So here’s an idea that arrived in my in-box this morning:

Billionauts must pre-pay a modest (for them) fee to come back down to Earth. We can call it the Billionaire Astronaut Reentry Fee — BARF, for short.

• How much is the BARF?

• 10% of the billionaut’s net worth as estimated by Forbes’ “Real-Time Billionaire List” at the time of their launch.

• For Bezos, the BARF would be $20.2 billion. He can afford it. His net worth went up more than that in just the past three months.

• Note: the BARF would apply only to billionauts themselves, not to sub-billionaire passengers or crew.

• As it happens, Public Citizen has calculated that it would take $25 billion — just a little more than the Bezos BARF — to vaccinate enough people around the world to end the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Right on Fr. Bill. You da man!

For a pretty level-headed, and funny opinion piece on this phenomenon, I can recommend watching ALL of this, although warning there is some swearing in it:

 

5 hours ago, n4gix said:

So here’s an idea that arrived in my in-box this morning:

Billionauts must pre-pay a modest (for them) fee to come back down to Earth. We can call it the Billionaire Astronaut Reentry Fee — BARF, for short.

• How much is the BARF?

• 10% of the billionaut’s net worth as estimated by Forbes’ “Real-Time Billionaire List” at the time of their launch.

• For Bezos, the BARF would be $20.2 billion. He can afford it. His net worth went up more than that in just the past three months.

• Note: the BARF would apply only to billionauts themselves, not to sub-billionaire passengers or crew.

• As it happens, Public Citizen has calculated that it would take $25 billion — just a little more than the Bezos BARF — to vaccinate enough people around the world to end the global COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Bezos has given a job to 1 298 000 people, is it not enough as a reentry fee ?

Edited July 21, 20214 yr by Dominique_K

The way I see it, if you get $100 you could give that $100 to a charity, or you could use that $100 to make another $100 and give 10% (or $20) of that to charity.

Then take your $180 left over and use that to make $360, then give $36 to charity

Then take your $324 left over and use that to make $648, then give $64.8 to charity

Then take your $583 left over and use that to make $1166, then give $116.6 to charity.....

The point of this is just giving $100 to a charity is always the worst idea, the best idea has always been to invest your money, and make more money so that way you can give even more to charity over time.

You can like these billionaires or not, but the reality is this is exactly what they have always been doing, and with whatever they have left for themselves after decades of doing this kind of growth absolutely they should use that to go to space or whatever else they want to do

4 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

Bezos has given a job to 1 298 000 people, is it not enough as a reentry fee ?

 

That would be a difficult calculation. You would have to account for underpaying Amazon staff, Amazon not paying enough tax and offset that with the amount he has given charities and any benefits that will be manifest by his endeavours in space. Tricky calculation.

4 minutes ago, martin-w said:

 

That would be a difficult calculation. You would have to account for underpaying Amazon staff, Amazon not paying enough tax and offset that with the amount he has given charities and any benefits that will be manifest by his endeavours in space. Tricky calculation.

oh its not tricky at all !  Bottom line is  that Amazon gives a job to 1.3 million people and, I suppose, as many families.  He has brought to me a gigantic bookshop akin to a modern Alexandria library. In my French  village, I can order any book in the languages I read that I couldn't find even in Paris (1,000 km from where i live) and buy stuff I want that I couldn't find but in very large cities of my region. It doesn't pay taxes to the State Juggernaut ? Good for him, he is smarter than me

Don't hate the players hate the game...  The guy had the vision, drive and ability to create an empire that most of us myself included could not fathom.  He has probably given more of himself to that company than most of us have given to any job in our working lives.  He put his entire life into something and built it into something our brains can barely even process.  Now he's taking on UPS, Fedex, the mail and changing deliveries forever!  Do you remember what a weekend delivery USED to cost?  Now Saturday and Sunday deliveries are commonplace.  Do you remember when a small business had no reach outside it's own communities, now they have global visibility and endless opportunity.  

You can hate the players but don't diminish what they have done or belittle them for having a drive that 99% of the world doesn't...   F me, we are talking about people who built a private space program here, who changed the way we live.  Bezos launched a private recovery effort to retrieve the Saturn rockets from the ocean floor he is so passionate about this.  

Honestly, I spend a lot of time around billionaires and I will tell you 95% of them work harder than what most of us would ever imagine.  Spending time with these people has completely changed my opinion of them as most of them have a work ethic that is just different to the rest of us.  Whenever I don't want to do something in my business life I think about these guys with all the money in the world who still get up and do it everyday when quite frankly they don't have to anymore...  

23 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

oh its not tricky at all !  Bottom line is  that Amazon gives a job to 1.3 million people and, I suppose, as many families.  He has brought to me a gigantic bookshop akin to a modern Alexandria library. In my French  village, I can order any book in the languages I read that I couldn't find even in Paris (1,000 km from where i live) and buy stuff I want that I couldn't find but in very large cities of my region. It doesn't pay taxes to the State Juggernaut ? Good for him, he is smarter than me

 

 

I don't agree or disagree with you and like you I love the benefits of Amazon. Just saying its a difficult calculation.

