Why is it anybody’s worry if Bezos is massively more wealthy than any of his employees etc?

[BackAgain]

I’m not focusing on just Bezos. It could be Gates. It could be Musk. It could be almost any very wealthy owner of a big ass company. The “objection” from the left appears to be that “they” have far more wealth than most other individuals. The “us” vs. “them” notion is highlighted by rhetoric such as “the 1%” vs. the “99%.”

Some of the questions raised are these:

Exactly how and why is this any of the business of the lefties?​

Is there a supportable “theory” that accumulated wealth is a moral wrong?​

Is there some reason that anyone in that “99%” isn’t allowed to pursue also acquiring great wealth?​

Beyond perhaps jealousy, does anyone in the “99%” have a supportable valid claim of entitlement to the “extra” wealth of the so-called “1%” folks?​

Is there some fair, neutral “rule” by which anyone can define how much wealth can be labeled “extra” wealth? Who decides what that “rule” is? By what authority?​

 

[Moonglow]

Should great wealth come with taxpayer subsidization?

 

[BackAgain]

Should great wealth come with taxpayer subsidization?

Assumes a fact not in evidence.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

If Bezos didn't have all that money.......there'd be no po' folks.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Should great wealth come with taxpayer subsidization?

What subsidization? Be specific.

 

[Couchpotato]

Should great wealth come with taxpayer subsidization?

Im guessing Bezo's pays taxes. Like almost a billion dollars in taxes

how much tax does jeff bezos pay? – ictsd.org

www.ictsd.org

 

[DukeU]

They want the gov't. to steal his money and give it to them.

 

[Moonglow]

Im guessing Bezo's pays taxes. Like almost a billion dollars in taxes

how much tax does jeff bezos pay? – ictsd.org

www.ictsd.org

He should be paying more.

 

[Moonglow]

What subsidization? Be specific.

— Musk's subsidies: Since 2012, SpaceX has received $5.6 million in federal and state subsidies and Tesla has received $2.5 million, according to data from Good Jobs First, a group that advocates against corporate subsidies.Dec 13, 2021

Musk spurns subsidies, after SpaceX sought them out - Politico​

 

[Woodznutz]

If Bezos didn't have all that money.......there'd be no po' folks.

The poor pay no taxes, and, are subsidized by taxes paid by the rich.

 

[BackAgain]

He should be paying more.

Why?

 

[Couchpotato]

He should be paying more.

How much more? What percentage is reasonable? Bezo's and people like him have zero reason to continue working. He and his entire family for generations can live off the money he already has so why would he continue to keep generating wealth if the Government is just going to steal it?

 

[initforme]

I heard one could make $16 to start at Amazon. That's a mighty fine wage. Trying not to laugh too hard. But some will tell you how you can live comfortably on that. Hilarious.

 

[BackAgain]

Let’s get real. Dims want to tax everything. But their desire cannot withstand scrutiny.

They say “tax” big business. They ignore the fact that imposition of such a tax would have to be calculated by the company as another cost of doing business. Thus, it would simply be passed along to the consumers in the form of a higher price. In that manner, the tax just makes everything more expensive for the consumers. Rich and poor alike. A very regressive form of taxation.

They insist that guys like Bezos don’t pay enough in taxes. They say this ignorant nonsense because they cannot help but feel “entitled” to the accumulated wealth of the rich. Bezos is worth billions of dollars. That is, his wealth accrued so far in his lifetime is either the residue of already taxed income OR it’s the unrealized gains from prior investments which, by definition, are not YET “income.”

The gubmint can’t Constitutionally tax money that has already been taxed; and the gubmint cannot tax the profits in what we have purchased until we realize those profits. Either way, the gubmint isn’t authorized to impose taxes on wealth.

I still don’t see any liberal, Dem, progressive willing to even try to step up to the plate to answer or address any of the questions posed in post #1.

 

[BackAgain]

I heard one could make $16 to start at Amazon. That's a mighty fine wage. Trying not to laugh too hard. But some will tell you how you can live comfortably on that.

That’s $30,720.00 per year gross. Double that if it’s a young married couple both doing the same job. $61,440 gross per year. That assumes no overtime and it is likely just the starting wage.

If that couple doesn’t live in a tax crazy state like New York, such a couple could live fairly well on that income provided they had the smarts to avoid getting into the mess of credit and tried to stay within a budget including putting money away to start preparing early for the future. Investing early and keeping it up, monthly, with the magic of compound interest could lead to an extremely comfortable life down the road.

 

[Stashman]

— Musk's subsidies: Since 2012, SpaceX has received $5.6 million in federal and state subsidies and Tesla has received $2.5 million, according to data from Good Jobs First, a group that advocates against corporate subsidies.Dec 13, 2021

Musk spurns subsidies, after SpaceX sought them out - Politico​

Those numbers are like 5 bucks to those guys. So it's not so much.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

— Musk's subsidies: Since 2012, SpaceX has received $5.6 million in federal and state subsidies and Tesla has received $2.5 million, according to data from Good Jobs First, a group that advocates against corporate subsidies.Dec 13, 2021

Musk spurns subsidies, after SpaceX sought them out - Politico​

SpaceX? You mean the company that single handedly got America back into space?

 

[MisterBeale]

I am sort of surprised, in an age of such wealth disparity, which we have not seen since the days of Teddy, that you even need to pose such a question. But? Back in that age, there were worker strikes, and even violent organizing, and this nation was on the verge of turning socialist/communist. Teddy's administration was an odd coalition of progressives and business leaders which basically averted revolution. And once they were done with him, they cast him aside. Still, he was one of our most liberal, and greatest presidents ever.

