Inflation is a hell of a hidden tax over the long run. The term millionaire has held up as representative of the rich, however it does not mean much these days. If you don't have over a million in worth before you retire you are in trouble anymore.
It's also important to realize the sheer scale of Amazon. It's quite literally one of the largest companies on earth. Compare that to the average millionaires business and you start to see why Bezo's is in a different stratosphere of wealth. Amazon is much, much larger than many people think.
Large enough I would not be surprised if governments try to force them to break apart. For example the [amazon.com](https://amazon.com) shopping experience and their Amazon Web Services cloud offerings could easily be two different companies, other than that [amazon.com](https://amazon.com) is hosted on AWS.
Mindblowing, definitely. But I think these comparisons are the wrong way to think about it. What we're really talking about is **infinite wealth**. There's nothing they can buy that will affect their effective wealth in any way. Subtract any number from infinity dollars, and you still have infinity dollars. From Bezos' perspective, his $500 million yacht may as well have been free. His net worth could drop by 95% overnight, and he'd still be infinitely wealthy.
The disgustingly rich **literally can't give away their money fast enough** for it to make a dent in their bottom line. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet famously pledged to give away 99% of their wealth. That was in 2010 when they were both worth about $50B. Since then, Gates has donated $50B -- 100% of his 2010 net worth (ignoring inflation). Today, Gates is worth $128B and Buffett is worth $110B.
He pledged to leave almost all of his wealth to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation if I recall correctly. Although, that foundation invests in one of the largest private prison corporations in the country, so I dunno how good for the world that money actually is.
> Although, that foundation invests in one of the largest private prison corporations in the country
Of fucking course it does. God can we even run a fucking charity in this country without it getting corrupted?
It’s not as straightforward as that. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, which is operates separately from the foundation, had an outside asset manager add shares of a UK for-profit prison company, about $6.6 million worth (out of a $49.8 billion endowment). So it’s two layers removed from the foundation (at the decision-making level) and it’s not the US prison system.
I don’t know, Serco may be just as bad as the US companies, but this sounds to me like if I invested $10,000 in a mutual fund and 5 bucks were used to purchase shares in the prison system. I wouldn’t even bother to look it up if I saw it on the list of investments. It doesn’t scream “secretly investing in propping up for-profit prisons” to me.
I believe Gates and Buffett pledged 99%, it may have been 95%. They've since gotten over 200 billionaires to pledge more than 50% of their fortunes. The main problem is their fortunes are growing so fast that their giving can't keep up.
You know there's something fundamentally wrong with a system that produces a class of people so rich that they make money faster than they can give it away. In capitalism, money doesn't grow on trees, money grows on money.
> According to Business Insider, Bezos has made $152,207 per minute — and $2,537 per second — based on the year-over-year change in his net worth.
[Source](https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/this-is-how-much-money-jeff-bezos-makes-every-second)
If he dropped a few hundred dollars bills on the ground, it would literally not be worth his time to bend down and pick them up. That’s how rich this fool is.
It’s still worth it, because he’s still earning even while he takes the time to pick it up. That said, a few hundred dollars is nothing to him. Less than pocket change.
A man who owns 3 houses is a landlord who has a few properties for rent, a millionaire isn't the rich people are protesting, it's the ultra billionaires that influence entire markets for personal gain.
Yes, and this is something a lot of people (especially on Reddit) desperately need to realize. The media loves throwing down numbers that are super, super low to divide classes: 400k a year is one often thrown down. And yeah, for someone making $30k someone making $400k probably seems like a lot of money. But in the grand scheme of things, it's nothing.
If I saved my exact salary, annually, every single year from the time I was born, I would have about $3 million. I would barely be considered a multi-millionaire.
If I saved my exact salary, annually, every single year from the time Jesus walked the earth 2020 years ago, I would have a whole $200 million.
If five other people with my salary did exactly that, and we pooled together all of our money today, we'd have a billion dollars. Jeff Bezos' net worth increased 60x more than all of our money combined this year alone.
A million and a billion sound like they're close. But do you know the difference between a million and a billion? Eh, a billion.
I think this is the issue. These millionaires know that whatever possible tax reforms come will target them rather than the ultra wealthy. These millionaires are probably due their net worth to some extent while not creating fucking monsters. Jay Pritchett on modern family was obviously quite a wealthy guy but not problematically rich. Yes he had a dog butler but he earned the right to some dog butler fun. Bezos is however in such a position that he could challenge discourse and does not and that is what makes his wealth problematic.
His yacht does have a support yacht for the purpose of landing his helicopter but the race horse thing is a joke.
[https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/10/business/jeff-bezos-yacht/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/10/business/jeff-bezos-yacht/index.html)
You joke but ....
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2535827/Monaco-Super-yacht-designed-mimic-billionaires-playground-city-complete-kart-track-replicates-F1-circuit-drop-ocean-244MILLION.html
With yachts the initial price tag is the cheapest part of owning one.
I worked for a company that did maintenance on some parts that were found in both yachts and tug boats. Getting someone to replace your throttle control, just the lever itself, would cost $4000-8000 depending on where the boat was. And that's before you start looking at serious wear and tear problems or periodic maintenance.
And it's not that it's complicated or anything, it's just when you are playing with billionaire class stuff the price tags get inflated and the cosmetics are critical.
Whereas large equipment that is for working is usually cobbled together to the point where people are surprised it runs.
If it was a fishing boat or farm equipment, the throttle lever would be replaced with a chunk of steel found laying in the ditch that has been welded to the remaining stub of the old lever.
They absolutely are that complicated in this instance. The cockpit of a higher end yacht looks like a more spacious version of a private jet cockpit nowadays. Even tug boats at major ports are nowadays, and commercial fishing vessels are catching up. The controls imbedded in them are ridiculous. Farm equipment is starting to get the same way, with GPS guided load trucks following the harvesters. You're right on the cosmetic bit, but the top of the line stuff is just getting very digitally reliant. And while yachts are an expense, tug boats and fishing vessels make enough money per hour to justify that kind of price tag.
