American billionaires got $434 billion richer during the pandemic

Discussion in 'Current Events' started by Patricio Da Silva, May 25, 2020.

  1. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

    Joined:
    Apr 26, 2020
    Messages:
    31,272
    Likes Received:
    16,943
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    not at issue.
     
  2. Sallyally

    Sallyally Well-Known Member Donor

    Joined:
    Mar 12, 2017
    Messages:
    15,834
    Likes Received:
    28,238
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Female
    Interesting point about inherited wealth.
     
  3. TurnerAshby

    TurnerAshby Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2017
    Messages:
    8,592
    Likes Received:
    5,189
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    I think that's too simplistic imo if a guy like Bezos basically creates a monopoly using Chinese suppliers and products doesn't that make America as a whole more reliant on China? Weakening our ability to effectively negotiate?
     
  4. TurnerAshby

    TurnerAshby Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2017
    Messages:
    8,592
    Likes Received:
    5,189
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    I think that's too simplistic imo if a guy like Bezos basically creates a monopoly using Chinese suppliers and products doesn't that make America as a whole more reliant on China? Weakening our ability to effectively negotiate?
     
  5. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

    Joined:
    Apr 26, 2020
    Messages:
    31,272
    Likes Received:
    16,943
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Strawman
    Strawman
    The pandemic gave Amazon a windfall. It didn't earn that extra business owing to it's business acumen, it has a de facto monopoly and benefited from it because of the pandemic, as the vast number of small shops lost business, they had a negative windfall.

    Should we not transfer some of those windfall positives to the windfall negatives?

    Not all, but some?

    No, I'm suggesting that the windfall portion would be transferred, not the normal profits portion.

    That's "IF" there is a bona fide windfall. I'm assuming there was a windfall, but it would have to be proven, of course.

    It wouldn't affect prices, therefore.

    Recall the 'windfall profits tax' during Carter.

    Yes, I know there is a debate, the right is going to nitpick on what 'windfall' means, in an effort to chip away at the idea of, how dare us, of wanting to right a wrong in the market place, there will always be a debate, when it comes to taxing the excesses of the rich.

    See, rich people ( and people who wish they were rich ) will always holler at guys like me as'
    "why do you hate rich people so much".

    Nah, we see the rich getting away with lot of crap, and we seek to do something about it.

    You guys don't care, because the rich has gotten the poor and middle class right to believe that they, too, someday, 'might' be rich, so vote against dems.

    You've been duped.
     
  6. Fangbeer

    Fangbeer Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Apr 13, 2011
    Messages:
    10,670
    Likes Received:
    3,709
    Trophy Points:
    113
    What in the heck does voting by mail have to do with exploitation or windfall profit? It's not time to change the subject. It's time to support your claim.
     
  7. fmw

    fmw Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 21, 2009
    Messages:
    37,779
    Likes Received:
    14,565
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Firstly, Amazon is not a monopoly. You can buy everything they sell elsewhere. I compete against Amazon and I do just fine. Secondly, Amazon sells products made in virtually every country that makes products. In my opinion we shouldn't negotiate with China. We should simply stop doing business with it.
     
  8. TurnerAshby

    TurnerAshby Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2017
    Messages:
    8,592
    Likes Received:
    5,189
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    But we dont because some corporations use Chinese manufacturing exclusively. So when it comes time to negotiate important things we are at a disadvantage. Ala Pfizer etc using Chinese suppliers to make medicine.

    I didn't mean monopoly in a strict sense btw but realistically those amazon Ebay etsy's use a large majority of Chinese products. It helps their bottom line but on certain products it makes us more leveraged when negotiating
     
  9. fmw

    fmw Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 21, 2009
    Messages:
    37,779
    Likes Received:
    14,565
    Trophy Points:
    113
    The solution, as I said, is simply to stop doing business with China. Give the businesses fair warning that we plan to outlaw imports from China on a given date and then make it happen. There are many many places on the planet available for cost effective labor. One of them is right next door in Mexico which is our largest single trading partner. Mexico doesn't have a program to destroy the U.S. It is friendly country, unlike China.
     
  10. TheImmortal

    TheImmortal Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 16, 2013
    Messages:
    11,880
    Likes Received:
    2,867
    Trophy Points:
    113
    I’m not interested in anything that racist toolbag Robert Reich has to say. He instituted his racist ideology into our economy during Obama’s tenure. Thanks but no thanks.
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2020
  11. Matt84

    Matt84 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 29, 2015
    Messages:
    5,896
    Likes Received:
    2,472
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    They need a tax cut!
     
  12. SiNNiK

    SiNNiK Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 14, 2014
    Messages:
    10,432
    Likes Received:
    4,547
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Success is a good thing.
     
  13. David Landbrecht

    David Landbrecht Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 9, 2018
    Messages:
    2,006
    Likes Received:
    1,163
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    It will be good if we succeed in resolving this problem peacefully. The health of the republic is definitely at stake;
     
  14. Cubed

    Cubed Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Mar 28, 2012
    Messages:
    17,964
    Likes Received:
    4,953
    Trophy Points:
    113
    I think one of the issues here is this lack of nuance WRT stock holders vs liquid wealth.

    Bezos and Zuckerberg and those like them are rich, but their "net worth" is based on the stock values that rise and fall. Heck, Ben Shapiro was on the "top 1%" list at one point.

    Neither Zuck nor Bezos could liquidate their stock to gain that level of money and if they tried, the price would crater anyway.

