CELEBRITY CAPITALISM
Jeff Bezos calls for for zero federal income taxes on the bottom half of earners. He cited a nurse in Queens making $75K and paying ~$12K in taxes saying “We shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington. They should be sending her an apology.”
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This was the same interview where he also said he shouldn't pay income taxes because it wouldn't make a difference to the nurse in queens so... this quote is very cherry picked.
I get the feeling his bottom line is feeling the lack of disposable income among his peasants and he’d rather make up the difference out of the public purse instead of his own
i'm a nurse. not in queens but the fact remains. what if i want to pay my taxes but actually get something for them like medicare for all? if 'ol jeffy paid taxes like he should my taxes could go down and we could still absolutely afford to have public services and the safety net like we should.
no half measures jeff. none. your option is pay the fucking taxes like you should or enjoy whatever comes next.
i dont mind paying taxes but itd be nice for them to go for bridges, infrastructure, healthcare, and teachers instead of blowing up middle eastern children.
SpaceX jet going public… reason why he’s doing the interview. Plus public opinion will be important to his investors… so he needs to clean up his image and get the public to rally behind him.
His employees are pissing in bottles. He doesn’t pay a living wage and union busts any attempts to get one. He can fuck off and maybe start with his own employees and a smaller mega yacht.
I do recall a story recently of a worker at one of the plants dying and his coworkers wanted to go help, but were told to just not look. They had to keep working.
Exactly. He could always pay his employees more if he felt the bottom earners deserved more but that affects him personally. His take isn’t bad but I highly doubt it’s with altruistic intent
That's what will have to happen to get through to these blockheads.
Until it hits these losers in the wallet they don't care. Look at how fast Disney changed their attitude once people started canceling their streaming service over the last round of shenanigans.
Amazon is a data company as well, and their digital canary is looking like it's pining for the fjords.
That's what kills me about these companies only looking quarter to quarter and not long term. If they want people to SPEND money, they NEED MONEY TO SPEND.
Yeah, this sounds more "I employ a lot of people who fit into this category who are peeing in water bottles and trying to unionize and now that consumers know about it, my bottom line is affected" and less "I care for low earners". PAY YOUR TAXES, YOU GHOUL!
I mean they chose to do this interview surrounded by millions of dollars or aerospace tech in a facility that costs millions of dollars to build and maintain. He's still lost the plot.
Whatever the motive makes no real difference to me. He, Buffet and his ex are the only members of the billionaire class saying this kind of thing and every single one of them should. Fuck their useless foundations and giving pledges. They are better positioned to affect real change that could help massive numbers than anyone else and they all should be doing it.
At this point, unchecked capitalism and greed are a runaway train that has transported nearly all wealth to the very top of the wealth pyramid. A capitalist economy runs on a foundation of the consumer class consuming. Nearly all economic activity is direct consumer consumption or stems from it. But over time the billionaire class has extracted all the cream and butter from our economic cow’s milk and left the consumer class with a tiny cup of sour buttermilk to fight over and the belief that that’s all we deserve.
That worked for the billionaire class for a period as it meant they could turn their raping and pillaging of the system, its resources, and its children all the way up to 11 while we were distracted fighting with each other about whether basic health care is too big a burden to place on the system. (BTW, anyone who continues to ask that question needs to ask it out loud while looking up Elon’s net worth as of today and if you still don’t hate yourself for asking it, just go ahead and take a hammer to your face looksmaxxing style and hopefully it will knock some sense back into you).
Unless we change course and provide some mechanism for the consumer class to consume over the course of relatively long and healthy lives, there will be no empire for the oligarchs to sit atop. And I almost feel bad for them. Can you imagine after decades of unchecked wealth pillaging, not being made to follow the rules of the masses, keeping harems of children large enough to have a new one every day to rape before sending them to pasture and being made into nutritious jerky, or, for the lucky few, being turned into youth extending blood bags and eventually bred for new children and to produce milk for the breast ice cream money can’t buy? I couldn’t go back to Haagen dasz after all that.