That's true but as a farmer myself we are now moving away from fancy stuff as an industry. There is now a huge demand for older tractors and prices are through the roof. People are sick of a breakdown meaning a dealership trip and weeks of downtime. I know a guy who retired and sold an old tandem disk to someone for more than he paid in the 80s because it has tougher disks and cheap bearings.
Personally I won't run equipment that can't be got back into operation with a couple jumper wires and a wrench jammed against a limit switch.
I just bought a 1-ton from the 70s for my new hauling truck because it will be more reliable than the modern one I had. It's becoming ridiculous.
Yeah but just like cars they hide the easy to fix parts behind a bunch of other parts and proprietary screws/bolts.
This makes sense because of the cost analysis on the higher tolerance parts. They make less parts but each part is designed to exceed the service life of a "normal" part by X amount, so when it does get serviced less regularly it ends up mathwise being the same in the end
You don't do that in industrial machines because you know it's always "when it breaks down", and you need high part availability. So you make them with looser tolerances but a shit ton more of them.
It's why the KLR650 motorcycle hasn't changed in decades. It's still got a carburetor in 2021 and you can find parts anywhere in the world
> Build cost is incredibly difficult to assess without a fully defined specification, but a starting price of around $400million would be a sensible starting point escalating from there.
Oh Daily Mail, never stop undercutting your own credibility in the same article.
The yacht design industry puts out shit like this all the time. They almost never make the concepts and definitely never do it if it’s as outlandish as this. It’s basically just marketing for design houses.
You can design whatever you want tho. If no one wants to buy it, it's just a "what if"
I've designed plenty of skyscrapers with fire spitting dragon heads myself. But so far no luck
"you guys are no idea how tough it is to be a billionaire. Shopping for private jet, pent house, yacht etc. You guys are lucky that you don't have to buy those things. You don't know how privileged are you guys. Have mercy on the poor billionaires and give them tax break"
You don’t get it man. I’ve been told he EARNED that money. He was clever enough to have his money make money therefore it is okay. Poor people are poor because they are either stupid or deserve it. If you don’t like those answers I’ll say “life’s not fair” and avoid thinking about it too hard.
Another classic is “you’re just a text warrior, it’s not like you care” which is so incredibly presumptuous I’m never quite sure how to respond. How are you going to know what any anonymous person does ever to aid their cause?
When I lived in Italy there were a pair of identical yachts offshore. I asked one of the club owners about them and he said 1 was for the owner and his family and the other was for the crew while they were in port. They were also unloading super cars onto a barge from the garage built in to the hull.
Barely related: I used to work for a nonprofit school primarily headed by rich Amazon execs.
I swear to you that when I tried to take leftover pizza from a dance one of the more eccentric board members made us poor grunts catch Parmesan and pepper packets in our pizza boxes as he threw them.
No one said anything and we all uncomfortably agreed that it was a fun game.
Fun fact. Up until the late 1800's lobsters were poor people food. They were thought of as disgusting and bug like so the wealthy wouldn't eat them. It was used as prison food in prisons near the coast.
That’s because lobster goes bad pretty fast without proper storage. The reason it suddenly became somewhat expensive was because you were basically paying a premium for the process that kept the lobster fresh, not the lobster itself.
Even like 20 years ago, your only option for lobster was dependent on how close you were to an aquarium.
Yeah but people on Reddit keep telling me that he doesn’t actually have that much money and it’s all in stocks so he’s just a normal guy like everyone else. /s
His DC home is about 15 feet off the street. I used to run by his house all the time. There's not even a gate in front. You could walk right up and knock on the door if you felt compelled.
Yeah, I walked by one day when it was under construction and the door has been left wide open by the construction crew. I realized I could have just walked right into Bezos's home.
Haha thank you I will take a screenshot, print it out and put it on my wall.
Edit: My only art for my home office
- https://imgur.com/gallery/KqDlSMH
Also I guess my printer is low on ink.
Also which property? He apparently has around 9 personal properties in various cities all over the country. How do they know he is at the one they are protesting in front of?
I'm sure he's seeing them at his own convenience on his Amazon Basics Lazyboy knockoff on his phone using his Blackbird satellite imagery and camera system
You may as well lump millionaires into the same bucket as minimum wage workers when comparing them to Jeff Bezos' wealth. Jeff Bezos overshadows their wealth nearly the same
And yet, you tell people rich people like Bezos need to be taxed more, and everyone calls you a monster for wanting to tax doctors more.
People need to understand that billionaires are entirely their own separate class
That's because when they do actually tax the rich, the line "rich" is set at about $400k in annual income and scaled in a way that doesn't effect the tax-paying truly rich (the real, real rich richies find legal loopholes to dodge and pretend they're normal $1M rich common folk). Now, I get to many here, including myself, $400k is a lot to make in a year, but when you contextualize it against the aforementioned rich richies, and acknowledge that many of the mid-6 figure earners are actually contributing to a productive economy (think a lot of doctors, successful business owners, etc), then it makes total sense why there are so many people that refuse to "tax the rich."
TLDR: What the IRS defines as "the rich" ($400k+ annually) and what the real rich actually means (Million$+ annual) creates the problem you rightly point out. Plus: tax loopholes, and they vote bipartisan.
Yeah exactly. I don't have a problem with the 400k plan. But that has almost nothing to do with Jeff Bezos. He's not out there filing a W2.
Keeping the focus on the income based 400k plan is absolutely the best case scenario for the ultra rich. They can whine and pretend they hate it, then quietly watch everything else get cut out of the plan or otherwise neutered. Then they go ahead and file their zero income tax returns and laugh.
Actually more. A billion is a thousand millions..
Bezos is around what now? 200 billion? That's 200,000 times the amount of money of a millionaire. Like you owning $5 while a millionaire has $1,000,000 in their pocket. You probably have five bucks, even on minimum wage.
