This is the same thing that other billionaire did with his fortune. Gave 3 billion “away” to his own charity so his kids could inherit without paying a penny in taxes.
I make under 200k and the highest bracket I hit is 51% of my salary. Warren buffet has paid less than 10% taxes on his entire fortune. They’re playing us, the new cool thing is just to say it’s for the climate.
Bezos pledged 40 billion (maybe 20, can’t remember) I believe in 2019.
To date he has actually donated less than $200 million of it IIRC to any climate-related funds.
It’s just a bold face lie, not even taking his own charity scams into account.
Edit: also side rant: I have gotten a lot of wallstreetbets armchair investors in the past saying “b-b-but muh liquid vs assets, he would crash amazon stock.”
Bezos has liquidated a minimum of $12 billion per year without even a slight blip in amazon stock. PLENTY to fulfil his pledge. People don’t understand the scale of sold shares. The stock market is completely speculative bs. If he liquidated every stock of amazon in a short time after an anouncement like this, investors would absolutely speculate that it would recover, the price would lower for a week or so while every hedge fund in existence rushes to buy every single stock that they have and voila, it would magically recover within a month and bozo would not be a complete lying scumbag. It would probably cause him to be audited though which is every bilionaire’s nightmare because they have all done such shady things and dodges so many taxes for so many years. At least if the IRS had any balls.
It’s tax “brackets”. So from say 20-30k you’re taxed ~21%, the following 30-50k you make is taxed at another amount like 30%, and so forth. The last 30k made from 160-190k is then taxed at 49% (51% because I’m taking a bit more money instead of dumping into my pension fund etc…)
And yeah it’s Canada, but in the province of Quebec, the most taxed province of all (where education is still heavily subsidized/ free for people born there etc…)…
I’ve done this whole exercise on /r/theydidthemath years ago on reddit comparing to the US, and with all the medical insurance garbage they have there like co-pays after deductibles, tax credits, dental, daycares, tolls/infrastructure etc… It amounts to roughly the same as the taxation + private insurance in the US. It just “looks worse” because it’s all mostly up front. I know ex-millionaires in the US who were basically homeless because they had a sick baby who needed to stay in the hospital for a year after birth. It cost them 5 million dollars to keep the baby alive without having to go to court with the insurer. This doesn’t happen in Canada.
I’m fine with it, I just want the rich assholes to pay the same. I live very comfortably, bought a home in February this year and have more than enough.
The thing you drug up about the US hasn’t been a thing for more than a decade. The individual out of pocket limit is $9,450 this year for an individual, and Pregnancy, maternity, and newborn care are considered “essential health benefits” so as long as it was an actual factual real health plan and not something like a health care sharing ministry, there’s no way you’re going in a millionaire and coming out destitute unless you did something phenomenally dumb like demand an NICU be built into your house. Out healthcare is broken in so many ways, but the bandaids do exist on the system.
I have no idea what his situation was, he had full healthcare. There’s the law, and then there’s bringing insurance companies to court over the law. This might have been about a decade ago.
An out-of-pocket maximum is a cap, or limit, on the amount of money you have to pay for covered health care services in a plan year.
The key word being “covered health care services”. This also does not cover their own expenses, loss of salary etc… These laws are intentionally complicated so it’s theoretically possible to be covered, but good fucking luck going through the loops.
Eeee. Youre completing forgetting that he can BORROW against those stocks, and pay a measly interest rate, paying out when it’s convenient through various loops of the tax system. Warren Buffet, even if his worth in billions is not in his pocket, has contributed less than most relative to his income.
Might be Canada, I’m in a similar situation and GTFOing. No way am I going to continue paying this much in tax but still lack quality education and healthcare for our kids.
Yeah instead in the US you get to pay healthcare insurance premiums instead and have the companies try every trick to deny your healthcare claims. And pay who knows how much for your kids education, tens of thousands a year. All so your marginal (not effective) tax rate is what 40% instead? I think you need to recheck your math and your outrage. Don’t forget those expenses are after tax.
