A second question is whether or not this makes up for how Bezos has gotten his money and the potential damages on society that has. If I burn down a house and then donate to the rebuilding it's still a net negative. The systems that allow people to amass this much wealth need to be looked at critically to see if they really are benefitting society or are just causing increased problems.
As a final note Bezos is getting a lot of negative attention because he's made comments before about how hard it is to get rid of his wealth while seemingly ignoring a lot of really good ways for him to do so. It took years of negative attention to get him moving on causes like this.
Secondly, I don't know if anyone has really quantified how much damage or potential damage Bezos has done in his lifetime, and I would be surprised if it was actually net negative. What honest to god damage has he done? Some people have rough working conditions and are underpaid ( these people are not forced to work at Amazon). I agree that is bad and think they should be paid more and treated better. What did the world benefit though? Everyone gets generally good cheap stuff reliably within a few days to their doorstep, saving millions in man hours yearly.
Specifically, I donate money to (and this is not in any particular order)-
* ACLU * EFF * NAMI * NAACP * BLM * NPR (local affiliate) * Between $40 and $100 a week directly to homeless people.
I also try to volunteer time as well.
What charities do you donate to, and more importantly why is that even relevant to a conversation about what responsibilities people with obscene amounts of wealth should have?
1.2% is not some lofty, unrealistic amount if you are financially secure. The median net worth of Americans by age 55 peaks at $85,000 [1], which comes out to just under $20 per week. If you exclude home equity from net worth, half of Americans under 55 could donate 1.2% for less than $6 per week.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-average-net-worth-...
A poor person giving half their bread to a sick neighbor should be applauded, however, the Church of old providing charity from the king while still promoting the king's divine right to indiscriminate rule should not be.
The large Seattle companies also work in discount deals for housing, which is far from ethical or fair:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/is-it-hou...
People are critical because Amazon has rarely given to charity, or when they do it's something like letting a charity temporally use an existing building before they renovate it:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/amazons-donating-a-buil...
I mean, maybe we shouldn't be so critical if Bezos is legitimately concerned and they're doing something, but I can understand why people are skeptical based on their track record.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-creating...
Disclosure: i work at Amazon.
If I could make a genie wish, it would be that there was a bunch of luxury condo&apt construction for the new residents so that none of the old residents would have any pressure to move. But, I can’t blame the lack of construction on Amazon.
Seattle has had the most cranes in the country for 3 years now [0] and so much new housing has been built prices recently went down [1].
[0]: https://www.seattlepi.com/seattlenews/article/Seattle-three-...
[1]: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/smallest-s...
The alternative is that no one gets raises. That's would be loss for a large number of families and no change for others.
It's not strictly zero-sum because the gains and losses may not exactly offset each other, but one agent's gains still come at the expense of another.
> One family gets a large raise. Another gets a slightly harder time finding affordable housing.
is something to avoid, not strive for.
Wow! "Play a role" has an amazing undertone here; It's Amazon's fault for offering good salaries in Seattle; a better company would offer fewer jobs, at lower salaries, spread out (oh that's what's happening at the warehouses).
Local and State Governments (and the people they represent who are profiting from real estate in San Francisco and Seattle) should not be the distant second you're pointing at here!
Indeed, Amazon HQ2 is considered by many cities to be a giant opportunity for economic growth.
And this is to ignore that Amazon Seattle is located where a previously blighted community was.
Nay, I say, I've considered Seattle as having a higher cost of living since 'You've Got Mail' came out.
In case you don't care to read an article they're just coming off an effort to kill a tax that would have affected them and which was specifically designed to combat homelessness.
OP can clarify if necessary.
I mean it's much easier to donate to charitable causes when you have more than enough for yourself and your family so that's not an apples to apples comparison, but he's also donating less than 1.5% of his wealth. Have I donated that much? No but I think I'm close and I still don't even have enough for my own emergency fund.
So he should donate 99% on that cause and today? No tomorrow, no other worthy causes? Bezos, alone, cannot solve all the world's problems. He should be commended for his donation and willingness to help solve the problem. Haters gonna hate...they can't sleep well at night unless they do that.
It's hard to take charitable giving seriously when someone has run their company in a cutthroat manner for years at the expence of some of the poorest workers.He could do better with his own businesses first.
I hope it works out and does some good but I hope this explains to you why people are cynical.
If someone intentionally gave people AIDS, then volunteered to cover the cost of their pain meds, would you say "Ah, what a great guy!" Or would you go "Oh, really now? Puh-leez!"
As someone who sees the systemic problems that cause homelessness because I have studied it for many years, I'm going "Oh, puh-leez!"
Your framing of the issue is incredibly hard to engage because it presumes those years of study do not exist, aren't a valid basis for my opinion etc.
(Or a slightly more accurate metaphor: They have AIDS, they keep screwing people and refusing to hear they shouldn't and are generously offering to pay for pain killers, but absolutely refuse to stop screwing people.)
Good deeds must be applauded, not shamed for not being better. Especially if the definition of "better" is made up randomly on the spot.