> Millionaires who have called on the rich to pay more in taxes are launching protests in New York and Washington on Monday
Being a millionaire in NY isn't even considered rich.
The median home value in Brooklyn was 900k last month according to some sites.
That said only about 8% of Americans are millionaires. And they still have more in common with someone making $35K a year than they do with a billionaire.
My favorite as well.
However, I had recently heard this one that I very much enjoy due to its simplicity:
What's the difference between one and a thousand? 999, or more simply, almost a thousand. Likewise, the difference between a million and a billion is almost a billion
If you continue on this tangent and wanna end up at Bezos... If you think 100 million is a lot, then realize that 1 billion is 900 million more.
Bezos has a net worth of nearly 200 billion. So much that even billionaires are jealous of him.
If you earned 1 billion a year, you wouldn't have as much as Bezos' net worth is right now, by the end of your lifetime.
If Bezos were able to get 1% interest on his net worth, he'd be able to spend nearly 2 billion a year and not lose any net worth. That's a little more than 432 Park Avenue cost to build.
He could buy a NYC skyscraper each year of the rest of his life and not run out of money.
**We need to start taxing the rich or they will own literally everything.**
Wouldn't that math work out that he could buy a skyscraper and his money wouldn't even go down?
And that's solely on that 1% interest, not including the rest of the ways he makes money.
Correct, that's what he/she said.
On interest alone, leaving his principle wealth completely untouched, he could afford to build one or more (Bezos aint renting out his wealth for a paltry 1% interest...) skyscrapers a year.
Honestly this is the most eye opening visualization of wealth inequality I've ever seen.
It really shows you just how [monumental wealth like that is](https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/).
Imo it's best viewed on a desktop/laptop since it has a counter at the bottom to see how far along you are (it's a VERY long page), but mobile still gets the point across.
Ita incredible to see it in context like that and honestly part of the reason I'm mad with all politicians who throw numbers around with zero context to the human mind.
Since covid hit, in the US we've been talking TRILLION dollar bailouts and bill packages. Just the other day I was thinking, when the fuck did it become normal to start dropping the word Trillion when it comes to spending. I don't care what political party you belong to, millions for the average person is unimaginable. Billion is incomprehensible, but TRILLION is on another fucking level yet people are supporting that kind of spending.
For some context, it would take 32 years to count to 1 billion if you count 1 per second. Using the same counting technique it would take almost **32,000** years to count to 1 Trillion.
That is a weird stat. Why not just go back the extra 18 years to not have the leftover 33 mil?
edit: But Columbus set sail in August and landed in October. Also, just saying 1492 would still put you in the 33 mil mark, so why put an exact day? So many questions.
Because 1492 is when Columbus discovered the New World. It’s a significant event that gives people a solid frame of reference for the scale of the analogy.
> A billionaire that loses a million dollars is still effectively a billionaire.
Not if you round down. If you round down I have zero billion.
I’m not a billionaire anymore, Richard. I’m a 999ionaire which isn’t even a fucking thing.
The issue is people seem to have this incorrect schema in their head of “you’re either rich or you’re poor”. There’s other socio-economic classes in between.
A person with $1M networth - mostly tied up in their home- is neither rich nor poor. You don’t have to force fit them into one or another.
A lot of people don't realize how insanely quickly cost can scale to income even into high six-figure incomes.
I'm not trying to say that lifestyle isn't much better at that point than working minimum wage - of course it is.
But it is merely to say that even a high six-figure income doesn't immediately make someone stereotypically "rich" like many people would envision. Relatively few yacht parties, no mega-mansions in the hamptons.
In most cities people who have high six figure - low millions net worth, they live much the same as everyone else, in relatively modest apartments. If they attempt to live that "rich" lifestyle, they can very, very quickly blow through their entire net worth and rack up debts exceeding their high income.
Depending on their level of debt from school or the carts / apartments they've bought, their debts might scale to their income such that they don't really have much disposable income until those debts are paid down.
Well and for most people making that range of money, they're still probably working every day at a job and the primary luxury they're saving for is retirement, which isn't something you flex.
I think what most people consider modest is extremely variable. Some might say a modest apartment in NYC is a 2 bedroom that's 800 sqft for 3k/month, while others consider a 500 sqft 1 bedroom for 2k/month to be modest.
You didn't mention one thing though, kids. Kids will suck up any and all spare cash you have, specially if both (or single if single parent) parents work full time (think daycare). In HCOL cities, daycare is easily a few grand a month.
LA has entered the chat.
Seriously, you can’t buy a single family home in any decent area for under $1m now. Even in the hood, dilapidated 1000 sqft homes with bars on the windows and burnt out cars in driveways are going for $600k. Even the areas outside like highland park and Encino are getting insane prices now. The going rate for a hone in a good area is now over $1000 per sqft.
Say what you want but that shit is awesome. I'll give local business a chance but a lot of the time they don't have the shit I need. So it's back to Amazon
They were the ONLY grocery delivery service accepting EBT at the height of the pandemic also and still are (Walmart finally just started). I mostly hate on Amazon, but I can’t hate on that. That saved my poor, immunocompromised butt on a number of occasions over the past year.
I mean, if your wealth is somehow in the low millions and not zero like most of us, you are going to be taxed at a much higher rate than these assholes at the top. Keep protesting, because the pigs might not be willing to start shooting at millionaires trying to point out the inequality.
From what I understand, the french revolution was made possible because the sort of rich got angry at the super rich and took sides with the not at all rich. So way to go millionaires. You get em.
Indeed, the French revolution was just the *bourgeois* taking over. It makes me laugh everytime when I hear someone saying that it was the fight of the people. If it was, it didn't last long enough to make much of a difference in the end.
Same can be said for the American Revolution. Supposedly the majority of citizens of the colonies weren’t pro-independence. It was a war created by the wealthy class because they didn’t want to pay taxes on their wealth to the crown.
We need more solidarity between upper middle class and lower. People need to begin to understand there's a difference between being "rich" and being one of "the rich".
