Jeff Bezos says we are heading towards recession and to hold off on big purchases

[belamyi]

Charities are supposed to help. They have no power to fix. It's like expecting religion to fix sin.

I guess his point was whether there couldn't have been a way to turn poverty-soothing into some sort of regular business, and use the usual legal, proper swindling gimmick (provide crap in exchange for money) for the benefit of the needier, rather than the greedier ones.

 

[KaraBulut]

I guess his point was whether there couldn't have been a way to turn poverty-soothing into some sort of regular business, and use the usual legal, proper swindling gimmick (provide crap in exchange for money) for the benefit of the needier, rather than the greedier ones.

I think what is missing is that Bezos isn't giving to charity. He's giving money to people who are involved in charities. He's calling them "awards".

So far, Bezos gave money to José Andrés who runs the World Central Kitchen (they're the people who show up and prepare hot meals in Florida or the Ukraine, et al when there's a humanitarian crisis. Bezos gave the money to Andrés, not to his charity.

Ditto for Dolly. He gave the money to her. Since she has plenty of her own money, she'll likely donate the money to her charities, but she doesn't have to. Hopefully she won't use it for big purchases.

 

[belamyi]

I think what is missing is that Bezos isn't giving to charity. He's giving money to people who are involved in charities. He's calling them "awards".

So far, Bezos gave money to José Andrés who runs the World Central Kitchen (they're the people who show up and prepare hot meals in Florida or the Ukraine, et al when there's a humanitarian crisis. Bezos gave the money to Andrés, not to his charity.

Ditto for Dolly. He gave the money to her. Since she has plenty of her own money, she'll likely donate the money to her charities, but she doesn't have to. Hopefully she won't use it for big purchases.

How couldn't I know about that national pride and treasure Pepandré.

 

[belamyi]

AMAZON: TOO BIG NOT TO FAIL... particularly in America, America.

 

[TheLoveableLoner]

I thought this was interesting that on the news I saw Jeff Bezos will be giving away most of his fortune to charity He gave Dolly Parton foundation 100 million. He also said in his interview you should save your money because we are going into a recession and to hold off on big purchases. I'm pretty shocked the CEO of Amazon would ever say this but hey I'll take it. Meanwhile then I saw another news story that said he was laying off 10,000 workers. If you want to give your money away to charity why not keep the workers and not lay them off? However I am glad he is going money to charity.

I'm not shocked that he would say this at all.

If you're putting off big purchases, but want to make smaller ones cheaply, what better place to go than Amazon? Bezos will make a killing off of this recession just like he did with COVID.

 

[me203]

I'm not shocked that he would say this at all.

If you're putting off big purchases, but want to make smaller ones cheaply, what better place to go than Amazon? Bezos will make a killing off of this recession just like he did with COVID.

Very true!

And not spending much locally could mean businesses close--which could, one way or another, mean more business long term for Amazon.

Why don't we as a country just all face reality, and shut everything down except Wal-Mart (for local shopping) and Amazon? That's the direction it's going, and we might as well be efficient and just get it done with.

 

[belamyi]

Very true!

And not spending much locally could mean businesses close--which could, one way or another, mean more business long term for Amazon.

Why don't we as a country just all face reality, and shut everything down except Wal-Mart (for local shopping) and Amazon? That's the direction it's going, and we might as well be efficient and just get it done with.

That burden would crush them: actually, what is happening is precisely that with a global bitch like AMZ, while Walmart can (relatively) sustain being bigger than global Carrefour by merely playing local in North America... but if Walmart were to truly be absolutely everything, it would be annihilated under all that weight.

 

[belamyi]

I'm not shocked that he would say this at all.

If you're putting off big purchases, but want to make smaller ones cheaply, what better place to go than Amazon? Bezos will make a killing off of this recession just like he did with COVID.

Thing is smaller purchases are getting bigger... literally.

 

[cabinfever]

I already took care of the two major remodeling things I needed that cost a substantial amount of $$ already.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

Charities are supposed to help. They have no power to fix. It's like expecting religion to fix sin.

You know what I had meant. I'm stone 80% of the time I'm on here, you gotta read above the lines.

