If Jeff Bezos gave each of his 876,000 employees a $105,000 bonus,

[melman]

he'd be left with as much money as he had at the beginning of the pandemic

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[Loki Liesmith]

1. No he wouldn't

The increase in his net worth are not liquid assets.

[unblock]

8. So if I say, if you stacked the national debt in one dollar bills, it would reach to past the moon,

You would say, no, it would fall over, right?

[Loki Liesmith]

12. I would say who cares?

Show me the effect of that size debt on buying power/inflation and I just might.

I’m not going to get upset about on-paper increases in Amazon’s asset portfolio that can never be liquidated because doing so would destroy Amazon and the US financial markets.

[Buckeyeblue]

18. Agreed. The national debt is not "real" money

But Republicans prop it up as an excuse to have racist fiscal policies.

Whenever Republicans I know bring up the deficit, I asked them to explain it to me. Of course, they can't. It's complicated.

[A HERETIC I AM]

23. "on-paper increases in Amazon's asset portfolio that can never be liquidated "

What the fuck does that mean?

Well, I understand the words, and it looks good when strung together, but "increases in Amazon's asset portfolio" means bugger all in the context of the OP and has NOTHING to do with Bezo's Net Worth.

So....

What the hell are you talking about?

Also, this from your other post;

"The increase in his net worth are not liquid assets."

How the hell do you figure? His Net Worth is based upon the shares of Amazon common stock he holds. Are those shares somehow il-liquid? Do you think there would be no buyers for them, should he put a portion for them up for sale?

[Roland99]

31. It's not possible for him to sell stock options as they come in?

There aren't any other investors willing to buy those stocks?

[Roland99]

33. ok, an update...

Basically, Bezos doesn’t need stock-based awards, given that he already owned 55,495,676 Amazon shares as of April 3, or 11.15% of the shares outstanding. Based on current stock prices, the value of his stockholdings exceeded $133 billion.


still, if he sold 1,000 shares/week, that would net over $3 million/week

[melm00se]

50. Insider stock sales have a lot of regulations

tied to them.

If you are an insider, you have to declare:
1. you are going to sell shares on a specific date.
2. you are going to sell a specific number of shares on that date.

Once you have declared this, there is no going back. The sales must go through.

It's a real PITA to do all of this (I was an insider once a long time ago) but do it you must otherwise you open yourself up to charges of insider trading.

[George II]

21. And it was far from $91 billion in the last 7-8 months.

[Delarage]

2. And yet

Rural Repukes who use public assistance will fight to the death to keep the ultra-rich and the Repukes they buy in power. Go figure. Not that Bezos is bad, but I believe he could afford higher taxes if it meant healthcare for all, clean air & water, etc.

[AmericanCanuck]

3. His net worth is paper - he doesn't have that much cash laying around.

[DBoon]

4. Then he gives his employees a portion of that "paper"

and converting it to cash becomes the employee's problem

[unblock]

5. If only there were some way to trade stock for money....

[AmericanCanuck]

6. If he sold that much stock at once

The stock wouldn't be worth what it is now. It will drop 30% in value.

The whole premise of the OP is erroneous.

[SlogginThroughIt]

7. The premise

The premise of the op is that he made an obscene amount of money during and off of the pandemic.

[crickets]

9. *ding*ding* The rest of us who got the point thank you for saying it. nt

[Loki Liesmith]

14. Lol you folks only think you got the point

I’m still laughing about it.

[Loki Liesmith]

13. It's imaginary

I really couldn’t care less about on paper asset valuations.

[AmericanCanuck]

15. A premise that is wrong.

Bezons didn't make anything - people buying stuff from him for which he had laid down an infrastructure made the paper he holds more valuable -- a gain he cannot cash-in all at once; lest it drop in value by as much as 50%.

PS: A lot of Americans also made themselves rich by buying his stock and/or buying it via their IRAs or 401-Ks.

[SlogginThroughIt]

16. Sure it means nothing.

[Yavin4]

27. Yes. A lot of Americans benefitted from stealing the value of the labor of other Americans.

What a country!