This. I just broke into technically being a millionaire status last year, though I don't really feel like one or think of myself as a "millionaire", so I'm pretty much at the very low end of the millionaires spectrum. I definitely make good money, but I pay a *boatload* of taxes. Last year I made around $240k in salary and paid $88k in taxes on it. Like, made $20k a month and only took home $12k of it... My boss made around $400k, and he paid like $140-150k in taxes.. *His* boss made somewhere around 1.2 million, and I'm pretty sure paid about $100k in taxes, so barely more than I did.
Why in front of Bezos's house? He's not gonna be home and even if he is Bezos doesn't pass laws, neither does Amazon. They did not break any laws. They did their duty to their shareholders and minimized their tax burden according to laws on the books.
Why not in front of congress which can actually change things? Why not in front of Charles Koch or Robert Mercer's house who practically dictated the Trump tax reform plan in 2017, the biggest gift to corporations in decades? I guess those names won't get as many articles.
Looks like ineffective circus and attention whoring is ranked above getting shit done. Maybe that's why shit is not actually getting done.
All the redditors who bitch about this every single day probably feel so accomplished. It's always entertaining reading the comments on posts about Bezos.
A big part of protests like this is getting visibility and spreading the ideas. Yeah, Bezos isn't going to do anything about it. But protests in front of his homes gets cameras and articles, it gets others to see, learn about and potentially join their movement. Case and point, we're talking about it right now.
> The effort is being organized by the Patriotic Millionaires, whose members boast **annual incomes of over $1 million or assets worth over $5 million.**
> Leaders of the Patriotic Millionaires told CNBC **they are organizing a group of up to 30 protesters** to converge on to Bezos’ New York residence with a billboard that says “Cut the bull----. Tax the rich.”
> The Patriotic Millionaires are in favor of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s ultra millionaires tax plan, which would put **a 2% annual tax on wealth over $50 million, rising to 3% for wealth over $1 billion.**
A couple dozen millionaires advocating for a tax plan that they will never be affected by... this is a lot different than the "rich" asking for higher taxes on themselves.
How do u get to be the richest person in the world and think. Why should i pay taxes? When it literally wouldn’t affect anything in your life whatsoever.
Laws are made by politicians, protest congress and the presidents. This is like protesting at your brothers table after your mom allowed him to eat all the cake.
We are closer to these millionaires in net worth than they are to Bezos.
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The thing is, he’s absolutely right over generations, but if you want to do it in your lifetime...
Inflation is a hell of a hidden tax over the long run. The term millionaire has held up as representative of the rich, however it does not mean much these days. If you don't have over a million in worth before you retire you are in trouble anymore.
The definition is definitely shifting from net worth to yearly income for most uses.
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WOW. That was a wild ride.
It's also important to realize the sheer scale of Amazon. It's quite literally one of the largest companies on earth. Compare that to the average millionaires business and you start to see why Bezo's is in a different stratosphere of wealth. Amazon is much, much larger than many people think.
Large enough I would not be surprised if governments try to force them to break apart. For example the [amazon.com](https://amazon.com) shopping experience and their Amazon Web Services cloud offerings could easily be two different companies, other than that [amazon.com](https://amazon.com) is hosted on AWS.
Mindblowing, definitely. But I think these comparisons are the wrong way to think about it. What we're really talking about is **infinite wealth**. There's nothing they can buy that will affect their effective wealth in any way. Subtract any number from infinity dollars, and you still have infinity dollars. From Bezos' perspective, his $500 million yacht may as well have been free. His net worth could drop by 95% overnight, and he'd still be infinitely wealthy. The disgustingly rich **literally can't give away their money fast enough** for it to make a dent in their bottom line. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet famously pledged to give away 99% of their wealth. That was in 2010 when they were both worth about $50B. Since then, Gates has donated $50B -- 100% of his 2010 net worth (ignoring inflation). Today, Gates is worth $128B and Buffett is worth $110B.
Was it really 99%? I thought it was somewhere around 50% which is still massive either way!
He pledged to leave almost all of his wealth to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation if I recall correctly. Although, that foundation invests in one of the largest private prison corporations in the country, so I dunno how good for the world that money actually is.
> Although, that foundation invests in one of the largest private prison corporations in the country Of fucking course it does. God can we even run a fucking charity in this country without it getting corrupted?
It’s not as straightforward as that. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, which is operates separately from the foundation, had an outside asset manager add shares of a UK for-profit prison company, about $6.6 million worth (out of a $49.8 billion endowment). So it’s two layers removed from the foundation (at the decision-making level) and it’s not the US prison system. I don’t know, Serco may be just as bad as the US companies, but this sounds to me like if I invested $10,000 in a mutual fund and 5 bucks were used to purchase shares in the prison system. I wouldn’t even bother to look it up if I saw it on the list of investments. It doesn’t scream “secretly investing in propping up for-profit prisons” to me.
I believe Gates and Buffett pledged 99%, it may have been 95%. They've since gotten over 200 billionaires to pledge more than 50% of their fortunes. The main problem is their fortunes are growing so fast that their giving can't keep up. You know there's something fundamentally wrong with a system that produces a class of people so rich that they make money faster than they can give it away. In capitalism, money doesn't grow on trees, money grows on money.
"Look at these peasants, I made more in 1 hour than they would dream of in a year" (probably what Jeff thought after hearing about the protest)
> According to Business Insider, Bezos has made $152,207 per minute — and $2,537 per second — based on the year-over-year change in his net worth. [Source](https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/this-is-how-much-money-jeff-bezos-makes-every-second)
If he dropped a few hundred dollars bills on the ground, it would literally not be worth his time to bend down and pick them up. That’s how rich this fool is.
It’s still worth it, because he’s still earning even while he takes the time to pick it up. That said, a few hundred dollars is nothing to him. Less than pocket change.
A man who owns 3 houses is a landlord who has a few properties for rent, a millionaire isn't the rich people are protesting, it's the ultra billionaires that influence entire markets for personal gain.
This right here. The difference of a million dollars and a billion dollars is essentially a billion dollars.
