
Amazon's Bezos Launches $2B Fund to Help the Homeless - dpflan
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-13/amazon-s-bezos-launches-2-billion-fund-to-help-the-homeless
======
jimnotgym
Bezos can keep his donations, I just want Amazon to pay tax like any other
business would in the UK, pay employees NI like any other business in the UK,
and pay minimum wage like any other business in the UK. It shouldn't be up to
the billionaires to choose where to spend money that should be in the hands of
national governments and workers. This article for instance shows homeless
Amazon warehouse workers living in tents [0]. Maybe a better solution to
homelessness is to pay people properly.

[0][https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/amazon-
worke...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/amazon-workers-
sleep-tents-dunfermline-fife-scotland-a7467657.html)

~~~
yodsanklai
> I just want Amazon to pay tax like any other business would in the UK, pay
> employees NI like any other business in the UK, and pay minimum wage like
> any other business in the UK

I agree with you, but you can't blame Jeff Bezos for UK legislation.

~~~
Jedd
> ... but you can't blame Jeff Bezos for UK legislation.

Ahh, the old 'unless it's specifically and explicitly denied, regardless of
moral or ethical considerations, let alone acting contra to the spirit of the
law, then it's okay' defence.

Your misdirection is correct - Jeff Bezos is not _responsible_ for UK
legislation - however how Jeff Bezos instructs his vendors and employees to
act is very much his responsibility.

~~~
natalyarostova
If you want to optimize systems, you should expect people to operate with
self-interest with respect to the law. Attributing moral blame for self-
interested parties not donating money to be within the spirit of the law is
unreasonable.

~~~
projektir
Attributing moral blame to self-interested parties is exactly the point of
moral blame. Moral blame is specifically about accusing people of going for
their self-interest and little else...

~~~
solveit
You're talking past each other. Moral blame isn't wrong, just not very useful.

~~~
rsj_hn
Moral blame and $5 will get you a cup of coffee from Blue Bottle, which just
sold out to Nestle.

------
CodeSheikh
I dont't care if this is a PR stint to ward of recent criticism Bezos is
getting from Bernie et al but if this fund goes and actually help and make a
real life impact on the lives of homeless people, then I am fine and I will
hold back my criticism of Amazon. I mean clearly I have not done enough to
mitigate homelessness in this country who am I to question others motives
trying to solve the same problem?

~~~
capdeck
Looks like this was cheaper than upping the salaries of warehouse workers to
get them off food stamps and provide healthcare. For Bezos this is just
another calculation, nothing more.

~~~
asdkhadsj
It is really frustrating when a man makes that much and does so little.

Like, I don't think/know if it should be law. I'm not talking about being
Robinhood with our taxes or whatever. I don't know any of that.

All I know is it's _frustrating_. Look at all the good Gates is working
towards. There's just so much room for people with that much wealth to strive
for.

Honestly.. I think what's most frustrating is I can't even imagine what you
even do with that much money, aside from watch it get bigger, if not helping
people. These people have so much money that they can't even spend it. Short
of trying to personally buy a company or a country, there's just nothing you
could spend it on.. it grows too fast. So it's frustrating that the human
condition so easily falls towards hoarding.

And yes, I'm largely ignoring the idea of liquidity, but for this discussion I
think we can.

~~~
fixermark
FWIW, it used to be law.

Tax rate on the top-1% of earners in the US was much, much, MUCH higher until
the recent four or so decades.

~~~
asdkhadsj
At this rate I'd be happy if they simply paid as much as everyone else
(percentage wise). Rather, that they didn't find as many legal tax avoidance
methods.

I don't know if they should be taxed more than the 99%, I'll let someone who
knows economics tell me what is best.

~~~
jtolmar
The richest people make their money primarily from capital investment, which
has returns proportional to the capital invested, which in the long run is
exponential. Laborers make their money primarily from effort over time, which
is linear. So it makes sense for their taxes to be different. Additionally the
amount of money someone needs to live comfortably is more or less constant
(regional differences apply), so it's less harmful to tax someone with more
than that than someone with less.

An economist will tell you that a handful of taxes are inherently helpful and
getting money is a nice bonus (externalities taxes, some amount of LVT). If
you need more money than what you can get through those (and you do) then the
least harmful tax is a wealth tax, but those are unpopular and difficult to
administrate. Income-based taxes are less efficient but still okay. Sales
taxes aren't very good at all.

------
dmode
Finally someone realizes that there is a problem. There is no justification in
the biggest economy of the world to have this much poverty and homelessness. I
am amazed every time I travel to Europe, how few homeless people there are,
despite their economic growth lagging the US. And it is inherently a solvable
problem with adequate resources. We have $1 trillion for the military. Surely,
we can spare a few billions and house the downtrodden and provide mental care
for those who can't take care of themselves.

