Gyroscopic Investing

Ad Orientem wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 9:03 pm FWIW that's $200,000,000,000.00...

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/26/amazon- ... llion.html

Mark Leavy wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 9:33 pm Okay, I apologize for the snark.

Try to measure Bezos' contribution to society in some metric that makes sense to you.
You might find that he is a net positive.

doodle wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 9:49 pm Or a net negative....there are many towns and small businesses that have suffered as a result of current oligopolies. Do you find it fair that small businesses pay taxes while multi billion dollar ones dont? Trump hates what Amazon and "Jeff Bozo" 'are getting away with'. Are you disagreeing with Trump?

doodle wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 10:16 pm https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/27/portlan ... stand.html

vnatale wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 10:09 pm
Could this be the same "Mark"? Or, just a kindred spirit with the same first name???!!

https://www.marksdailyapple.com/

Vinny

Mark Leavy wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 10:27 pm

doodle wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 9:49 pm Or a net negative....there are many towns and small businesses that have suffered as a result of current oligopolies. Do you find it fair that small businesses pay taxes while multi billion dollar ones dont? Trump hates what Amazon and "Jeff Bozo" 'are getting away with'. Are you disagreeing with Trump?

Words like "fair" are for children and fools.

I think Bezos is a net positive to the world. I'll take as much of that as I can get. From anyone.
Trump's lifetime contributions are also net positive.
As are mine, and I suspect, yours. I don't understand the ankle-biting. Let's have more people that produce and make the world better. On whatever scale. And if they/you are able to stash some gold in the process, more power to them and you.

Mark

doodle wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 10:58 pm
Funny...."fair" happens to be one of Trump's favorite words when he doesnt think he isn't being treated in that manner. If a tax system is written so that middle class workers pay more taxes than someone worth 200 billion dollars, what word should one use to classify that state of affairs? I guess I'm expressing my frustration with a social system that magnifies the contributions of one individual with an idea and downplays the role that our society at large plays at assisting that idea to become reality. We always focus on the person scoring the goal without giving very much credit or reward to those contributing to the assist. Great quarterbacks rely heavily of a great offensive line. There is a social collective comprised of rules, educated workforce, infrasfrustructure, political stability that all contribute to success. Bezos currently operates in a system that taxes him nothing for the "assist".

Xan wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 11:05 pm Doodle, do you have a citation for your "no taxes" statement? Just looking to get some more precision on what we're talking about.

doodle wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 11:12 pm At the end of the day it's all an experiment...I guess we will see how our heavy individualistic focus and highly wealth stratified society works in the long run for human well being and happiness versus a more community oriented and socialistic setup. By socialism I'm not talking full blown north Korea either...there seems to be an inability for Americans to understand gradations with regards to this topic. Somehow universal health care (which the rest of the industrialized west benefits from) becomes the qualifying marker between freedom and Castro's Cuba...

Mark Leavy wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 11:13 pm

doodle wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 10:58 pm
Funny...."fair" happens to be one of Trump's favorite words when he doesnt think he isn't being treated in that manner. If a tax system is written so that middle class workers pay more taxes than someone worth 200 billion dollars, what word should one use to classify that state of affairs? I guess I'm expressing my frustration with a social system that magnifies the contributions of one individual with an idea and downplays the role that our society at large plays at assisting that idea to become reality. We always focus on the person scoring the goal without giving very much credit or reward to those contributing to the assist. Great quarterbacks rely heavily of a great offensive line. There is a social collective comprised of rules, educated workforce, infrasfrustructure, political stability that all contribute to success. Bezos currently operates in a system that taxes him nothing for the "assist".

Doodle, I know this is an investment forum, but it really sounds like you don't understand the difference between income taxes and capital gains. You do know that Bezos doesn't get most of his money from wages, correct? And you do understand that his investment of capital provides a plethora of jobs, prosperity and corporate tax money that directly flows into the community, don't you? Honestly, trying to use wage taxes as a comparison is incredibly small minded and shows zero knowledge of how wealth and capital work. Thus, my initial snark.

Jobs...ones that pay low enough to qualify families that have them to get government food stamp assistance? Walmart is quite famous for this as well...corporate fortunes built on taxpayer subsidies.

Is Amazon really a net benefit to communities? Do you have data supporting that Amazon's huge warehouses and centralized business model supports small community economic health?

I understand difference between wages and capital gains, I'm sure Warren Buffet does too who constantly draws attention to the backwardness of a system where he pays less taxes than his secretary.



Also, to be even more blunt, I am deeply in favor of the army of people that keep the world's infrastructure working. My absolute favorite people to be with. But you have to be honest, they keep the world humming, but it is the outliers that move it forward. And those outliers are rare throughout history. We all benefit when they show up.

And why do you keep bringing up Trump? That is weird.


I brought up Trump because he gets a lot of support on this forum and in this particular case he has an issue with Bezos and Amazon because of taxes....and secondly because you said "fair" was a word for children and fools...Trump consistently complains about how things are so "unfair" for him...does that criticism apply to him as well?



Mark

doodle wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 11:15 pm

Xan wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 11:05 pm Doodle, do you have a citation for your "no taxes" statement? Just looking to get some more precision on what we're talking about.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.c ... -year.html

Ad Orientem wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 9:03 pm FWIW that's $200,000,000,000.00...

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/26/amazon- ... llion.html

glennds wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 11:46 pm

Ad Orientem wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 9:03 pm FWIW that's $200,000,000,000.00...

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/26/amazon- ... llion.html

On the one hand.... good for him. He has proven to be a remarkable combination of a visionary with ability to execute. And the market has rewarded him with what it has determined the value of his enterprise to be. He didn't set the price.

On the other hand.... when we reach a point where three individuals can possess the equivalent wealth of the entire lower 50% of the country, roughly 165 million people, then there is a wealth imbalance so extreme that it ought to be a societal stability red flag. looking back in history I'm not sure how many democracies have survived past a certain point of disparity between haves/have nots. We might not be there yet, but we're on the way IMO.
Perhaps I'm echoing doodle's comment above.

doodle wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 11:58 pm At the end of the day we have devised a world system where 1% of the population has the same amount of wealth as the lower 99%....at what point does this need to be perhaps reconsidered? Is there any point where we sit down and think that maybe the rules we have devised for our game perhaps don't lead to the best outcomes?