts of humanity so we that we can keep GROW GROW GROWING and colonize other systems without any regard for any life that might be out there shouldn't be lost on us. It's what landed us in our current climate change crisis.

"We need to take all heavy industry, all polluting industry, and move it into space. And keep Earth as this beautiful gem of a planet that it is."

-Jeff Bezos

I assume he means extracting resources from other planets, moons and asteroids instead of physically moving heavy industry to space.

Whole foods has the exact same products at other grocers for a 20-30% markup. Same. Same ounces. Same brand. Same ingredients. Same same same. White people pay the premium to shop at target and whole foods so they dont have to look at minorities for an hour a day. Whole foods is a joke.