[unblock]

11. why would you presume bezos would implement this idea in the dumbest way possible?

first of all, this is obviously meant as a thought exercise, not an actual suggestion. bezos isn't about to do it. it's just a way to visualize the numbers, like saying you could fit 330,000 earths in the sun. no you couldn't, they'd incinerate, any there's no machine big enough to move them there anyway. it's silly to take these things literally, it's just a way to compare the size of things.


that said, if he actually wanted to, he could do it in a number of ways. he could give the employees amazon shares instead of cash. or there are ways to place large blocks for cash, gradually and more carefully than just dumping it all on the market at once.

not only that, but he could make it contingent on certain conditions, like amazon stock prices going up even more. now think about this, every employee gets a 6-figure bonus if the stock goes up, now that's a massive incentive, so employees are super motivated.

and the bonus is coming from bezos, not amazon, so amazon gets super motivated employees at zero cost, so now it's much more valuable, so -- the stock price *does* go up!

[George II]

20. You're WAY too logical! Thanks for putting a real perspective on Amazon, Bezos and its worker.

[Yavin4]

26. Or, he could just pay them more money over time.

That would work as well. Just raise their salaries.

[coti]

52. Or give them the equivalent in stock. nt

[Baked Potato]

10. In Caveman days, a big friggen bone would even things out fast.

[Johnny2X2X]

17. Amazon isn't all bad

It's a job creator for sure, their market place allows hundreds of thousands of small businesses to thrive and reach customers they never thought they could reach.

And extreme wealth is hard to wrap your head around in general. Bezos doesn't have access to $200 Billion in cash, what he has is $200 Billion worth of Amazon stock. So if he handed over controlling interest of the company he started to his employees is what we're really talking about.

[George II]

19. Tori Bedford's math is way off. 876,000 X $105,000 is $92 billion. Bezos did NOT make $92 billion..

....since February or March.

[ProfessorGAC]

22. You Beat Me, George

His net worth is estimated at $200 billion.
He was worth around $140 billion in mid-2019.
Has the pandemic accelerated Amazon's growth in revenue & profits? Yes.
Not by enough that Bezos' share would increase by 42% in 6 months, though. He's not the only share holder! He holds about 10.9% of their outstanding shares. It would require a growth of equity value by Amazon of over $800 billion in 6 months.

[A HERETIC I AM]

24. Based on the number of shares he owns, he reaches $200B when Amazon trades at roughly $3500

Last edited Tue Oct 27, 2020, 12:35 PM - Edit history (1)

Or thereabouts.

He owns in excess of 75,000,000 shares, of which around 55 million are tradeable common stock


https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2020/ar/updated/2020-Proxy-Statement.pdf
See Page 52 (Edit - page 53, actually. Sorry)

[George II]

25. Getting back to the premise of the OP, Bezos did not make $92 billion in the last 6-8 months.

[Yavin4]

29. Here's the whole point. Pay Amazon workers more money.

Pay Amazon workers, ALL WORKERS, more money. Amazon makes most of its money off of Amazon Web Services. Is Bezos the one wirting the code? Making sure that the cloud is operational and available? Hell no. His employees do that.

He's not a king. Stop treating him like he is.

[George II]

30. If that was the point that's what should have been said, instead of an obviously false premise....

....that Bezos made $92 billion in the last 6-8 months.

[A HERETIC I AM]

34. Based on 55 million shares of tradeable common stock.....

and the fact that Amazon was trading at the $1800 level in March and is at $3200 today, his net worth increased by $77 Mil.

Right?

Granted, 77 is not 92.

However, in early September it got to $3550/share. 3550 minus 1800 = a $1750 increase in share price.

1750 X 55 million = $96,250,000,000

[melman]

36. So he'd have 185 billion instead of 200

That's "as much money" for anyone who isn't just trying to nitpick for the sake of it.

[George II]

39. And in mid-September it was 2954. It's a stock traded daily, it goes up and down....

...and isn't "worth" anything until it's sold. Right now everyone's shares of stock are just pieces of paper or numbers on a computer screen. I guarantee that, with the way the stock market works, if Bezos decided to sell all his Amazon stock tomorrow he wouldn't get even close to $3550 per share.

Plus, one could also make the point that from September 2 to September 21 he "lost" $31 billion, or from October 13 to today he "lost" $11 billion.

See how that works?

Also lost in this discussion is the fact that hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of common everyday people own Amazon stock either outright or through mutual funds in their 401k. Even the Senator who bashes "Wall Street" has more than $1 million invested in mutual funds, quite possibly owning a nice chunk of Amazon stock.

This isn't a simple black/white, Bezos bad/other shareholders good type of situation.

[A HERETIC I AM]

40. So THAT'S how it works!

I had NO IDEA!


Thanks for filling me in!




Saying a share of stock "isn't "worth" anything until it's sold" is like saying a dollar bill isn't worth anything till it's spent.

It is a distinction without a difference.

