A to Z
Sep 19, 2018
Jeff Bezos started Amazon 24 years ago. The company nearly went bankrupt after the dot com crash. It's stock price was at $5 in late 2001. Bezos borrowed billions to keep his company alive. He sold a couple of million shares to raise money for his business enterprises.
Today, Amazon stock price hovers around $2,000. Bezos is the richest man alive. The company employs over half a million workers. Recently, Bezos decided to donate $2 billion to charity. This is the response he got from one economics professor.
Jeff Bezos gave charities he chose $2 billion (just over 1%) of his $164. 566,000 Amazon employees produced his wealth; he alone decides its use. That’s capitalist autocracy, not economic democracy.https://t.co/Syaeq5Snl0
— Richard D. Wolff (@profwolff) 18 September 2018
Bezos owns roughly 17% of Amazon stock. Does this mean that the employees of Amazon have a say in how the millions of other people (who collectively own $830 billion) get to use their Amazon-generated wealth? Of course, not. That would be fucking absurd. Why would anyone even invest in a business when the resulting capital gains are subject to the whims of idiots?
Also, it's funny, how the employees are never subject to the massive downside when a business is failing. What's the worst outcome for an employee? Lose the job; find another job. What's the worst outcome for the employer? Lose the job plus lose millions or billions of dollars in wealth. Good luck starting another business.
Also, this credentialed clown has neither the genius nor the personality to manage a lemonade stand. He can't generate shit. Yet, he'll point at the success stories of our age and yell, "You're doing it wrong!"
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