It's not really charity if you have a hand in creating the problem. A thief who pledges to contribute 10% of his loot to help his victims isn't doing good. Likewise a multi-billionaire businessman who employs people at low wages isn't deserving of kudos for setting aside a little of his wealth to help the poor, especially when he could make decisions that would help much more.
No, and if you'd read more closely you'd have realized I didn't do that. I merely used a analogy involving a thief that clearly illustrates one characteristic that's relevant here. Analogies don't map one-to-one onto a topic.
You really should have gotten it, too, since I didn't just stop at the analogy. I went to apply the concept it was meant to illustrate directly to the situation.
Furthermore, the fact that Amazon is a "job creator" doesn't hold it, its labor practices, or the jobs it creates above criticism.
Yes, the act of charity is better than nothing but it seems people think that money might be better spent on improving the quality of the jobs he offers from the dismal self-destruction they are famous for. Also pointing out that donating to charity ends up being tax deductible so it is truly the most selfish public display of giving and that treating your workers with human decency would be a selfless act he seems unwilling to do.
i mean, he still ends up with less money. he just doesn't get taxed on the money he gives away.
one could argue that donating is more tax efficient than paying workers more, because then their income would be taxed.
Eh? Taxing a corporation less is better than having its employees earn more?
although since we're on this topic, I would note that the US already spends as much or more money per grade school student than most of the European countries that we look to as models. this leads me to think that just shoving more tax dollars into the bureaucratic rube goldberg machine might actually be less impactful than a targeted charity effort.
To do that unfortunately he needs exploit. It's not great, but if people are dumb enough to still do the jobs at those rates it's not going to change. The wages would go up if all the people actually created a need for them to go up.
The rich and powerful get their wealth from the masses and significantly impact the lives of the masses. World leaders need the people more than the people need them. An individual with a hard scrabble subsistence existence is similarly well off whether they have a hut and must hunt for food or live in a trailer and have some shit job. But wealth at the top has increased tremendously as world population has increased.
Bezos is not exempt from people getting tired of his crap and he would be wise to listen up and do something more effective.
Articles like the above suggest the rich aren't really aware enough or trying hard enough to avoid a dystopian nightmare future. Their luxuries require a functioning world. Locking themselves away in a bunker like a self imposed prison after they make sure everything goes to hell appears to be their current idiotic plan.
Looking at politics around the world it seems like the world is slowly demonstrating that we learned nothing from the history of the 1930s.
https://politicalgates.blogspot.com/2011/12/citigroup-pluton...
Plus, they give people plenty of distractions to shout at instead of improve their situation. Human nature takes over from there.
It may be "stupidity" rather than malice driving this. What I'm saying is they need to up their game out of enlightened self interest, even if they don't care one bit about the people.
If the de facto pie shrinks due to global mismanagement of resources, the richest of the rich have the most to lose.