Jeff Bezos Worth $195 Billion and Passes Henry Ford for 5th Richest Ever

39 thoughts on “Jeff Bezos Worth $195 Billion and Passes Henry Ford for 5th Richest Ever”

1. …Do I need to post some links to the complaints about the working conditions in Amazon and Tesla. The problem is much bigger though, s they are pushing the working conditions of the whole economy down.

2. Important to access our trusted new sources to see how inequality is continuing to spin out of control 😉 https://www.theonion.com/study-finds-gap-widening-between-rich-pets-and-poor-ame-1844773368

3. note the movement of the stock over time with tiny ‘easter eggs’ of various events, products, and special items inserted into the imagery

4. Distribution and logistics networks are real things that provide needed services.

   Fat lot of good there being products if I can’t buy them. Or if there is 4 levels of middle men pumping the price up by 100% at each level.

   (Having said that, I buy from Amazon about once every 2 years or so. It just doesn’t suit my purchasing habits.)

5. Next up, investors/speculators flush with cash from the recovered stock market and fearing a market crash look for a way to diversify. They snap up real estate at low interest rates. Housing Bubble and record empty housing simultaneous with record homelessness.

6. I dont know who loses when Jeff Bezos wins

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borders_Group

7. They would do the same thing with a much less concentration of wealth, without feeling much harm, to the benefit of everyone else.

8. I deleted a widget and code and the ad network did something that put the videos back. I have emailed them to remove it.

9. I think the combo of Amazon and Kuiper Internet is a big winner. And his “steps” are on the right path, away from gravity wells.

10. We are going to enjoy ourselves, if he gets a little less “gradatim” , and a little more “ferociter” .

11. Iran nominal GDP $458 billion (2019). Amazon sales $355 billion (2Q 2020 x 4). I have been saying for a while that this is the century of the corporate state, as the previous two were of the nation state. Corporations now wield as much influence and money as countries.

    Bezos only owns 12% of Amazon, so he’s not personally worth as much as Iran.

    Governments are badly managed, since they don’t have to compete within their territories. That’s why they are losing out to corporations. In 2014, federal, state, and local governments had a combined net worth of -$4 trillion, and its probably gotten a lot worse since then.

12. Henry Ford. I fixed the title.

13. I have removed the video ads. I am swearing off video ads and will work to get some UX and developer fixes on the site. Sorry for not focusing on the UX. UPDATE: working on the removal. I deleted some code which should have removed the videos but it got put back. Emailing to get the ad network team in Israel to comply to not use video ads

14. I have removed the video ad. Sorry for problems with it. update: this is taking longer, a deletion that I made has been reversed on the ad network end. I have emails to the ad and the comment providers to remove the ads. This could take a couple of days

15. Only partially true according to this:
    That Luck Matters More Than Talent: A Strong Rationale for UBI
    https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/16600

16. Bezos is clearly smart. He understands O’Neill!
    “The Blew Origin crew lander is now ready to undergo testing at NASA’s
    Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. This mock-up is not a functional
    version of the lander, but it does include full-sized components of the
    planned lander system, including the descent element that will be built
    by Blue Origin, and the ascent element that partner Lockheed Martin will be producing. Overall, the entire mock-up article measures just under 40-feet high.”

17. You need to define “power”. Is it (non libertarian) initiation of force or fraud to achieve political or social ends, or is it personal ability, the power to create or be productive, and the resulting honest wealth? Gov is always monopoly, something many don’t want to admit, and thus evil. Free (non violent) marketplace also requires *enlightened* self interest to work, not stupid childish self interest. And remember, at this time, people are as crazy as they can possibly be. But the Primal Revolution is upon us!

18. Fair enough that it is better than Venezuela – but it is a fool’s errand to think that the stock market (except for first funding-IPO, etc.) is some noble institution that great investors put hard-earned money into well-run companies to achieve shared-interest, co-success. Nonsense. It is a huge poker game filled with people who hate each other, revel in the other’s losses almost as much as their own wins, using other people’s money for which they have minimal regard and limited accountability, and go to great lengths to get special access, use shorting as a weapon, and engage in insider/shared knowledge trading to turn crap assets into gold. Don’t get be wrong – I am glad it is here and I play it better or worse, but it destroys people and garner’s huge interest and irrational behaviour.(re-watch Wolf of Wall Street) The interesting thing that with Robin Hood and bored Millennials with covid-checks abounding – does it become a hyper-volatile, untameable monster going into Q4…..

19. it depends on the world you want – a nice, boring world — or an exciting, risky, wealthy, high-tech world. Much of the opportunity, advancement found in protestant-work-ethic-type places – US and UK and slightly Germany never would have occurred anywhere else if the ideas did not transfer. Your nice/ sheep world would still be living in 1940s/1950 tech, if not for ruthless entrepreneurs. Besides, you know that the sheep people, deep down, want the high-tech world because they moved there from their comfortable rural families, backward countries, and nanny-states, post-1940s to get exciting opportunity in the US/UK cities despite the high risks, pollution, ruthless bosses/ landlords/ neighbourhoods. What you want is retirement, not life.