    That said, it's easy to focus on such high profile individuals like this due to the staggering numbers beside their names but the real issue is the vast number of people at that level and just below it, who don't get the same recognition but have the same level of ability to avoid their part of the nebulous "social contract" which has been exposed in things like the Panama Papers (the journalist who dropped that bomb on the world got blown up in her vehicle for her troubles) that show the massive network of back room individuals who should be gone after for their abuse of the system that the average individual ends up having to make up for.

    It will require wholesale change in accounting and oversight that is simply never going to be done because this lessknown class of individual enjoys the majority of politicians in its ranks. My own countries majority parties Finance Minister was named in the aforementioned Panama Papers. And they, as the "Liberals" are supposed to be the ones who would deal with this but even they are corrupted.
     
  15. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

    Joined:
    Apr 26, 2020
    Messages:
    31,272
    Likes Received:
    16,943
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male

    Well, we certainly can't correct problems if y'all put your collective heads in the sand and deny it's happening.

    Windfall isn't 'exploitation' pe se, it's an unexpected and unfair gain.

    Any time any agency, individual, in places of responsibility, decide to investigate anything, you could levy the same 'imagined' charge.

    That's just a cheap rhetorical device on your part to puff yourself up, and shame those who otherwise could be doing valid investigative work.

    No one likes to be challenged, investigated, and that's why they whine when it happens, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't investigate.

    Your point of 'fail' attributed to me is a ruse. All I was doing was asking questions about windfall profits, and asking whether or not we, as a society, should do anything about them, are they fair? etc.

    You can argue to the parameters given, saying "no, we should keep the government out of it" and "yes, they are fair" etc ( after all, I was asking that question) but no, you have to lower the conversation and assume I had some specific point whereupon 'windfall' occurs, which was not my purpose ( I'd leave that to a commission to study the issue) and because I didn't provide that particular answer, your cheap trick is to say that I 'failed', Well, i hate to disabuse your false debate tricks, but one cannot fail at something where one wasn't attempting it in the first place.

    I think the evidence is quite clear Amazon has made a windfall profit at the expense of the many smaller shops across the land who were forced to close. I would propose a commission to look into it, decide, based on evidence, whether or not a windfall occurred (I accept that a mere presumption is not enough ), whether or not transfers can be justified to those who were victims of the pandemic, etc., and perhaps the vast amount of funds paid out by the government to those that have been victims of the pandemic can be recovered from those who benefitted the most. To say that because I, personally, don't have the specific answer to that question is a'fail' is ludicrous, when, in no way, shape, or form, was that my purpose for bringing this thread. You can't fail at something where there was no attempt.

    I should think that fact of the windfall is rather obvious and the simple counter to your cheap rhetorical 'imagined" argument is that you are imagining that a windfall profit did not occur when it is obvious that it did. But, I would leave it to a commission of experts to make final determinations ( if I were the president ).
     
  16. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

    Joined:
    Apr 26, 2020
    Messages:
    31,272
    Likes Received:
    16,943
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    He's not a racist, nor can you refute his statements.
     
  17. Doofenshmirtz

    Doofenshmirtz Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Jan 21, 2016
    Messages:
    28,023
    Likes Received:
    19,312
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Just to keep things in prospective, you are superrich using a global standard. Whatever argument is good for them is good for you. How much of what you have should be taken to help others around the world?
     
  18. SiNNiK

    SiNNiK Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 14, 2014
    Messages:
    10,432
    Likes Received:
    4,547
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Other people's income is not my problem.
     
  19. TheImmortal

    TheImmortal Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 16, 2013
    Messages:
    11,880
    Likes Received:
    2,867
    Trophy Points:
    113
    He’s easily refuted in fact. I might even waste my time doing so here in a little while.

    But he most certainly is racist, he declared that the funding for Obama’s stimulus package should not go to white males and singled out construction workers specifically.

    He is, in fact, the reason I started researching into all the ways the government explicitly discriminates against white people.
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2020
  20. Fangbeer

    Fangbeer Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Apr 13, 2011
    Messages:
    10,670
    Likes Received:
    3,709
    Trophy Points:
    113
    You're begging the question. Prove your premise please.
     
    BuckyBadger likes this.
  21. Paul7

    Paul7 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2012
    Messages:
    15,854
    Likes Received:
    11,608
    Trophy Points:
    113
    The government's only duty is to ensure equality of opportunity. There will never be equality of outcomes.
     
    BuckyBadger likes this.
  22. BuckyBadger

    BuckyBadger Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 15, 2018
    Messages:
    12,354
    Likes Received:
    11,778
    Trophy Points:
    113
    I am too, I moved money into treasuries and still made almost 3% overall and then bought back stocks I sold for half of what they were before and when things rebound, I will have doubled a good portion of my net worth.

    Being smart and having exit plans just means taking the time to get a good financial manager and doing some research.

    This whole "billionaires are evil" thread seems a bit like soar grapes.
     
    struth likes this.
  23. struth

    struth Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 3, 2018
    Messages:
    33,519
    Likes Received:
    17,956
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Being smart and being bitter is a big deal
     
    BuckyBadger likes this.
  24. Oh Yeah

    Oh Yeah Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Aug 17, 2010
    Messages:
    5,093
    Likes Received:
    2,636
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    I've always had good luck with Amazon. Cannot say that about a company that has plastered ads all over the internet selling drones for $99.00. Figured if I was cooped up I would order one to see what the rest of the world was doing. Still waiting for something that was suppose to be here in a week. Going down tomorrow and filing a complaint.
    They claim it's shipped USPS but USPS hasn't seen it. I think 7 weeks has been long enough.
     
  25. David Landbrecht

    David Landbrecht Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 9, 2018
    Messages:
    2,006
    Likes Received:
    1,163
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Power corrupts. Money is power.
     
    Sallyally likes this.

Share This Page