Are you/your children Quebec citizens? Education and healthcare are very cheap and accessible. If you’re a foreigner here then yeah it might not be as easy. Healthcare is still free and medicine is subsidized to a minimum of 80%. Also medicine potency is regulated, knock off brands of “advil” are guaranteed to be as potent as the brand name, which is a huge plus and keeps medicine costs very low.
I have a lot of experience with the medical system in canada; my parents both died of cancer, so did my mentor, and were in treatment in the public system the same week they got diagnosed. They didn’t wait months to see specialist like is often thrown around on reddit.
What good does that do when government bans books, defunds schools and persuades people to become parents against their will and then cares more about corps then citizens? and breathe
Maybe the government wouldn’t do those things if they weren’t in the pocket of corporations. Corporations who buy politicians so to create tax loopholes so they don’t have to pay taxes…
I’m so fucking sick of all these billionaires “pledging” their fortunes. “I promise to donate all my wealth when I die” then fucking do it you cowards, die already.
They donate their wealth to avoid taxes. Basically their families control the foundations, they donate and avoid a whole shit ton of taxes their next of kin get the money from the foundation.
They give away all their money so they don’t have to give away some of their money. Then they commit crimes so their kids can… have the money they gave away to not give away.
Eh, Gates is older and has shown more commitment to the idea than most. I still wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him but the foundation has done some good things for a long time. And maybe with fewer self-aggrandizing press stories compared to others.
How do you go and, true to the expression, really throw someone?
Does it imply throwing a human being as we’d throw a log? Perhaps a brick? I’d expect it involves a lot of physical strenght. And does it imply being from a stationary position?
Does throwing someone down a window or from a moving car or perhaps a boat count?
One night I went through Gates’ “Giving Pledge” and I compared the wealth of the people who signed on in 2010 (when they started doing this pledge to give more than half their wealth to charity thing) to their wealth now. The average increase in wealth in those 12 years was like 170%, and the total combined wealth of the 50 or so signees had gone from like 250b to almost 700b. I wanted to make an effort-post with the data and more comprehensive analysis, but I got too busy and mad about it lol.
It’s crazy how profitable “charity” is for the ultra-rich
So many of them are financing “try to live forever with vampirism” style projects so what they’re saying is they want positive PR now just in case they fail… and probably will send their hoards to their eugenics-inspired failsons later anyway.
Like, imagine if Elon Musk actually did spend all the wealth he got from profiting off of the shitshow of COVID and solved climate change. He’d be hailed as a hero and the left would be stuck eating their hats for decades to come. But no, he would rather own the libs because they convinced his daughter to join their side.
They aren't giving their money to other people. They're giving their money to their own charities, either that they created or that they have some control over the board.
They get to take a deduction on their personal taxes the year that they move the money, so they move is slowly based on how much they want to limit their tax liability that year. Good year for amazon = move lots of money. Bad year where he can take a business loss = retain direct control over the cash.
Then when it comes time to spend it, they know what it's getting spent on. Vaccines for the poor like Bill Gates? Buy up pharma stocks. Climate change initiatives? Buy up stock in carbon capture companies, solar companies, etc.
They make this money back, and they get a benefit every time it moves.
No. The government should take it from him as taxes that he avoided. So the people can decide how best to invest it instead of over egomaniac with a history is abusing his people.
To be honest, going all toward climate change seems better than what the government would use it for. That being said, he should definitely pay more taxes.
And if it isn’t done with anti-public stuff on the side. Take bill gates, he funded a Covid vaccine which is great! But strings were attached, namely they were required to patent it. His charity consistently mandates ownership of intellectual property and partnerships with corporations. I fear something similar with bezos. You’re gonna need new technology and a push against overconsumption to do Jack shit against climate change. I fully expect him to not permit that new technology to reject patent or use a copyleft style license agreement. And I don’t believe the owner of Amazon will promote things like creating a society where we only work 20 hours and consume less low quality goods, instead opting for long lasting and repairable things that end up using less natural resources in the long run. Instead I expect him to throw billions at carbon capture, which is needed and can be done responsibly (especially if we build a strategic biofuel reserve), but is also the carbon equivalent of trying to out exercise your fork.
Dude for sure is going to spin up his own charities with lofty mission statements that he “donates” to which exclusively pitch solutions that require a lot of investment in his for-profit endeavors.