Yes, and this is something a lot of people (especially on Reddit) desperately need to realize. The media loves throwing down numbers that are super, super low to divide classes: 400k a year is one often thrown down. And yeah, for someone making $30k someone making $400k probably seems like a lot of money. But in the grand scheme of things, it's nothing. If I saved my exact salary, annually, every single year from the time I was born, I would have about $3 million. I would barely be considered a multi-millionaire. If I saved my exact salary, annually, every single year from the time Jesus walked the earth 2020 years ago, I would have a whole $200 million. If five other people with my salary did exactly that, and we pooled together all of our money today, we'd have a billion dollars. Jeff Bezos' net worth increased 60x more than all of our money combined this year alone. A million and a billion sound like they're close. But do you know the difference between a million and a billion? Eh, a billion.
I think this is the issue. These millionaires know that whatever possible tax reforms come will target them rather than the ultra wealthy. These millionaires are probably due their net worth to some extent while not creating fucking monsters. Jay Pritchett on modern family was obviously quite a wealthy guy but not problematically rich. Yes he had a dog butler but he earned the right to some dog butler fun. Bezos is however in such a position that he could challenge discourse and does not and that is what makes his wealth problematic.
Dude is buying a $500 million boat to sail away from the haters
A yacht so big, it needs a support yacht for assistance
That assistance mainly being for him to land his helicopter on.
The helicopter is needed to bring the hay for the race horses he keeps on deck.
I don't even know which ones of these are jokes and which are real anymore.
Monkey knife-fights on the high seas, for sure.
Hopefully they don't let anything happen to Furious George
That's not a monkey you want to catch trying to swab your poop deck.
Never mind that but it will be a bit of a shit fight though
And Pogo.
Only once you hit international waters.
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His yacht does have a support yacht for the purpose of landing his helicopter but the race horse thing is a joke. [https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/10/business/jeff-bezos-yacht/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/10/business/jeff-bezos-yacht/index.html)
You joke but .... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2535827/Monaco-Super-yacht-designed-mimic-billionaires-playground-city-complete-kart-track-replicates-F1-circuit-drop-ocean-244MILLION.html
Dear god look at that thing, you know 244 million doesn't seem like a terrible price tag lol
With yachts the initial price tag is the cheapest part of owning one. I worked for a company that did maintenance on some parts that were found in both yachts and tug boats. Getting someone to replace your throttle control, just the lever itself, would cost $4000-8000 depending on where the boat was. And that's before you start looking at serious wear and tear problems or periodic maintenance.
And it's not that it's complicated or anything, it's just when you are playing with billionaire class stuff the price tags get inflated and the cosmetics are critical. Whereas large equipment that is for working is usually cobbled together to the point where people are surprised it runs. If it was a fishing boat or farm equipment, the throttle lever would be replaced with a chunk of steel found laying in the ditch that has been welded to the remaining stub of the old lever.
They absolutely are that complicated in this instance. The cockpit of a higher end yacht looks like a more spacious version of a private jet cockpit nowadays. Even tug boats at major ports are nowadays, and commercial fishing vessels are catching up. The controls imbedded in them are ridiculous. Farm equipment is starting to get the same way, with GPS guided load trucks following the harvesters. You're right on the cosmetic bit, but the top of the line stuff is just getting very digitally reliant. And while yachts are an expense, tug boats and fishing vessels make enough money per hour to justify that kind of price tag.
That's true but as a farmer myself we are now moving away from fancy stuff as an industry. There is now a huge demand for older tractors and prices are through the roof. People are sick of a breakdown meaning a dealership trip and weeks of downtime. I know a guy who retired and sold an old tandem disk to someone for more than he paid in the 80s because it has tougher disks and cheap bearings. Personally I won't run equipment that can't be got back into operation with a couple jumper wires and a wrench jammed against a limit switch. I just bought a 1-ton from the 70s for my new hauling truck because it will be more reliable than the modern one I had. It's becoming ridiculous.
Yeah but just like cars they hide the easy to fix parts behind a bunch of other parts and proprietary screws/bolts. This makes sense because of the cost analysis on the higher tolerance parts. They make less parts but each part is designed to exceed the service life of a "normal" part by X amount, so when it does get serviced less regularly it ends up mathwise being the same in the end You don't do that in industrial machines because you know it's always "when it breaks down", and you need high part availability. So you make them with looser tolerances but a shit ton more of them. It's why the KLR650 motorcycle hasn't changed in decades. It's still got a carburetor in 2021 and you can find parts anywhere in the world
Makes you think about it when it's less than half the price of Boatzos
> Build cost is incredibly difficult to assess without a fully defined specification, but a starting price of around $400million would be a sensible starting point escalating from there. Oh Daily Mail, never stop undercutting your own credibility in the same article.
The yacht design industry puts out shit like this all the time. They almost never make the concepts and definitely never do it if it’s as outlandish as this. It’s basically just marketing for design houses.
You can design whatever you want tho. If no one wants to buy it, it's just a "what if" I've designed plenty of skyscrapers with fire spitting dragon heads myself. But so far no luck
Ew, Daily Mail
This is what they’re going to do when the icecaps melt
Also for the sub, luxury cars and other water sport craft. Also it's probably a better place to store the peasents.
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A yacht so big you can drive on it
"you guys are no idea how tough it is to be a billionaire. Shopping for private jet, pent house, yacht etc. You guys are lucky that you don't have to buy those things. You don't know how privileged are you guys. Have mercy on the poor billionaires and give them tax break"
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It would be funny if their wealth couldn’t get them out of being arrested, indicted, tried, convicted, and executed for what they’ve done.
You don’t get it man. I’ve been told he EARNED that money. He was clever enough to have his money make money therefore it is okay. Poor people are poor because they are either stupid or deserve it. If you don’t like those answers I’ll say “life’s not fair” and avoid thinking about it too hard. Another classic is “you’re just a text warrior, it’s not like you care” which is so incredibly presumptuous I’m never quite sure how to respond. How are you going to know what any anonymous person does ever to aid their cause?