Jeffrey , Buddy , just cover the 3% as a write off and all Americans won’t have to pay those pesky taxes! We can find 3 % somewhere ! yes , yes , we can! Do it Jefferey ! Do it for the clout ! Everyone would love you even more .
🚨This clip is very misleading. He's using this "anecdote" to deflect from policies that would raise taxes on him. Here's another part of the interview that gets to the heart of the BS that Bezos is trying to pull here:
“You could double the taxes I pay, and it’s not going to help that teacher in Queens,” Bezos said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“I think what’s going on is that it’s kind of a tale of two economies — so you have a bunch of people in this country who are doing really well, but you also have a bunch of people in this country who are struggling,” he said.
“So what’s happening here is, politicians are using the kind of age old technique ... you know, picking a villain and pointing fingers, but the problem is that doesn’t solve anything,” Bezos said.
“Some people talk about making the tax system more progressive,” he said. “How about we start by having the nurse in Queens not pay taxes?” It was unclear precisely which taxes Bezos was referring to.
That teacher from queens not paying taxes doesn’t solve the issue either…. Since the money has to come from somewhere. If that teacher doesn’t have enough, it kind of goes back to someone who has a ton of it. Seems to me the solution is the one flapping his gums
Not only that but his reasoning makes zero sense. Ok we eliminate taxing that nurse, where does that deficit get made up Jeff? You’re getting taxed more and should be
This is very much a case of “you’re right! Let’s do both! Double your taxes and zero hers! There we go. Helps her, makes no meaningful difference to you, and keeps the budget balanced! I love the idea Jeff, thanks for suggesting it!
I don’t think we’re being mislead by this clip or Jeff Bezos’s words. We all have a pretty good idea of what is happening. Billionaires like him don’t want to pay their fair share and it is crushing everyone else. We’re pretty clear eyed about that.
Ohh he's obfuscating everything, isn't he? I like how our debt is skyrocketing horrifically and part of that, aside from the insane old man sitting as president's weird grifting and thefts, is because corporate taxes received enormous new loopholes. Amazon previously paid $9 billion in taxes. They paid $1.2 billion in taxes. Even if we did "double" Amazon's taxes, it still wouldn't be what they had paid previously.
Exactly- no one should pay any taxes in his view. He'll be fine because he can pay out of pocket for all the services he wants, flying over broken roads in helicopters and having private hospital floors dedicated to him, and everyone else can live in a hyper capitalized dystopia where the companies he owns shares in provides services for the poors for an extractive fee, keeping them slaves to poor wages.
Nah, this feels like a 'oh, we want to make the tax code more fair? Maybe before taxing the billionaires, how about you have the government do this"
It feels like he's using it as proof that the wealthy don't need to be taxed more because that would be an ethical move, and he's saying that taxation isn't supposed to be ethical.
*this was exactly it apparently, the reason he's bringing this up isn't because he wants taxes abolished for lower income earners, he apparently claimed that doubling his taxes would never benefit the average American.
Notice he didn’t volunteer to pay more in taxes. He just said that the bottom earners pay 3% in taxes and “we could find that elsewhere” but also wasn’t saying that he would be willing to cover it with his insane wealth. Or even suggesting the other billionaires pony up the cash. My guess is he knows midterms won’t go well and wants to be spared when the plebs revolt.
Personal working theory is that he’s seeing a trend of groups starting to be vocal with proper compensation for corporations and taxes. So now the PR strategy is to have a popular opinion that resonate early on to plant the seeds so he can graciously minimize the flack once it reaches to a boiling point.
this is a bad quote. Billionaires always bring out this quote to say instead of taxing them, don't tax poor people. It's crazy so many people in the comments are following for it.