 

[KaraBulut]

You know what I had meant. I'm stone 80% of the time I'm on here, you gotta read above the lines.

I know what you meant.

It reminded me of a discussion with a now-gone member who insisted that government could never accomplish anything. He of course was ignoring the good old days when formaldehyde was added to milk to prevent it from spoiling and when meats were routinely treated with boric acid and salicylic acid to conceal that the meat was spoiled. Or the good old days when people drowned in their own blood from pulmonary tuberculosis. Government does have the advantage of having both money and power to change some things for the better.

Every now and then a charity picks something small like guinea worm eradication or river blindness and makes great inroads into eliminating it. But more often, they take on big things like hunger, poverty, HIV infections, underage pregnancy, et al, where they may be able to make improvements, but are unlikely to ever fix the problem.

 

[Thad1527]

How can Amazon be laying off workers? They opened a new Amazon Fresh market 3.9 miles from me, and have been advertising it like mad online. And their distribution centers are always hiring.

No, I haven't been to the new Amazon Fresh. I'm fortunate there are other markets even closer.

And someone mentioned Carrefour. You know they flopped horribly in America, right? They had a successful hypermarket in Northeast Philadelphia that I liked but rarely shopped in (I lived far away)..but they wanted to build on Long Island, NY, and couldn't due to local opposition. They built instead in Voorhees, New Jersey, in quite possibly the worst location possible, and dragged the Philadelphia store down with it. Both closed some years ago.

 

[belamyi]

And someone mentioned Carrefour. You know they flopped horribly in America, right? They had a successful hypermarket in Northeast Philadelphia that I liked but rarely shopped in (I lived far away)..but they wanted to build on Long Island, NY, and couldn't due to local opposition. They built instead in Voorhees, New Jersey, in quite possibly the worst location possible, and dragged the Philadelphia store down with it. Both closed some years ago.

Yes, it was me: and that is why I mentioned them along with Walmart, that is why I said that Walmart is bigger and wealthier in North-America than Carrefour globally: go figure how would the latter fare in that environment. American business species are like American vegetal and animal species: they won't allow anything else to grow and prosper in their entourage.

Conversely, there is some Texan or so American company endeavouring to reeducate Americans into the habit of fresh products for freshly cooked home meals: they knew they had no way of entering Catalonia (Spain, Europe, that is: I learned about them because their head or something was being interviewed over here several years ago) because we have it all already here: consumer set of mind and habits, well-established markets from producer to deliverer and seller in conditions that do not allow for any sort of margin, benefit... whatever could serve to make them be more competitive.

 

[KaraBulut]

How can Amazon be laying off workers? They opened a new Amazon Fresh market 3.9 miles from me, and have been advertising it like mad online. And their distribution centers are always hiring.

Amazon, like Google, is a huge company. The layoffs were in their digital device (Alexa) and gaming (Luna) divisions. They're realizing that people aren't very interested in having a little spy sitting listening to them. Siri, Bixby and Google Assistant have won that battle. Most people didn't even know Amazon had a gaming division.

The cuts to distribution centers will likely happen next year, now that people have returned to shopping in-person at Walmart, Target, Home Depot, etc, they won't need as many people running around huge warehouses packaging stuff.

 

[KaraBulut]

From today's Business Insider:

Amazon is on pace to lose $10 billion this year from Alexa and other devices

In the first quarter of this year, the "Worldwide Digital" unit of Amazon's business, which includes Echo and Alexa, had a $3 billion operating loss.

www.businessinsider.com

Amazon's voice assistant, Alexa, once one of its most quickly growing projects, is now one of its products on pace to lose the company around $10 billion this year.

In the first quarter of this year, the "Worldwide Digital" unit at Amazon, which includes Alexa, Echo devices, and its streaming service Prime Video, had a $3 billion operating loss, internal data obtained by Insider showed. Most of the loss was due to Alexa and other Amazon devices, a person familiar with Worldwide Digital previously told Insider.

