Worst billionaire to have become even more stupidly wealthy since the start of the pandemic – a poll

Jeff Bezos added $13,000,000,000 to his fortune in a single day during the pandemic. https://t.co/qTeZtqBkD4

— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) December 19, 2020

Elon Musk is the one I personally hate the most but Zuckerberg has probably done more to accelerate the demise of Western civilization than anyone on the planet

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Close!

Might need a rerun now.

Buh-bye:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/feb/02/jeff-bezos-amazon-ceo-resigns-steps-down

Zuck still the worst imo.

also the person that replaces Jeff will be worse

i'm sure andy jassy is a sweetheart, looking forward to the new Amazon!

i think we'll probably be hearing a lot more from bezos. he still owns washington post, blue origin, other shit, and will probably be announcing some new thing that fucking blows tomorrow

Not being all that informed, I thought this was pretty good:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/feb/03/jeff-bezos-and-the-world-amazon-made

Why do ppl think Zuck is worse than Bezos? Bezos is responsible for a shit ton of people in dreadfully paid, terrible jobs and destroys small businesses with his tactics.

Bezos would be pleased to control a plurality of all business on the planet, and a functional slavedriver, but seems to genuinely believe that journalism should still exist. Zuckerberg is actively attempting to destroy humanity's access to information, and to dismantle democracy, and has been appallingly successful at it so far.

― huge rant (sic), Sunday, December 20, 2020 1:52 PM (one month ago)

It's hard to decide for me. Bezos does seem like a megalomaniac who wants to be King of the World - which at least is pretty easy to understand - but Zuckerberg just seems to want to destroy the whole world for some nebulous reason, like the Joker, but without the likeability.

Zuck seems like he’d be a 4Chan incel if he hadn’t gotten lucky.

I'd like to think we have the Trillbillies to thank for this

were they the originators of KJB?

Addendum:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/10/worlds-top-15-hedge-fund-managers-made-232bn-in-total-last-year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Orlbo9WkZ2E

Jeff Bezos ruins everything. https://t.co/l9N0W3kZ7k pic.twitter.com/8ueuljNZRY

— Hillary Kelly (@HillaryKelly) March 11, 2021

Fuck you, Jeff.

The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax

"Turns out that many of the ultra wealthy pay NO income taxes for entire years— Soros three times, Bezos and Icahn twice, Musk and Bloomberg once. Bezos one year even claimed a $4000 child credit."

Buffett being on this list should end any "he's one of us" talk from misguided 99%-ers who like his pseudo-Dem railings against his own kind. in response he said "I still believe the rich should be taxed more", I guess he just doesn't wanna do so voluntarily, eh?

Soros had to avoid taxes due to all of the fees he owed antifa

The IRS records show that the wealthiest can — perfectly legally — pay income taxes that are only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions, if not billions, their fortunes grow each year.

That's because in the US we do not tax wealth, we tax income. If your stock portfolio goes up $100 billion (unrealized gains), that is not considered income. The hit comes when you cash out, though I'm sure these dudes know how to get out of a lot of that, too.

Yes, that is the premise of the article.

But not the headline (these super rich people don't pay taxes!) that's making the rounds.

Like f'ing duh...they got to get something for those politicians they buy up after all they are 'smart business people'.

With interest rates being kept near zero forever, it's pretty much a license to print money if you got money.

When you have that amount of insane net worth in equity you effectively never need to sell, and you get taxed on the tiny yield of dividends, which is an tinier percentage of your wealth.

That tiny amount of capital gains can probably be written off with business losses, but I don't know much about that - I imagine there are many loopholes to make your effective tax rate 0%.

Buffett paying the least makes sense in this light - from what I understand of his philosophy he likely is a less active trader than other billionaires, so even less capital gains from sales are taxable.

Ah yeah, they go into it later in the article - Berkshire doesn't even give out dividends at all. I like this quick animated explainer on "Buy, Borrow, Die" too.

Hey, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates... What can you do to leapfrog over these other assholes as the worst people on this list? I know! Build nuclear reactors!

https://interestingengineering.com/bill-gates-and-warren-buffett-team-up-for-1-billion-next-gen-nuclear-reactor

Reminder that current estimates of wealth inequality are highly conservative, because of tax avoidance

Even Forbes (which researchers use for billionaires, due to the lack of public statistics) missed this... $5 billion (!) retirement accounthttps://t.co/WuK5OPTgPb

— Gabriel Zucman (@gabriel_zucman) June 24, 2021

I have a feeling if this poll were re-run today, Musk would win handily.

was gonna say

Zuckerberg's a weirdo but he's extremely philanthropic, Bezos buys yachts the size of cruise ships

Infuriating when I order something off eBay and it shows up in an Amazon box/bag, happened more times that I can count

I reuse boxes, what can I say?