As Amazon Shares Fall, Jeff Bezos Is No Longer A Centi-Billionaire

[Guest thanh03041993]

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is the world's richest person. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP)

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' two day streak as the world's only centi-billionaire is over -- for now.

Bezos' net worth topped $100 billion for the first time on Cyber Monday as Amazon shares soared. On Wednesday, his net worth fell $2.2 billion to $98 billion, as Amazon stock dropped more than 2% from Tuesday's close as of 1:45 p.m. Eastern Time. Because Bezos owns more than 16% of Amazon, small fluctuations in Amazon's stock have billion-dollar consequences for his net worth.

While he no longer has a twelve-digit fortune, Bezos is still the richest person in the world by an $8.6 billion margin. The second richest person is Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, who has an $89.4 billion fortune and has been at the top of the Forbes' annual Billionaires List for 18 of the last 23 years. On October 27, Bezos surpassed Gates on Forbes' Real-Time Rankings and has held onto the top spot ever since. Three months earlier, Bezos briefly passed up Gates, but dropped into second place after only four hours.

The nearly 60% rise in Amazon stock this year to date has added $33.1 billion to Bezos’ fortune. His net worth has more than doubled since Forbes published the 2016 Billionaires List in March 2016. At that time, he had a net worth of $45.2 billion and had just joined the ranks of the 10 richest people in the world for the first time.

After graduating from Princeton, Bezos worked at hedge fund D.E. Shaw before leaving to start an online bookstore from a garage in Seattle in 1994. He took Amazon public in 1997 and one year later joined Forbes' ranking of the 400 richest Americans with a $1.6 billion fortune. In the two decades since, Amazon has grown into an e-commerce giant and one of the most valuable companies in the world, propelling Bezos to the top of Forbes' Real-Time Billionaires List.

Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2017/11/29/as-amazon-shares-fall-jeff-bezos-is-no-longer-a-centi-billionaire/#35c454db2279

[Anubis]

Only $98b. However will he cope.

[Lee909]

Buyout FSG

[AngryOfTuebrook]

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median wage for workers in the United States in the fourth quarter of 2016 was $849 per weekor $44,148 per year for a 40-hour work week.

 

So, just the two and a quarter million times the average earnings in the USA, then?

 

He'll live.

[Creator Supreme]

No longer a Centibillionaire, but still a Cuntibillionaire!

[Jairzinho]

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median wage for workers in the United States in the fourth quarter of 2016 was $849 per weekor $44,148 per year for a 40-hour work week.

 

So, just the two and a quarter million times the average earnings in the USA, then?

 

He'll live.

 

Pity.

[Rico1304]

Pity.

Daft cunt. You want him to die because he’s rich? What if he was Spanish?

[AngryOfTuebrook]

I'm just looking at those numbers. The population of LA is just under 4 million, so the working population is likely to be about 2.2 million-ish.

 

This cunt gets paid more for his work than Los Angeles.

[VladimirIlyich]

Still not as rich as Dave Usher.

[Bobby Hundreds]

I wouldn't be that arsed how rich he was if he paid his staff good money with decent hours and working standards.

[Jairzinho]

I wouldn't be that arsed how rich he was if he paid his staff good money with decent hours and working standards.

 

Or paid tax.

[Denny Crane]

You can't fool me Jeff trying to go incognito in human clothing.  I know what you are.

 

[Mook]

If I had that much money, I'd be paying someone else to wear that daft microphone/coco pop thing he's wearing in that picture in the OP.

 

In all seriousness, there's no need for anyone to have that sort of money, the complete & utter disgustingness of capitalism laid bare in one news article right there.

[Rico1304]

If I had that much money, I'd be paying someone else to wear that daft microphone/coco pop thing he's wearing in that picture in the OP.

 

In all seriousness, there's no need for anyone to have that sort of money, the complete & utter disgustingness of capitalism laid bare in one news article right there.

Yes, state ownership would be better because Donald Trump would spend that money on all the ‘right’ things.

[setreal]

This City Hall, brought to you by Amazon
Originally published November 24, 2017 at 7:50 pm Updated November 24, 2017 at 8:35 pm

By Danny Westneat
Seattle Times staff columnist
There’s rising worry that corporations are taking over America. But after reviewing a slew of the bids by cities and states wooing Amazon’s massive second headquarters, I don’t think “takeover” quite captures what’s going on.

More like “surrender.”

Last month Amazon announced it got 238 offers for its new, proposed 50,000-employee HQ2. I set out to see what’s in them, but only about 30 have been released so far under public-record acts.

Those 30, though, amply demonstrate our capitulation to corporate influence in politics. There’s a new wave, in which some City Halls seem willing to go beyond just throwing money at Amazon. They’re turning over the keys to the democracy.