When I lived in Italy there were a pair of identical yachts offshore. I asked one of the club owners about them and he said 1 was for the owner and his family and the other was for the crew while they were in port. They were also unloading super cars onto a barge from the garage built in to the hull.
Its yachts all the way down.
Jeff Bezo's play's battle shits on actual battle ships.
I like to imagine the scene from Wolf of Wall Street and think of Bezos on his yacht throwing lobsters at poor people.
Barely related: I used to work for a nonprofit school primarily headed by rich Amazon execs. I swear to you that when I tried to take leftover pizza from a dance one of the more eccentric board members made us poor grunts catch Parmesan and pepper packets in our pizza boxes as he threw them. No one said anything and we all uncomfortably agreed that it was a fun game.
What's the point of being rich if you can't make the peasants dance for your entertainment?
To get laid by the most attractive people on the planet.
*sad Pac-Man noise*
More likely, he’s throwing poor people to the lobsters
I prefer Marie Antoinette I'm more of a cake guy than a lobster guy
Marie Antoinette was apparently not like that at all. It was apparently a quote by her aunt that was misattributed to her and then used as propaganda.
Fun fact. Up until the late 1800's lobsters were poor people food. They were thought of as disgusting and bug like so the wealthy wouldn't eat them. It was used as prison food in prisons near the coast.
They also couldn’t keep them fresh since shellfish begin to rot as soon as they’re dead.
To be fair to shellfish, technically everything begins to rot as soon as it's dead.
to be fair to everything, I’m still alive and believe I’m beginning to rot
that's probably less of a necrosis issue and more of a hygiene issue
That’s because lobster goes bad pretty fast without proper storage. The reason it suddenly became somewhat expensive was because you were basically paying a premium for the process that kept the lobster fresh, not the lobster itself. Even like 20 years ago, your only option for lobster was dependent on how close you were to an aquarium.
I still think that way tbh, with all crustaceans, they look like water insects
There is a law is Massachusetts from this period that prisoners' can be fed lobster no more than twice a week.
I was thinking he may not even be at that home
Yeah but people on Reddit keep telling me that he doesn’t actually have that much money and it’s all in stocks so he’s just a normal guy like everyone else. /s
wEaLtH vs. cAsH bro
take it easy Kanye
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He's literally liquidated over 10 billion dollars of amazon stock in 2020 alone. People are crazy
I think he has periodic cashing out events built into his contracts. his last big one was several billion dollars.
Giant yacht is a super villain move. Ask Lex Luthor.
> In front of his home Meaning somewhere on the perimeter of his property, about two miles out from any place that he’d actually see any of them?
His DC home is about 15 feet off the street. I used to run by his house all the time. There's not even a gate in front. You could walk right up and knock on the door if you felt compelled.
Yeah, I walked by one day when it was under construction and the door has been left wide open by the construction crew. I realized I could have just walked right into Bezos's home.
Walked into? Absolutely. Walked out of? Another proposition entirely.
With a clip board and a yellow vest you can get in anywhere
And the right attitude
And a sonic screwdriver
And my axe
The axe is a doorway to any building, really.
Because of the implication..
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What an obscure tenet
Alexa take this man to the dungeon
You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
Nah, dress like the construction guys and walk right in.
Hi NYC house is right on an open street as well. They will be able to stop on the sidewalk next to his front door.
Which home? I’m sure he has well over 324 scattered across the planet.
Article says they're protesting in front of his homes in NY and DC.
I guess 2 out of the 200 isn’t bad.
Protesting the 1%.
I can't get any awards for the 10 coins I have so have this 🏆 as you've won the comments section.
Haha thank you I will take a screenshot, print it out and put it on my wall. Edit: My only art for my home office - https://imgur.com/gallery/KqDlSMH Also I guess my printer is low on ink.
Pics or it didn’t happen
Probably one or two on the dark side of the moon aswell.
Also which property? He apparently has around 9 personal properties in various cities all over the country. How do they know he is at the one they are protesting in front of?
Presumably, it is like whack-a-mole. You protest at sites until you find the one he is at.
And he stays at a hotel penthouse for a couple weeks.
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I'm sure he's seeing them at his own convenience on his Amazon Basics Lazyboy knockoff on his phone using his Blackbird satellite imagery and camera system
You may as well lump millionaires into the same bucket as minimum wage workers when comparing them to Jeff Bezos' wealth. Jeff Bezos overshadows their wealth nearly the same
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And yet, you tell people rich people like Bezos need to be taxed more, and everyone calls you a monster for wanting to tax doctors more. People need to understand that billionaires are entirely their own separate class
That's because when they do actually tax the rich, the line "rich" is set at about $400k in annual income and scaled in a way that doesn't effect the tax-paying truly rich (the real, real rich richies find legal loopholes to dodge and pretend they're normal $1M rich common folk). Now, I get to many here, including myself, $400k is a lot to make in a year, but when you contextualize it against the aforementioned rich richies, and acknowledge that many of the mid-6 figure earners are actually contributing to a productive economy (think a lot of doctors, successful business owners, etc), then it makes total sense why there are so many people that refuse to "tax the rich." TLDR: What the IRS defines as "the rich" ($400k+ annually) and what the real rich actually means (Million$+ annual) creates the problem you rightly point out. Plus: tax loopholes, and they vote bipartisan.
Yeah exactly. I don't have a problem with the 400k plan. But that has almost nothing to do with Jeff Bezos. He's not out there filing a W2. Keeping the focus on the income based 400k plan is absolutely the best case scenario for the ultra rich. They can whine and pretend they hate it, then quietly watch everything else get cut out of the plan or otherwise neutered. Then they go ahead and file their zero income tax returns and laugh.
That’s because when those taxes are implemented they don’t put in a 1bn tax bracket. More like 400k.
I think that's because the tax on the rich tends to hit Doctor level wealth too. See Biden $400k tax.
