Bezos's new super-mega-yacht

No, of course problems won’t magically fix themselves. And, really, Z, Dems do not subscribe to supply-side economics. They never did and they likely never will, so please stop throwing trickle-down at everybody.

The majority of self-made millionaires and billionaires in this country did not build their wealth from having the right genes or being born in the right families. Luck? I don’t know what you mean by luck. Building a successful business rarely depends on luck.

I know you get extremely frustrated by what you perceive as indifference and defense of the status quo, but understand, too, that everything is a trade-off and fairness is a subjective concept. What I’m willing to trade for something and what I consider fair is not what someone else thinks is acceptable, and vice versa. Magnify that by millions of people and millions of companies. Even our own party is not in agreement on how to pay for big plans which include investments in workers.

It doesn’t mean we’ll just throw up our hands and say nothing can be done (which is essentially what you said to me on the other thread). It doesn’t mean that tax reforms aren’t necessary. The rise in economic inequality we’re experiencing is a complex problem that spans a multitude of areas – education costs, regulation/deregulation, monetary policies, automation, technology, outsourcing, political power, global competition, on and on.

You can’t mitigate a complex problem like that with an overly-simplistic approach of transferring billions from the wealthy to the working class. Yes, taxation policies should be reformed so we get a fairer distribution of the burden and we get the revenue needed to improve the lives of the majority. But at some point, whether we want to admit it or not, when their taxes become too punitive, they will transfer that capital someplace else. With that capital go the jobs and the revenue.  Finding that tricky balance is just that--tricky...and fraught with unintended consequences.  That’s why I don’t really like oversimplifying issues like this.

I don't care about his yacht but good for all the boat builders who can get back to work.

I'm failing to see why anyone cares about this. Go live your life.

You don’t pay the marginal tax rate. If your taxable income is $60,000 and you’re writing a check to Uncle Sam based on the portion of taxable income at the highest marginal tax rate of 22%, I highly recommend you switch accountants.

It's clear you're super passionate about this, but I'm not in the mood for a hyper aggressive discussion about the harm that might come if Jeff Bezos paid taxes like the rest of us.

I meant "we" - societally, generally, royally.

Again, have a nice weekend.

Forgive me for misreading your tone. I tend not to post long missives with many exclamation points unless I am very passionate about a subject. Your responses on this thread made me think is something you feel strongly about.

I very much dislike Lauren Sanchez.  She was on a morning show in LA and I could not stand her.

I totally agree. Where I live it takes me about a week to get anything with Amazon Prime. Sometimes I can just run down to the feed store or go 15 minutes down the road to the local hardware store and pick up what I need. Most of the time, the cost difference is negligible. For example, my horse's priobiotics are $14.99 on Amazon. They are $17 at the feed store. I happily buy them at the feed store every month.

I can only hope it sinks with him on it.

eta:  it was a joke.  sorry if it offended some.

That's just gross.

To point out, we do not have a state income tax in WA, even though we have both Gates and Bezos. We also tried as a city to tax Amazon to help address homelessness and he basically bought off the mayor to avoid it.