[ProfessorGAC]

28. I Found A Bad Cite

It said 10.88 million.
I checked another now, & i get what you stated.
Don't know why the other one said under 11,000,000.

[A HERETIC I AM]

32. If I read page 53 of that Proxy Statement correctly.....

(And I said page 52 above...my bad)

It says he has 75 million (plus) shares, but footnote #1 says 19.5 million have "no investment power".

So if I understand that correctly, those 19.5 million can't (or shouldn't) be counted in his net worth, right?

That's where I get the $200 bil at $3500/share from. My math worked out to $192B and change, so that's why I gave some wiggle room.

Am I correct in my assessment?

[ProfessorGAC]

37. Sounds Right

Don't know for sure, but i know from the company from shich i retired:
CEO only held about 7% of the stock.
But, family & employees (including me) were proxied to the CEO. So, he controlled almost 50%, but couldn't sell other people's holdings. Employees owned a pretty big chunk of the outfit.
Maybe that's what that 19.5 million is.

[A HERETIC I AM]

38. I read somewhere that he set it up that way so he always would have a majority percentage

even though he does hold an outright majority (i.e. 50% plus 1).

According to that same page, the second largest shareholder is The Vanguard Group, which I find interesting.

I also understand that his parents are billionaires as well, since his dad gave him a couple hundred grand way back when as seed money, and he gave them back shares, which now gives them a 10 figure net worth.

I give the guy credit for having the insight 30 some years ago to sell books online, but his politics and personal attitudes (vehemently anti union, for starters) makes me think of him as one of the worlds largest dickheads.

[ProfessorGAC]

41. Credit, Sure!

However, he got a lot of help from the moronic executives at Sears.
That store made their bones with "online" sales. (Phone lines, telegraph lines, plus the mail.). For nearly a hundred years!
Then, Sears(!) founded Prodigy. In 1984.
The geniuses in the top floor offices decided to drop the catalog sales, as the internet age was dawning!
They had the customers, infrastructure, distribution, experience, AND their own technology platform!
They could have been Amazon when Jeff was in his early 30s. He likely would have enjoyed his big success in tech, and Sears wouldn't have gone BKO and 18,000 people wouldn't have lost their jobs.
Sorry, every time Amazon comes up my "boy did Sears screw up" fixation kicks in.

[A HERETIC I AM]

43. I couldn't agree more.

And you're absolutely spot on re: Sears origins.

Hell, they sold houses!



Now, just up the street from my house, Amazon has bought and renovated a former KMart into a "Delivery Center"

[melman]

35. Oxfam

Meanwhile, the protection given to shareholders has fuelled a share price boom. The top 100 stock market winners have added more than $3 trillion to their market value since the pandemic. As a result, the 25 richest billionaires have increased their wealth by staggering amounts. Jeff Bezos could personally pay each of Amazon’s 876,000 employees a one-time $105,000 bonus today and still be as wealthy as he was at the beginning of the pandemic.


https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/pandemic-profits-companies-soar-billions-more-poorest-pay-price

[aidbo]

42. Glad to see the billionaire defenders are still strong in this website.

God knows those poor little billionaires need defending.

[melman]

44. Hey

Bezos only made 77 billion this year not 92. This clearly invalidates the article and the Oxfam report it was based on.



So lol and bazinga and all the rest of that.

[aidbo]

45. Shazbot!

[aidbo]

46. Also, this year ain't over yet.

[melman]

48. bazinga

Very true.

[George II]

47. So, will you be correcting the statement in the OP?

[melman]

49. Which one?

[George II]

51. This one:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=14368171

[melman]

55. No, for two reasons

1. I didn't write that tweet, and thus cannot "correct" it, and furthermore...

2. There's nothing to correct anyway. It's true.

[George II]

56. You wrote the subject line in your OP and the numbers don't agree with facts.

[LanternWaste]

53. Has anyone informed him of this and received a response?

Or are we simply reciting bumper stickers aloud in the La Manchian hope he reads DU and acts accordingly?



I have noticed though that recently, millionaires are no longer the unclean pariah they once were; and we slide the scale of our righteous ire now only to billionaires and up. I guess a book deal or two can quickly change those inviolate and immutable convictions we hold with such force.

Until we don't.

[melman]

54. What's the La Manchian?

[Gothmog]

57. I cancelled by subscription the NYT after teh 2016 election due to the NYT's aid in electing trump

The NYT was pusing the Clinton email story to the end. I am very happy with my subscription to the Washington Post.

BTW, when the DOJ found that there was no violations of the law, the NYT buried the story. I prefer the Washignton Post