20. that kicks you out of a lot of websites though unless you whitelist a lot. Much of the web is pretty restricted surfing with adblocker engaged – though it immensely satisfying to see the little ‘ads blocked’ number run into the dozens, scores, or even hundreds on accessing a site. Laughable that some those garbage sites, give the little message of ‘ads supporting their tireless army of content writers, IT, and staff’ – whereas the ads are often for semi-legit content, services, etc., absolutely unrelated to the spirit of the web site serving them. Worse are those sites that claim that we are ‘stealing’ ad revenue from them — almost as if, a company installed a huge, glaring, billboard across the street from your house and then complained when you installed curtains in your window. Necessary evil or trash-site welfare??

21. You might say commerce is not a zero sum game, since both participants only participate if they believe the transaction is in their best interests.

22. The key to Amazon success is reinvestment of profits, and the efficiency of the Amazon distribution system. In other words, they are successful, because they offer the lowest prices with a reasonable level of service to the customer, it’s also very easy to return items you are not happy with.
    It’s difficult for me to condemn a company that wins by offering what customers want, at the lowest prices.
    That’s what SpaceX does, and I nearly worship that company.

23. Much of the run up in the stock market is buying of shares, mutual funds, and futures by the hatchet men of the federal reserve. It’s too early for a “crack up boom”, as Von Mises described.

24. In that Wiki, they aren’t inflation adjusting the net worth of those people, they’re calculating what percentage of the economy their wealth represented and then applying that to the modern economy. John D. Rockefeller who was worth significantly more than Ford is shown as being worth about $1 billion. Inflation adjusted they figure $16B – I’d say more like $20B.

25. Unfortunately your understanding of free market is twisted due to a deep indoctrination. A free market works optimally when everyone gets a honest share of a company wealth relative to his contribution. A free market works optimally when the populace have good education, health care system social network and honest wages. The North Europeans have demonstrated it and this is the Global working model, not that of the US.

26. You fail to understand the very basics of how free market economies work. Heck, I don’t think you even understand what is wealth. A janitor today, can have a far better diet, health, and options that Kings of the middle ages wouldn’t even dream of. This is all do to free markets and capitalism. Wealth is created and grows and it takes individuals with vision, willingness to take risk, and very strong work ethics to do what the above individuals did.

    Here, how about instead of you complaining about the uber wealthy – why don’t you become one and then you can give it all away.

27. As an average consumer, I am better off having Amazon around. I am sure thats also true for many producers who never had an easier way of accessing a large consumer base.

    I dont know who loses when Jeff Bezos wins. Some small, inefficient stores?

28. This is a very important discussion! Pop-up ads and autoplay videos are screwing up the site usability. I appreciate that we get free content here and Brian has the right to make money thru ads, but you can only screw up the UX so much. I am also okay with his paid articles pushing small-cap ponzi stocks since they dont get in the way of my reading the articles that I want to.

29. What we are watching is hyperinflation through the stock market. We should be grateful its just stocks that are climbing so rapidly and not the cost of basic necessities or we would be experiencing venezuela levels of upheaval.

30. Both worth more than Fascist Iran.

31. That could be only within certain parameters which they are well beyond. In other words, they have not created all this wealth, the people who worked for them created most of it.

32. You assume that the cumulative wealth is a constant. That is a demonstratively false assumption. These guys created the wealth they now have and shared it with many others.

33. Unless, like Musk, you then set out to develop new, better, big ticket toys.

34. Lifestyle wise, no. You reach a certain equilibrium after you’ve acquired all the big ticket durable toys.

35. an adblocker

36. I have found out how to close the especially punishing low left ad, been struggling with it for days:

    On the ad:

    1. Press on the speaker symbol twice to turn ad audio off even when you are hovering over the ad.
    2. stay on the top right of the ad where the symbol to close the ad shows up every once in a while.
    3. On two occasions when you catch it press it, the second time the ad will close.

    Try it!

37. The flip side of power concentration is power deprivation by hundreds of millions of people, noting comes without a price…
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJJTAz5ux-c&list=TLPQMTgwODIwMjCMLqwNRgfYRg&index=11

38. Of course you are right, but even long before somebody reaches that much, does it really matter?

39. “Jeff Bezos Worth $195 Billion and Passes Henry for 5th Richest Ever”
    or
    “Jeff Bezos Worth $195 Billion and Passes Henry 5th for Richest Ever”
    or
    “Jeff Bezos Worth $195 Billion and Passes Henry the 5th for Richest Ever”

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