Just playing devils advocate but he may provide a job for those people but is it really laudable if they are under paid and on the breadline? 

And Bezos doesn't help with his comments, he needs better PR. After his flight he thanked all of the customers of Amazon and all Amazon staff and said "you paid for this". As you can imagine, Amazon workers who are under paid and over worked are furious. 

17 minutes ago, psolk said:

Honestly, I spend a lot of time around billionaires and I will tell you 95% of them work harder than what most of us would ever imagine.

 

Absolutely they do, and the services they provide are very beneficial. But does that negate the fact that they pay the workers a pittance so they are on the breadline and can barely survive and does it negate the fact that they don't pay billions in taxes they should pay? Is it right that we should applaud the services they provide and ignore the under paid workers who are exploited? Is that selfishness? 

Edited July 21, 20214 yr by martin-w

23 minutes ago, martin-w said:

 

Absolutely they do, and the services they provide are very beneficial. But does that negate the fact that they pay the workers a pittance so they are on the breadline and can barely survive and does it negate the fact that they don't pay billions in taxes they should pay? 

The alternative is these jobs don't exist and the breadline is millions of people longer...  This isn't new, every executive in the world has made their money off the backs of their employees.  

As for taxes, again hate the game that gave them the opportunity to play the system not the person taking advantage of the loopholes that are in place for them...  

Heck, my tax rate is higher than any of these billionaires including our current President who took in 17M in the 4 years after he left office...  THAT bothers me more than ANY of these CEO's quite frankly.  Maybe when politicians can't profit off of their positions we will really see change but I doubt it because they are the most hypocritical bunch out there... 

Heck, Blue Origin was started 21 years ago and he made it happen.  I can ONLY admire that... 

Edited July 21, 20214 yr by psolk

31 minutes ago, martin-w said:

 

Absolutely they do, and the services they provide are very beneficial. But does that negate the fact that they pay the workers a pittance so they are on the breadline and can barely survive and does it negate the fact that they don't pay billions in taxes they should pay? Is it right that we should applaud the services they provide and ignore the under paid workers who are exploited? Is that selfishness? 

Do they employ also starving 7 year-old kiddos to transport huge boxes in their warehouses 😄 ? In France and many other countries there are legal minimum wages that are well above the poverty line and, If I am not mistaken, Amazon in the US pays a 15 USD/hour minimum wage, a traditional Democrat demand. The Federal minimum wage is half of that.

Amazon taxes : this is a hot issue in France. Again the bottom line is that taxing more Amazon means taxing more me as the tax will trickle down to the price. 

Anyway, and as this thread was initiated by a simming clergyman 😁, I will cite Thomas Sowell about sins : "Envy was once considered to be one of the seven deadly sins before it became one of the most admired virtues under its new name, 'social justice.'"

Edited July 21, 20214 yr by Dominique_K

15 minutes ago, psolk said:

The alternative is these jobs don't exist and the breadline is millions of people longer...  

 

Not exactly. If they are on the breadline now, they will still be on the breadline if sacked.

So do you think it's right that a company making billions in profit who could pay their workers more, who could provide better working conditions, fails to do so?

You say "it's the "system that at fault and they are exploiting it, which is true, but do you think its morally right for a company to do that?

24 minutes ago, martin-w said:

 

Absolutely they do, and the services they provide are very beneficial. But does that negate the fact that they pay the workers a pittance so they are on the breadline and can barely survive and does it negate the fact that they don't pay billions in taxes they should pay? Is it right that we should applaud the services they provide and ignore the under paid workers who are exploited? Is that selfishness? 

Geez, do you wear clothes?  Ever bought sneakers?  Is it selfish for me to wear clothes because they were made by underpaid workers in China and India?  Am I selfish?  Seriously, unless you haven't bought anything from China or India in the past 50 years then you're (not you personally, using  You're in the general term) not in a position to criticize CEO's for making money off their employees.  

Do you buy anything from Apple?  How about that Steve Jobs becoming a billionaire off sweat shop labor...  How about all of those athletes making millions in endorsements wearing sneakers made by people earning pennies?  How about those politicians who are millionaires because they were elected officials and never did a word not allowed thing to further our society in their lives.  

Seems to me people are being a bit hypocritical here over a few individuals who are in the headlines while ignoring the masses, history and their own contributions over the years to a broken model.  

1 minute ago, martin-w said:

 

Not exactly. If they are on the breadline now, they will still be on the breadline if sacked.

So do you think it's right that a company making billions in profit who could pay their workers more, who could provide better working conditions, fails to do so?

You say "it's the "system that at fault and they are exploiting it, which is true, but do you think its morally right for a company to do that?

I don't judge the morality of a society I contribute to because it would make me a hypocrite.  I try to do what "I" can to give back and be giving, charitable and a good person but recognize I am part of this system too and also recognize if I did advance to a CEO position it would be because of YEARS of working my butt off and no one has the right to begrudge me my success.