Jeff bezos funds a study how to fight climate change. Study finds humanity needs to decrease their usage of energy drastically and stop consumerism as we are doing it right now. Jeff bezos: (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)
You know he’s not really giving it away, right? I bet my bottom dollar that his assets are being transferred to a fund he controls. Because the fund is categorised non-profit, it will receive max tax write-offs.
His ex-wife on the other hand, has given away butt load of money to actual charities.
The majority of our taxes goes to social programs and healthcare. Military spending is insane, but we have to keep in mind that taxing billionaires will absolutely bring benefits to the common folks.
No, the government generally has a plan and definite budget for their money, which includes social programs and infrastructure. You can debate about how good it is, but at least it’s there.
Giving money to a charity directly controlled by them (or their kids, or one of their billionaire friends) might just make that money disappear.
Billionaire philanthropy is as old as robber barons, and has long been a tool of washing the blood off of the legacy of the immensely wealthy.
Cornelius Vanderbilt, often considered the first of the robber barons, built his fortune first with steamboats, using his money borrowed from his parents and vicious business tactics. He later became one of the wealthiest people ever by building a monopoly within the nascent US railroad industry link. He pioneered many of the tactics used by the wealthy to abuse the rest of society for their benefit. A notable instance is the 1877 railroad strike, which occurred in response to him cutting the wages of his rail workers by 20%. As should be utterly unsurprising, he blamed the economy being depressed and encouraged the workers to work harder to improve business. link The strikers were naturally faced by police, militia, and national guard opposition. Around 100 people were killed as a result.
Vanderbilt was not one for philanthropy, but later on life did make some donations to churches (at his wives’ behest), as well as to what is now Vanderbilt university. It’s not an accident that he is remembered as the most reviled of the robber barons, to us now, and during his day.
Andrew Carnegie really was the one who established the trend of the incredibly wealthy giving away money as a method to launder his abuses of his workers and smaller competitors. Carnegie wrote an essay “The Gospel of Wealth” which outlined his belief that it is the duty of the immensely wealthy to give their money away, famously writing “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced” link
However, when we focus on the libraries and schools Carnegie built, we lose sight of the abuses he committed. Andrew Carnegie built his steel empire by savagely undercutting his compittion. He achieved these prices by cutting wages aggressively, crushing unions and forcing workers to work long hours in incredibly unsafe conditions. The Homestead Strike occurred in 1892 in responses to back to back wage cuts. Violence broke out between steel workers and the private strike breaking firm, the Pinkertons, whom Carnegie hired. Seven workers and three Pinkertons were killed. Naturally, the National Guard was called in by Carnegie’s underling Frick to finish the job. link
Two years later, in 1894, McClure’s magazine published a piece by Hamlin Garland, which is fascinating and worth a read link. To quote Hamlin’s guide:
"Yes, the men call this the death-trap… they wipe a man out here every little while… (death comes) all kinds of ways. Sometimes a chain breaks, and a ladle tips over, and the iron explodes–like that… Sometimes the slag falls on the workmen from that roadway up there. Of course, if everything is working all smooth and a man watches out, why, all right ! But you take it after they’ve been on duty twelve hours without sleep, and running like hell, everybody tired and loggy, and it’s a different story".
Bezos, Gates, Buffet, and their ilk very much follow in this same tradition. They spend their lives abusing workers, and destroying the lives of rivals to amass unimaginable wealth, and use philanthropy in their later years to wash the dried blood off of their image. No amount of philanthropy justifies their actions. No human makes that amount of wealth without viciously abusing others.
He just got too much money. He can make all he cares about rich. Buy anything. And still have money left. After he is dead, then giving away to charity will be his legacy. He also get a lot of tax break for this. Now, think about much he is responsible for the climate change by having all these Amazon stores etc.
The only ‘charity’ billionaires ever give is money they would’ve had to lose anyway, and almost always exclusively to themselves. Said donation either funds political causes to directly benefit themselves, goes to an organisation who can then do whatever at the billionaire’s whim, directly advocates for their other business profits, pays them or their family/friends excessive amounts, and is all donated so as to pay no more than they would’ve in tax anyway.
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