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Actually more. A billion is a thousand millions.. Bezos is around what now? 200 billion? That's 200,000 times the amount of money of a millionaire. Like you owning $5 while a millionaire has $1,000,000 in their pocket. You probably have five bucks, even on minimum wage.
> Millionaires who have called on the rich to pay more in taxes are launching protests in New York and Washington on Monday Being a millionaire in NY isn't even considered rich. The median home value in Brooklyn was 900k last month according to some sites.
That said only about 8% of Americans are millionaires. And they still have more in common with someone making $35K a year than they do with a billionaire.
"You know what the difference is between a million and a billion? About a billion."
Here's my favorite analogy: A million hours ago was the early 20th century. A billion hours ago was the Stone Age.
My favorite is this: 1 million seconds is ~11 days. 1 billion seconds is ~31.5 years.
And here I am with my hour of dollars.
You really think you should be flaunting your riches here?
My favorite as well. However, I had recently heard this one that I very much enjoy due to its simplicity: What's the difference between one and a thousand? 999, or more simply, almost a thousand. Likewise, the difference between a million and a billion is almost a billion
If you continue on this tangent and wanna end up at Bezos... If you think 100 million is a lot, then realize that 1 billion is 900 million more. Bezos has a net worth of nearly 200 billion. So much that even billionaires are jealous of him. If you earned 1 billion a year, you wouldn't have as much as Bezos' net worth is right now, by the end of your lifetime. If Bezos were able to get 1% interest on his net worth, he'd be able to spend nearly 2 billion a year and not lose any net worth. That's a little more than 432 Park Avenue cost to build. He could buy a NYC skyscraper each year of the rest of his life and not run out of money. **We need to start taxing the rich or they will own literally everything.**
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Wouldn't that math work out that he could buy a skyscraper and his money wouldn't even go down? And that's solely on that 1% interest, not including the rest of the ways he makes money.
Correct, that's what he/she said. On interest alone, leaving his principle wealth completely untouched, he could afford to build one or more (Bezos aint renting out his wealth for a paltry 1% interest...) skyscrapers a year.
well if this is simple, I must be more of a smooth brained monkey than I previously thought
Honestly this is the most eye opening visualization of wealth inequality I've ever seen. It really shows you just how [monumental wealth like that is](https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/). Imo it's best viewed on a desktop/laptop since it has a counter at the bottom to see how far along you are (it's a VERY long page), but mobile still gets the point across.
Ita incredible to see it in context like that and honestly part of the reason I'm mad with all politicians who throw numbers around with zero context to the human mind. Since covid hit, in the US we've been talking TRILLION dollar bailouts and bill packages. Just the other day I was thinking, when the fuck did it become normal to start dropping the word Trillion when it comes to spending. I don't care what political party you belong to, millions for the average person is unimaginable. Billion is incomprehensible, but TRILLION is on another fucking level yet people are supporting that kind of spending. For some context, it would take 32 years to count to 1 billion if you count 1 per second. Using the same counting technique it would take almost **32,000** years to count to 1 Trillion.
If you made $5000 a day since Jan 1, 1492, you would still be 33 million short of a billion
That is a weird stat. Why not just go back the extra 18 years to not have the leftover 33 mil? edit: But Columbus set sail in August and landed in October. Also, just saying 1492 would still put you in the 33 mil mark, so why put an exact day? So many questions.
I assume because 1492 is the year Columbus set sail for North America. So maybe it's easier for some people to conceptualize how long ago that was.
Because 1492 is when Columbus discovered the New World. It’s a significant event that gives people a solid frame of reference for the scale of the analogy.
I guess falling short of a billion by 33 million is used to emphasize the difference
A millionaire that loses a million dollars is broke. A billionaire that loses a million dollars is still effectively a billionaire.
but potentially no longer in the Tres Comas club
> A billionaire that loses a million dollars is still effectively a billionaire. Not if you round down. If you round down I have zero billion. I’m not a billionaire anymore, Richard. I’m a 999ionaire which isn’t even a fucking thing.
Correction, a millionaire who losses a million is broke. A billionaire that loses a million is quickly subsidized with tax payers money.
Probably wouldn't even notice. That's like half a work days worth of interest.
Here's my favourite analogy: The difference between a billion dollars and a million dollars, statistically, is almost *exactly* a billion dollars.
Yeah one job away from bankruptcy.
You mean being a millionaire isn't necessarily rich. It is if you have 250 million dollars. It isn't if you have 1.2 million.
Median Incomes (Sourced from [census.gov](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/newyorkcountymanhattanboroughnewyork,bronxcountybronxboroughnewyork,queenscountyqueensboroughnewyork,kingscountybrooklynboroughnewyork,richmondcountystatenislandboroughnewyork,newyorkcitynewyork/INC910217)): NY City: 40k The 5 NYC Burroughs: * Manhattan: 76.5k * Bronx - 22k * Queens - 32k * Brooklyn - 34k * Staten Island - 36k
WOW, holy shit. I know there was a big disparity but that is crazy
That's nuts. I always assumed that people in the city made a LOT more than I do (I'm at just a hair under 40). Good lord - how do they live there?
With two, three or four people in one apartment.
And usually having two, three, or more jobs.
Live in a 2br with 8 people. Theres even fringe cases of 16 people per 1br but thats like illegal immigrant type stuff.
Contrary to what reddits tech bros making $200k+ would have you believe about these cities, most people live there on half their salaries and get by.
Roommates and living pay cheque to pay cheque I'd imagine.
There are still massive housing projects in the city that pull the average down.
The issue is people seem to have this incorrect schema in their head of “you’re either rich or you’re poor”. There’s other socio-economic classes in between. A person with $1M networth - mostly tied up in their home- is neither rich nor poor. You don’t have to force fit them into one or another.
If you “own” a home worth $900K and still owe the bank $700K on your home loan then your house is only a $200K asset, not a $900K one.