Coming from the home of the largest corporate tax-break package in U.S. history, which our state gave to Boeing, I figured I was well acquainted with the dark arts of economic-incentive deals.

But still I was surprised to see the lengths to which some cities and states will go to get a piece of that high-tech glory.

Example: Chicago has offered to let Amazon pocket $1.32 billion in income taxes paid by its own workers. This is truly perverse. Called a personal income-tax diversion, the workers must still pay the full taxes, but instead of the state getting the money to use for schools, roads or whatever, Amazon would get to keep it all instead.

“The result is that workers are, in effect, paying taxes to their boss,” says a report on the practice from Good Jobs First, a think tank critical of many corporate subsidies.

Most of the HQ2 bids had more traditional sweeteners. Such as Chula Vista, California, which offered to give Amazon 85 acres of land for free (value: $100 million) and to excuse any property taxes on HQ2 for 30 years ($300 million). New Jersey remains the dollar king of the subsidy sweepstakes, having offered Amazon $7 billion to build in Newark.

But more of a bellwether to me are proposals that effectively would put Amazon inside the government.

Some are small. Boston has offered to set up an “Amazon Task Force” of city employees working on the company’s behalf. These would include a workforce coordinator, to help with Amazon’s employment needs, as well as a community- relations official to smooth over Amazon conflicts throughout Boston. (Surely Amazon can handle these things itself?)

But the most far-reaching offer is from Fresno, California. That city of half a million isn’t offering any tax breaks. Instead it has a novel plan to give Amazon special authority over how the company’s taxes are spent.

Fresno promises to funnel 85 percent of all taxes and fees generated by Amazon into a special fund. That money would be overseen by a board, half made up of Amazon officers, half from the city. They’re supposed to spend the money on housing, roads and parks in and around Amazon.

The proposal shows a park with a sign: “This park brought to you by Amazon,” with the company’s smiling arrow corporate logo.

“The community fund projects would give Amazon credit for the funding of each project,” the proposal says. “The potential negative impacts from a project would be turned into positives, giving Amazon credit for mitigating it.”

Is it even legal to give a company direct sway over civic spending like that?

When asked about it, Fresno’s economic-development director threw the public interest under the bus.

“Rather than the money disappearing into a civic black hole, Amazon would have a say on where it will go,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “Not for the fire department on the fringe of town, but to enhance their own investment in Fresno.”

You poor fools out on the fringe of town. All this time you’ve been paying your taxes, thinking it was for the broader public good. Suckers.

Seriously, we’ve got Congress slashing corporate taxes, business cash overwhelming elections and the Federal Communications Commission poised to turn control of the internet over to a few private companies. Now a single company is viewed as such a shiny prize that some seem ready to wave the white flag on the whole “for the people, by the people” experiment.

It feels like a dicey moment for the “civic black hole.“ Also known as democracy.

Danny Westneat’s column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com

 

 

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/this-city-hall-brought-to-you-by-amazon/

 

 

 

 

[Babb'sBurstNad]

Shiny new leather jacket? Belongs in the identifier thread.

[setreal]

Bit of a bummer for the OP - having used his password as username and all

[Bjornebye]

He can fuck off as far as I'm concerned.

[El Rojo]

Looks like he's strutting out to the front of the stage ramp for his solo verse in some boy band's 60th anniversary tour there.

[Carvalho Diablo]

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is the world's richest person.

 

The fucking state of the cunt.

 

He puts the rod into Axelrod, no doubt whatsoever.

[Chairman Meow]

 

 

 

[Dougie Do'ins]

Meanwhile, over at google.

Google faces mass legal action in UK over data snooping

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42166089

[VladimirIlyich]

Right Champ,lets get a collection started for poor old Jeff.

[Rotpeter]

Meanwhile, over at google.

 

Google faces mass legal action in UK over data snooping

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42166089

 

To be honest, it amazes me how people have put up with google for so long.  Google's business is snooping; Android, chrome, gmail, search are all just massive snooping engines which almost as an afterthought provide a semi-useful service.

[Rotpeter]

If I had that much money, I'd be paying someone else to wear that daft microphone/coco pop thing he's wearing in that picture in the OP.

 

In all seriousness, there's no need for anyone to have that sort of money, the complete & utter disgustingness of capitalism laid bare in one news article right there.

Corpratism is the real problem here, not capitalism per se.  Corporates are essentially running unchecked. Lyotard predicted a struggle between the political sphere and corporate sphere.  Efforts to regulate vs. efforts to exploit.  As far as I can tell, it's game over, TKO in round one and to be honest politicians haven't really seemed that interested in the struggle.  More interested in enriching themselves.