• BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]
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      2 years ago

      He started out with a small loan of $250,000 from his parents, in 90s $s if memory serves.

      You’re just a bootlicker aren’t you? Lazy workers could be billionaires if they just tried

        • BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]
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          2 years ago

          250k is a lot of money. It was more even more money in the 90s. Its an exceptionally large amount of money to recieve for free straight from your parents.

          People don’t become billionaires from working. They become billionaires by taking profit from the surplus value of other peoples work.

          But you believe in a propagandized version of capitaliam where everyone could equally become a billionaire, its a meritocracy, you’re all jealous and lazy of our deserving overlords bootlicker bootlicker bootlicker bootlicker bootlicker bootlicker bootlicker

          • Neuromancer
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            12 years ago

            250K isn’t that much money. Maybe to you but to the average person it isn’t.

            You don’t even get how billionaires are made. LOL. They didn’t take the profit from anyone. Amazon doesn’t give a dividend.

            Their wealth is based on the value of the company which is truly arbitrary. Since people are not expecting to make money from a dividend, it’s all made up.

            It is why Amazon could drop in value tomorrow if people felt it wasn’t going to continue to climb in value. The only way to make money is still sell the shares.

            • GnastyGnuts [he/him]
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              442 years ago

              250K isn’t that much money. Maybe to you but to the average person it isn’t.

              Completely out-of-touch.

            • eatmyass [he/him]
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              142 years ago

              since he deleted it, here’s what this loser wrote:

              250k isn’t that much money. Maybe to you but to the average person it isn’t.

              You don’t even get how billionaires are made. LOL. They didn’t take the profit from anyone. Amazon doesn’t give a dividend.

              Their wealth is based on the value of the company which is truly arbitrary. Since people are not expecting to make money from a dividend, it’s all made up.

              It is why Amazon could drop in value tomorrow if people felt it wasn’t going to continue to climb in value. The only way to make money is still sell the shares.

              • brain_in_a_box [he/him]
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                32 years ago

                Their wealth is based on the value of the company which is truly arbitrary

                And this was supposed to be an argument for billionaires deserving their wealth?

            • Tomboys_are_Cute [he/him, comrade/them]
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              362 years ago

              $250,000 isn’t a lot of money to the average person

              Thats literally 5-6x the median annual income what the hell are you smoking. That is a life changing amount of money to most of the country.

              they didn’t take the profit from anyone

              They took that profit from the people working there. Profit is the difference between expenses and income. In order to turn a profit companies cannot pay workers what their work earns the company, there has to be a difference. In economic parlance this difference is referred to as surplus value being generated by the workers for the company. If workers were paid what they were worth then the profit margin of that company would be 0% but those people would all be paid more than they are now. Whether you think the workers are entitled to the full value of what they create is an ideological determination that I will judge you for.

                • Tomboys_are_Cute [he/him, comrade/them]
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                  202 years ago

                  1: didn’t touch that for some reason

                  2: I am aware they ran on venture capital. You didn’t address where they take their profit from now that they’ve achieved their dream near-monopoly status. That status that would have been impossible without their thousands of employees to begin with.

                  • Neuromancer
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                    12 years ago

                    Take their profit? It’s paying the billions in debt they owe Amazon has never declared a dividend.

            • commiecapybara [he/him, e/em/eir]
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              262 years ago

              The average US worker has a salary of $46,800 (in 2018) before taxes. Assuming they saved everything and spent nothing, it would take over 5 years for them to make 250k. Again, this is before taxes, and without spending anything. For the vast majority of people, 250k is a lot of money.

              Assuming they saved everything and spent nothing, the average worker would have to work the entire length of all human history in order to earn a billion dollars. If they were to make as much money as Jeff Bezos, they would have to work for 2.8 million years.

              Assuming you earned a million dollars every year, it would take 1000 years to earn your first billion dollars.

              It’s not possible to become a billionaire simply through working, as humans do not live that long.

                • commiecapybara [he/him, e/em/eir]
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                  222 years ago

                  Exactly. So you agree that it’s impossible to earn and save a billion dollars just by working hard. It requires either exploiting your workers by stealing their surplus value, or by using the market by short-selling, using hedge funds, trading through illegal offshore numbered accounts, derivatives, etc.

                  • Tachanka [comrade/them]
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                    112 years ago

                    or by using the market by short-selling, using hedge funds, trading through illegal offshore numbered accounts, derivatives, etc.

                    Which is also just stealing surplus value by proxy, since return on investment is simply a share of the company’s profits, which is itself just surplus value, or unpaid labor.

                  • Neuromancer
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                    12 years ago

                    I don’t believe workers are exploited. I sell my labor and I can sell it whoever I want for whatever price I want.

                    I’m not exploited at all. In communism I’d Be forced to accept what they think is fair. That’s exploitation.

          • marx_mentat [he/him, comrade/them]
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            42 years ago

            I’m legit trying to figure out the logic that determined which of his posts he should delete and which ones he shouldn’t. Seems like it’s whatever was getting a lot of replies, but also some other random ones for fun?

        • GarbageShoot [he/him]
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          152 years ago

          This is ironically a poor sales pitch, unless you believe that networking, marketing, and familial wealth should be what orders society.

          And I never said that 250k was all they had, and in fact being able to throw that much money at something is going to be less and less of a concern the more money you have, though I don’t think his family was “poor as hell” to start with. Unfortunately for this point, their finances at the time are not publicized that I can find.

          • Neuromancer
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            12 years ago

            It’s all part of how society works.

            Networking is what has grown my career. People know I deliver and that’s why I make what I make.

            I doubt his family was poor as hell but Mine was and could have come up with that. It’s not that much money in the grand scheme of things.

            I’m not fan of bezos and still surprised by his success. It’s a model that somehow he got to work and as a business person I don’t like him.

            But he didn’t steal profits. The company burns cash like crazy and has brief moments of profitability. Yet people keep buying into the Ponzi scheme.

            • GarbageShoot [he/him]
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              252 years ago

              It’s all part of how society works.

              I said should, not does.

              But he didn’t steal profits.

              Back then, he used a considerable amount of money to run at a loss. Nowadays, he does steal a remarkable level of profits in the unpaid wages of the employees who keep winding up in the news for being forced to piss in bottles or drive to work in a hurricane.

        • uralsolo [he/him]
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          192 years ago

          That is how capitalism works.

          Yes. And it is deeply unfair in how it rewards entrenched wealth rather than giving everyone equal opportunities. That’s why socialists are opposed to it.