a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment
kleinbl00  ·  1327 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: A message from Jeff Bezos: April 06, 2021

Amazon "vocally" supports Amazon Smile, a "sure we give to charity which charity do you want" program that is marketed 100% to Amazon shoppers as look - don't feel bad for shopping at Amazon, we give half a percent cash back to the charity of your choice BUY MORE.

This means that Amazon gave out $215m to charities... over seven years. Meanwhile, Amazon's sales revenue last year was $386b, and $1.48 trillion since 2013...

...putting Amazon's "vocal" charitable giving at 0.0000145%.

But then, you asked about "social programs". As an organization, they gave $30k to the DCCC. It's been pointed out that they pay $15 an hour, but it's also been pointed out that they do this because Bernie Sanders made a scene.

Back when The Everything Store wasn't called a hagiography of Jeff Bezos, you'd hear commentary along the lines of Amazon toeing the law, but also using every advantage provided by their position to the fullest extension of the law. Jeff Bezos has vocally called for patent reform, but has also said that he'll utilize every loophole in patent law as it exists.

It's a very Chicago School argument - Milton Friedman said in as many words that if people actually cared about the environment, they'd make it harder to pollute and the fact that our patchwork of laws makes it super easy is a sign that Rational Economic Man wants to drink PCBs.

So realistically, the way to get more money out of magacorps like Amazon is to tax the shit out of megacorps. And then make it illegal to offshore their profits through clever tax strategy.

Which, I mean, makes sense. It's been pointed out for 50 years that any publicly traded corporation has an obligation to its shareholders to behave in the most sociopathically profit-seeking manner possible. Don't want sociopathic corporations? Make them unprofitable.