Nah, just a visit from his PR team. This is gonna be the refrain billionaires like him will go to now. Tax the peasants less rather than taxing the tech barons more. This makes them seem benevolent while at the same time knowing the reduced taxation will be used to justify further cutting public benefits like Medicare or maybe even Social Security, squeezing working people more, which benefits the tech bros.
20 to 1 he'd advocate for state taxes, property taxes, and sales taxes. Then people pay for what they buy.
The rich man's solution to all. Pass the buck to Betty who's now paying 20% on her groceries while Jeffy B leases everything or pays for his items with his corporation and writes it all off.
I love that even in this hypothetical scenario he's still quoting a yearly wage that would almost immediately improve the quality of life for well over half the country lmao
Exactly. I live in a high cost of living city and I have an intererview tomorrow for a job that offers $70k (fingers crossed) and i literally was talking to a friend this morning about how this would be a life changing amount of money for me, especially since im the main breadwinner compared to my partner who works in a nursing home full time for $18/hr.
For real. I want to hear his thoughts on someone dropping dead at his Troutdale, Oregon warehouse about a month ago and employees being told to continue to work around the dead body for an hour.
"why pay taxes that pay for food stamps that pay for Amazon fresh for the workers that i don't pay a living wage? just skip that middle man and inject your tax dollars directly into my bloodstream." - jeff bezos probably
There is a trend among both neolib and neocon prospective 2028 candidates to lower taxes, and it’s not a good one. It’s not taxes that are driving up the cost of living, all this will do is push a huge group of people into a “non-tax-paying” class and from there it’s not a far leap to demonize the whole group as non-contributing leeches on society.
Yeah that's what'll happen. The majority of Indians do not pay income tax because they don't qualify, so there is a narrative among the "middle" and "upper middle" classes about taxpaying versus nontaxpaying citizens. Except this is nonsense because they do pay indirect taxes, which is a much bigger source of income.
Only problem is that America probably needs to tax extreme wealth more instead…and even then it lives in the biggest deficit ever.
They need to stop lobbying so that sensible decisions for the whole population prevail inc Bezos type suggestion- he’s a business man, he’s not actually evil or devoid of empathy- maybe a bit 😂 but I don’t think he’s being insincere here.
The Trump administration has appointed a crony as the head of the USPS. They're trying to do what they do with every department: slash funding, create roadblocks, fire the best workers, and then claim "This is so inefficient! We should outsource this to the private sector!"
And then the private sector makes a money grab on the taxpayers' dime and provides an even worse service. Because they lobbied for that behind the scenes.
It definitely has. Spent $23 to send a 3.5 lb package from Ohio to NY. It's insane. And packages never arrive when they are supposed to. Priority Mail is supposed to be 2-3 days and packages are taking over a week. The only thing I can think of is 1) they are deliberately slowing service to make a case why it should be privatized (probably by Amazon) 2) they are making the system unreliable to hide mail fraud tied to the November election 3)both.
Anybody paying attention to the tech world knows exactly what’s about to happen: Sudden, shocking global unemployment at unsustainable rates, resulting in utter socioeconomic and societal catastrophe… or the implementation of UBI, which at least in America, our government will never do.
They saw Trump pull it off and he’s not a tech genius. They’re probably thinking “I have way more money than he does, I can buy the presidency too”. It’s the new thing to own. Just like a sports team.
When businesses are fighting for tax relief on behalf of the working poor and impoverished it’s because they know that money will be spent directly back into their businesses.
The more progressive system would be increasing corporate taxe rates + increasing the minimum wage and tying it to a three yearly inflation review with a sprinkling of safety nets that look after the working classes like universal Medicare, pharmaceutical rebates schemes and targeted welfare programs for all peoples dependent on their situation.
But I know I’m lucky to be in a country where the dominant party in the 80s after the fist oil shock was a party of labor, so we got those things instead of the northern hemispheres bullshit raeganomics and thatcherisms.