It does not surprise me that the spook embedded media of today has brainwashed the citizenry, and carries water for the corrupt establishment, and the financialization of the planet. These global oligarchs, seek to steal your sovereignty, through corruption of the government by use of their wealth. Teddy told us this, long ago. . . & that you don't realize this? It is not surprise, our media and schools don't want folks to understand legalized corruption. If you are interested. . . I have made this text excerpt easy to read, and found the full speech, (the establishment did not make it easy.)

It isn't about letting the ultra wealthy oligarchs have as much as they want, or letting them do what ever they want. . . it is about them have inordinate control over your government, for their own purposes, and trusting that they may be good, or they may be ill. That is NOT how the founders foresaw liberal democratic republicanism operating.

"Address of President Roosevelt on the occasion of the laying of the corner stone of the Pilgrim memorial monument"​

Full text of "Address of President Roosevelt on the occasion of the laying of the corner stone of the Pilgrim memorial monument"

". .. . . . Experience has shown that it is necessary to exercise a far more efficient control than at present over the business use of those vast fortunes, chiefly corporate, which are used (as under modern* conditions they almost invariably are) in inter-state business. When the Constitution was created none of the conditions of modern business existed. They are wholly new and we must create new agencies to deal effectively with them. There is no objection in the minds of this people to any man's earning any amount of money if he does it honestly and fairly, if he gets it as the result of special skill and enterprise, as a reward of ample service actually rendered.

But there is a growing determination that no man shall amass a great fortune by special privilege, by chicanery and wrongdoing, so far as it is in the power of legislation to prevent; and that a fortune, however amassed, shall not have a business use that is antisocial. ' Most large corporations do a business that is not confined to any one State.

Experience has shown that the effort to control these corporations by mere State action can not produce wholesome results. In most cases such effort fails to correct the real abuses of which the corporation is or may be guilty; while in other cases the effort is apt to cause either hardship to the corporation itself, or else hardship to neighboring States which have not tried to grapple with the problem in the same manner; and of course we must be as scrupulous to safeguard the rights of the corporations as to exact from them in return a full measure of justice to the public. I believe in a national incorporation law for corporations engaged in interstate business. I believe, furthermore, that the need for action is most pressing as regards those corporations which, because they are common carriers, exercise a quasi-public function; and which can be completely controlled, in all respects by the Federal Government, by the exercise of the power conferred under the interstate-commerce clause, and, if necessary, under the post-road clause, of the Constitution.

During the last few years we have taken marked strides in advance along the road of proper regulation of these railroad corporations; but we must not stop in the work. The National Government should exercise over them a similar supervision and control to that which it exercises over national banks. We can do this only by proceeding farther along the lines marked out by the recent national legislation. In dealing with any totally new set of conditions there must at the outset be hesitation and experiment. Such has been our
experience in dealing with the enormous concentration of capital employed in interstate business. Not only the legislatures but the courts and the people need gradually to be educated so that they may see what the real wrongs are and what the real remedies.

Almost every big business concern is engaged in interstate commerce, and such a concern must not be allowed by a dexterous shifting of position, as has been too often the case in the past, to escape thereby all responsibility either to State or to nation. The American people became firmly convinced of the need of control over these great aggregations of capital, especially where they had a monopolistic tendency, before they became quite clear as to the proper way of achieving the control. Through their representatives in Congress they tried two remedies, which were to a large degree, at least as interpreted by the courts, contradictory. On the one hand, under the anti-trust law the effort was made to prohibit all combination, whether it was or was not hurtful or beneficial to the public. On the other hand, through the interstate-commerce law a beginning was made in exercising such supervision and control over combinations as to prevent their
doing anything harmful to the body politic.. . . "

<snip>

". . . This is the view announced from time to time with clamorous insistence, now by a group ol predatory capitalists, now by a group of sinister anarchistic leaders and agitators, whenever a special champion of either class, no matter how evil his general life, is acquitted of some one specific crime.

Such a view is wicked whether applied to capitalist or labor leader, to rich man or poor man; (and by the way, I take this opportunity of stating that all that I have said in the past as to desirable and undesirable citizens remains true, and that I stand by it). We have to take this feeling into account when we are debating whether it is possible to get a conviction in a criminal proceeding against some rich trust magnate, many of whose actions are severely to be condemned from the moral and social standpoint, but no one of whose actions seems clearly to establish such technical guilt as will ensure a conviction. As a matter of expediency, in enforcing the law against a great corporation, we have continually to weigh the arguments pro and con as to whether a prosecution can successfully be entered into, and as to whether we can be successful in a criminal action against the chief individuals in the corporation, and if not whether we can at least be successful in a civil action against the corporation itself.

Any effective action on the part of the Government is always objected to, as a matter of course, by the wrongdoers, by the beneficiaries of the wrongdoers, and by their champions ; and often one of the most effective ways of attacking the action of the Government is by objecting to practical action upon the ground that it does not go far enough. One of the favorite devices of those who are really striving to prevent the enforcement of these laws is to clamor for action of such severity that it can not be undertaken because it will be certain to fail if tried.

An instance of this is the demand often made for criminal prosecutions where such prosecutions would be certain to fail. We have found by actual experience that a jury which will gladly punish a corporation by fine, for instance, will acquit the individual members of that corporation if we proceed against them criminally because of those very things which the corporation which they direct and control has done. . . . "

 

[initforme]

Sorry Back but you lose. 31 grand is a joke,not something to work hard for. It IS a pittance. Just admit it. For that one need show up, no more expected

 

[Woodznutz]

Sorry Back but you lose. 31 grand is a joke,not something to work hard for. It IS a pittance. Just admit it. For that one need show up, no more expected

A single person can build a fortune on 31 grand entry level pay.