[banach]

How much he worked has nothing to do with what he is earning - there are people working three jobs out there who barely make ends meet. The page illustrates the absurd level of inequality our society has reached, a level that pure numbers are useless at illutrating.

[altern8]

Well, my main point was that he started one of the world's biggest companies.

How many people can do that? Not me.

[gambiting]

Sure, but let me ask you this - do you think there should be any limit to how much wealth can one person own? Like, to take it to the extreme - say Bezos owned every single media corporation, evey factory and every farm in the US, buying it with his "hard earned" money - would that be fine? Like, he started one of the world's largest companies, why shouldn't be allowed to own everything, right? What if he(completely legally) starts giving hundreds of millions of dollars to politicans so they just start doing what he wants instead of what their constituents want? Is that ok too?

I think we can both agree that hard work and one of a kind achievement like this should be rewarded. But I suspect we will disagree on whether the reward should have a limit or not. I don't want Bezos to give up his wealth and live on 50k/year. But I don't want him to be so wealthy he can influence politics both home and abroad.

[altern8]

No, there shouldn't be a limit. If there's a limit it means that somebody needs to decide what limit that is, and steal whatever is over the limit by force. I'm for freedom.

Should he be able to won every single media corporation? He shouldn't and he can't, because there are laws to protect against monopolies. Same thing for factories and farms.

Should he control politicians? No, but in theory people still control politicians since they can vote them out. If there's a problem where politicians are willing to get bribed, perhaps the solution would be to impose more transparency and harsher penalties for that.

[gambiting]

>> If there's a problem where politicians are willing to get bribed

The problem is that bribery is completely legal in the United States, donating money to a PAC is completely legal and without a limit. I'm not talking about money under the table in a suitcase kind of thing - I'm talking about the situations like recent OpenAI donation of $25M to Trump's PAC - do you think after such donation he is more likely to do what OpenAI wants, or what his voters want? It's not even about Trump specifically - the entire American system is structured in such a way that this is allowed, billionaries from both sides donate to politicians to help them win and achieve their goals, this is the real power of the money they make and this is the problem I have with it.

>> I'm for freedom.

Someone already decides that you pay taxes on the money you make, and presumably will come and take it from you by force if you don't pay - the only difference is the percentage value. Or are you commenting from somewhere that doesn't have a functional tax system?

[Garlef]

> How many people can do that?

The answer is simple: By definition only about 100-300 people.

There's only 100 of the "worlds biggest companies" (assuming this refers to the top 100). And companies are usually started by 1-3 people.

Similarly: There's usually only 4 participants in the top 4 of a tournament bracket.

(The question is a bit: what does "can" even mean in this context and the answer im hinting at here: It's not individual skill that creates companies ex-nihilo. It's our economic system that produces companies.)

[dudefeliciano]

He also avoids paying taxes, and commits labor and privacy law violations. Who can do that? Not me.