 

[cityboy-stl]

From today's Business Insider:

Amazon is on pace to lose $10 billion this year from Alexa and other devices

In the first quarter of this year, the "Worldwide Digital" unit of Amazon's business, which includes Echo and Alexa, had a $3 billion operating loss.

www.businessinsider.com

I'm not surprised. Alexa was a novelty at first, but long-term, people do not want that damn thing, or other things like it, listening to them all the time. There have been too many instances of people being spied upon, or the things being hacked, or the device responding out of nowhere to something that it shouldn't. Who knows what happens to your data. I don't want that thing in my house.

It's like my Roku remote. Roku makes a big deal about voice control, where you push a button and tell it to go to Netflix or something. It's stupid. I don't want to talk my remote control. If I want Netflix (or whatever), I will select it on the screen and push enter button.

 

[KaraBulut]

I think what is missing is that Bezos isn't giving to charity. He's giving money to people who are involved in charities. He's calling them "awards".

For those interested in billionaire generosity claims, this is a good editorial about how they're creating family foundations and donor-advised funds to avoid estate taxes:

Opinion: We should be skeptical of billionaires who pledge to share their wealth | CNN

In the United States, we are now treated to regular announcements about benevolent billionaires pledging to share their wealth. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, for instance, recently told CNN that he would be giving away the majority of his $124 billion fortune in his lifetime. Further back in 2015...

www.cnn.com

While billionaires do of course still donate to charities, grand philanthropic pledges are often fulfilled by dumping funds into family foundations or donor-advised funds (DAFs) that could exist in perpetuity. Some 30% of charitable donations now flow through intermediaries like these, outpacing direct donations to many traditional charities.

Billionaires may claim enormous tax deductions – not to mention starry-eyed headlines – for parking funds in these intermediaries. But there’s little to no guarantee that money will ever make it to working charities. Foundations are only required to pay out 5% of their assets each year, and most dole out just slightly more than this minimum. DAFs face no annual payout requirement at all. Lax reporting requirements make it difficult to assess their activity, but recent reports suggest that median DAF payouts are shockingly low.
What’s more, billionaire charity is our tax dollars at work. For every dollar a billionaire gives to charity, we the taxpayers chip in up to 74 cents of that dollar in lost federal tax revenue as donors claim deductions in their income, estate and capital gains taxes, among others. That makes it even more outrageous that much of this money may never reach a real, on-the-ground charity.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

For those interested in billionaire generosity claims, this is a good editorial about how they're creating family foundations and donor-advised funds to avoid estate taxes:

Opinion: We should be skeptical of billionaires who pledge to share their wealth | CNN

In the United States, we are now treated to regular announcements about benevolent billionaires pledging to share their wealth. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, for instance, recently told CNN that he would be giving away the majority of his $124 billion fortune in his lifetime. Further back in 2015...

www.cnn.com

Another piece that said what I was trying to say but much more gooder.

Pablo Eisenberg, a fierce critic of nonprofits and philanthropy, died at age 90

Pablo Eisenberg, a loud and influential voice in the nonprofit sector who spoke widely and bluntly about his belief that philanthropy often benefits the wealthy more than the needy, died at age 90.

www.npr.org

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

I'm not surprised. Alexa was a novelty at first, but long-term, people do not want that damn thing, or other things like it, listening to them all the time. There have been too many instances of people being spied upon, or the things being hacked, or the device responding out of nowhere to something that it shouldn't. Who knows what happens to your data. I don't want that thing in my house.

It's like my Roku remote. Roku makes a big deal about voice control, where you push a button and tell it to go to Netflix or something. It's stupid. I don't want to talk my remote control. If I want Netflix (or whatever), I will select it on the screen and push enter button.

Funny story, We have an alexa speaker thingy, not sure why, my roommate bought it. Anyway, I'm watching a comedy show and there's a skit where Alexa and Siri are competing for their owner's attention. I was stoned at the time so my reaction wasn't the most competent.

Skit: Alexa, play a song.
My Alexa: Which song would you like to-
Me: Alexa, don't listen to him
My Alexa: I don't quite understand
Skit: Alexa, order me some food
My Alexa: What would you like to-
Me: Alexa, don't respond. Stop it.
My Alexa: I don't quite understand.

This went on for the entirety of the skit. In retrospect, maybe I should've just turned the speaker off???

 

[Kulindahr]

Jeff Bezos said drones would deliver Amazon purchases. That didn´t happen so far.

Frakkin' FAA.