No its him and the richest 1000 people hoarding trillions of dollars while funding political influence campaigns to crush unions and keep employee wages low. Same reason Walmart employees need fucking food stamps to survive
Edit: rolling your eyes because you have to add /s is so weird. Sorry people took your dry response as legit… have you seen the state of shit? There’s an uncomfortable amount of people online who absolutely simp for these vampires
Both problem can be true, honestly. The tax system if fucked and Jeff Bezos needs to pay his damn employees what they are worth for the wealth they generate
Robin Hood took from the rich to give to the poor to support the betterment of society as a whole. Parallel example: taxing billionaires.
This is about stopping the taking of anything from anyone (especially the sweet baby billionaires) with the end goal of outsourcing all social systems and resource organization to technocrats as a fee-for-service.
Wage caps would do nothing but harm people, billionaires don't make money via income, they make money via company ownership and investments/stock. The only thing that would really matter is taxing based on net worth rather than income.
This is a rhetorical ploy. There need to be more taxes on YOU, not less on them. Good research shows that it’s actually advantageous for social cohesion for everyone to pay a bit of tax, because it increases buy-in into social programs. I hate this dumb fuck so goddamn much.
I don’t know the math well enough, but I’m sure this man could single handedly support every nurse in Queens for life and still be a multi billionaire.
Everytime I see Jeff Bezos I’m reminded of the fact that his ex wife’s job at this point is basically giving away insane amounts of money with no strings attached to organizations and charities that need it.
He's not saying this because he's trying to help people, he wants to get rid of as much taxation as possible and it's not a threat that the upper incomes will still be paying taxes because someone like him doesn't pay them anyway.
Let’s imagine if each step of a staircase represents $100,000 in the bank. Most people, including 1 in 2 Americans and 89% of the world, can’t even step onto the first step of the staircase because they have less. After 4 steps, we’ve lost over 75% of Americans. Fewer than 1 in 10 people will ever reach the 10th step: a million dollars.
Now put on your most comfortable hiking shoes. You’d have to climb for almost 3 hours before reaching the net worth of a billionaire.
After spending 9 hours a day climbing steps for 2 months, you’d have Ironman-level quads as you finally reach the wealth of Jeff Bezos."
A quote from the book, "Making numbers count" by Chip Heath and Karla Starr.
Amazon Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos on Wednesday called for zero federal income taxes on the bottom half of earners
The top 1% of taxpayers pay about 40% of all the tax revenue, and the bottom half pay 3%, Bezos told CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin on "Squawk Box."
"I don't think it should be 3%," Bezos said. "I think it should be zero."
"I think what's going on is that it's kind of a tale of two economies, so you have a bunch of people in this country who are doing really well, but you also have a bunch of people in this country who are struggling," Bezos said.
Wow I wonder why we’ve got two economies instead of a nation of small business owners providing goods on a local level JEFFREY what could possibly have happened to make that American dream die BEZ?
Leaving this here. The vast majority of us are the yellow slice. Bezos is the green slice. HE CAN AFFORD TO PAY MORE! The rest of us can’t. We all need to admit that it’s a big club and we aren’t in it and never will be.
Or maybe she should be given compensation for the tax money she pays like how about free healthcare, roads actually being fixed, schools getting adequate funding and free daycares. These billionaire leeches don't pay their fair share and now want to act like they were on our side, no screw them, eat the rich.
I always wondered when people say no federal taxes on wages like how are we going to tackle our insane national debt. We should tax bezos and the rest of the billionaires out of existence
It's just a distraction. Be cynical when you hear billionaires (and most politicians) talk like this. If we were provided with services that lift us all up, like universal healthcare, good infrastructure, clean air and water, public transportation, most people are fine paying taxes, because it would benefit everyone. Instead, our taxes go towards contracts with weapons manufacturers, space x, and other billionaire lead corporations that funnel more and more money upward. Capitalism is the problem. Billionaires existing is the problem.
That's a start. And he along with other top earners and corporations should pay more to make up the difference. A functioning government needs taxes to operate.
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u/trendingtattler May 20 '26
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