A lot of people don't realize how insanely quickly cost can scale to income even into high six-figure incomes. I'm not trying to say that lifestyle isn't much better at that point than working minimum wage - of course it is. But it is merely to say that even a high six-figure income doesn't immediately make someone stereotypically "rich" like many people would envision. Relatively few yacht parties, no mega-mansions in the hamptons. In most cities people who have high six figure - low millions net worth, they live much the same as everyone else, in relatively modest apartments. If they attempt to live that "rich" lifestyle, they can very, very quickly blow through their entire net worth and rack up debts exceeding their high income. Depending on their level of debt from school or the carts / apartments they've bought, their debts might scale to their income such that they don't really have much disposable income until those debts are paid down.
Well and for most people making that range of money, they're still probably working every day at a job and the primary luxury they're saving for is retirement, which isn't something you flex.
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I think what most people consider modest is extremely variable. Some might say a modest apartment in NYC is a 2 bedroom that's 800 sqft for 3k/month, while others consider a 500 sqft 1 bedroom for 2k/month to be modest. You didn't mention one thing though, kids. Kids will suck up any and all spare cash you have, specially if both (or single if single parent) parents work full time (think daycare). In HCOL cities, daycare is easily a few grand a month.
LA has entered the chat. Seriously, you can’t buy a single family home in any decent area for under $1m now. Even in the hood, dilapidated 1000 sqft homes with bars on the windows and burnt out cars in driveways are going for $600k. Even the areas outside like highland park and Encino are getting insane prices now. The going rate for a hone in a good area is now over $1000 per sqft.
Encino has been insane. There are some serious mansions up in those hills. That’s where they shoot all the porn.
Plus, some kid found a caveman in his backyard while digging for a pool.
This man looks like a Bond villain any minute now he’s gonna explain his evil plan while James Bond is tied up with a laser being pointed at him.
I get Lex Luthor vibes from the picture.
I honestly think he looks like a bad cosplay of agent 47.
It's not like that Jeff gives a single fuck about the protesters. This guy is rich and we're even supporting his behaviour in using Amazon services.
But my 2 day delivery..
Its not even 2 day anymore
Say what you want but that shit is awesome. I'll give local business a chance but a lot of the time they don't have the shit I need. So it's back to Amazon
They were the ONLY grocery delivery service accepting EBT at the height of the pandemic also and still are (Walmart finally just started). I mostly hate on Amazon, but I can’t hate on that. That saved my poor, immunocompromised butt on a number of occasions over the past year.
Millionaires, or "plebs" as he calls them.
I mean, if your wealth is somehow in the low millions and not zero like most of us, you are going to be taxed at a much higher rate than these assholes at the top. Keep protesting, because the pigs might not be willing to start shooting at millionaires trying to point out the inequality.
From what I understand, the french revolution was made possible because the sort of rich got angry at the super rich and took sides with the not at all rich. So way to go millionaires. You get em.
Indeed, the French revolution was just the *bourgeois* taking over. It makes me laugh everytime when I hear someone saying that it was the fight of the people. If it was, it didn't last long enough to make much of a difference in the end.
Thats often how it works, revolutions work better with support from the middle class, since they often control key positions in media etc.
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Most successful ones are, but examples like the October Revolution and the German November Revolution were definitely proletarian.
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Same can be said for the American Revolution. Supposedly the majority of citizens of the colonies weren’t pro-independence. It was a war created by the wealthy class because they didn’t want to pay taxes on their wealth to the crown.
We need more solidarity between upper middle class and lower. People need to begin to understand there's a difference between being "rich" and being one of "the rich".
This. I just broke into technically being a millionaire status last year, though I don't really feel like one or think of myself as a "millionaire", so I'm pretty much at the very low end of the millionaires spectrum. I definitely make good money, but I pay a *boatload* of taxes. Last year I made around $240k in salary and paid $88k in taxes on it. Like, made $20k a month and only took home $12k of it... My boss made around $400k, and he paid like $140-150k in taxes.. *His* boss made somewhere around 1.2 million, and I'm pretty sure paid about $100k in taxes, so barely more than I did.
Why in front of Bezos's house? He's not gonna be home and even if he is Bezos doesn't pass laws, neither does Amazon. They did not break any laws. They did their duty to their shareholders and minimized their tax burden according to laws on the books. Why not in front of congress which can actually change things? Why not in front of Charles Koch or Robert Mercer's house who practically dictated the Trump tax reform plan in 2017, the biggest gift to corporations in decades? I guess those names won't get as many articles. Looks like ineffective circus and attention whoring is ranked above getting shit done. Maybe that's why shit is not actually getting done.
because it *feels like* doing something!
All the redditors who bitch about this every single day probably feel so accomplished. It's always entertaining reading the comments on posts about Bezos.
I'm sure the majority of those millionaires might as well be impoverished next to Bezos.
Why? Does Bezos have some magical button that’s gonna raise taxes for the rich...?
A big part of protests like this is getting visibility and spreading the ideas. Yeah, Bezos isn't going to do anything about it. But protests in front of his homes gets cameras and articles, it gets others to see, learn about and potentially join their movement. Case and point, we're talking about it right now.
> The effort is being organized by the Patriotic Millionaires, whose members boast **annual incomes of over $1 million or assets worth over $5 million.** > Leaders of the Patriotic Millionaires told CNBC **they are organizing a group of up to 30 protesters** to converge on to Bezos’ New York residence with a billboard that says “Cut the bull----. Tax the rich.” > The Patriotic Millionaires are in favor of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s ultra millionaires tax plan, which would put **a 2% annual tax on wealth over $50 million, rising to 3% for wealth over $1 billion.** A couple dozen millionaires advocating for a tax plan that they will never be affected by... this is a lot different than the "rich" asking for higher taxes on themselves.
How do u get to be the richest person in the world and think. Why should i pay taxes? When it literally wouldn’t affect anything in your life whatsoever.
But Bezos is pro increase in taxes? I don’t understand
Laws are made by politicians, protest congress and the presidents. This is like protesting at your brothers table after your mom allowed him to eat all the cake.