~~~
ageitgey
Agreed 100%. I live in California which has the same massive homelessness
issues as Seattle. I also travel to Europe frequently and have noticed the
same stark contrast where they seem to do much better at this.

To try to understand why homelessness _feels_ so much worse an California than
in Europe, I did some very basic research (which I also posted on a similar
thread once before). The numbers are shocking:

San Francisco population: 884,363 (2017/Wikipedia)

San Francisco unsheltered population (conservative): 6,600 (7,499 SF self-
reported homeless count * 88.2% HUD estimated unsheltered rate)

Unsheltered population rate (conservative): ~0.75% of residents (my
calculation) - nearly 1 in 100!

Compare that with London, a city also experiencing a homelessness epidemic due
to explosively rising housing costs:

London population: 8,825,000 (2017/Wikipedia)

London unsheltered population: 1,137 (homeless.org.uk)

Unsheltered rate: ~0.01% of residents (my calculation)

Homelessness rates in SF are absurdly high. In fact, there are more
unsheltered homeless people in SF than the entire country of England(!):

San Francisco unsheltered population: 6,600 (2017)

England unsheltered population: 4,751 (2017)

They are not equivalent situations obviously, but somehow a country with a
population greater than the state of California manages to have fewer homeless
people than one relatively tiny city in California. Something is very wrong.

Homelessness is a complex issue with lots of intertwined causes and no single
solution. Not only is affordable housing an issue, but mental health treatment
is an equally important problem. I don't have the answers. But I do know that
it is a public health crisis and we are currently completely failing to solve
it. We need big changes if we actually care about addressing it and we as a
country definitely have the resources to do it.

~~~
kangax
I'm wondering why homelessness is not as large in NYC? The prices here are as
high as in SF. Is it due to the slower rate of a price increase? Colder
weather?

~~~
passivepinetree
NYC has a homeless problem that's actually worse than San Francisco [0]: Their
homeless population in 2017 was upwards of 76,000 people.

Where are you getting the information that New York's problem isn't as bad?

[0]: [https://www.wnyc.org/story/more-homeless-people-live-new-
yor...](https://www.wnyc.org/story/more-homeless-people-live-new-york-any-
other-city/)

~~~
ageitgey
This is very misleading and doesn't mean what it sounds like it means.

NYC has a homeless population of 76,501, but according to HUD, only 5.1% of
NYC homeless are unsheltered. In SF, the unsheltered rate according to HUD is
almost 90% - nearly the worst in the country. That means NYC actually has
fewer unsheltered people than SF on the streets despite a much larger homeless
population.

So while NYC has a big issue with housing affordability and homelessness, they
are actually doing a much more effective job of keeping people off the streets
and reducing the rate of the kinds of severe public health issues you will see
everyday in downtown SF.

------
ithilglin909
This isn’t popular, but I’d challenge anyone who thinks homelessness in
Seattle isn’t primarily an addiction and mental illness problem to go spend a
few afternoons in areas with significant homeless populations (3rd Ave in
Pioneer Square is a great place, if you need a suggestion).

It’s not that affordable housing isn’t a problem in Seattle. I know people who
couldn’t live on their own in Seattle anymore due to rental increases,
including members of my extended family. But those people either move away to
more affordable areas, moving in with family or friends or into (sometimes
questionably legal) group housing situations, but they don’t live on the
street.

~~~
CydeWeys
You're not seeing all the other homeless people though who were displaced by
high housing prices and who aren't spending all their time drugged out in
highly visible urban areas. There are many homeless people living out of cars
or shelters, or in tents. Many of them even still have jobs, they just can't
afford housing.

See: [http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ucla-anderson-
forecast...](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ucla-anderson-
forecast-20180613-story.html)

~~~
baddox
I'm not in Seattle (I live and work on some of the most conspicuous blocks in
San Francisco for homeless drug users), but I'm sure that both groups exist in
both cities. I think what's important is for policy proposals to treat the
groups differently, rather than bundling them together into a proposal to
"solve homelessness." In my experience in SF these proposals usually only
focuses on one set of issues, like minimum wage and rent prices, which are
unlikely to significantly help both groups of homeless people.

~~~
old-gregg
> to treat the groups differently, rather than bundling them together into a
> proposal to "solve homelessness."

I agree. Add the absence of a healthcare system to that too. Personal
anecdote: a homeless man offered to wash my car for money. He seemed
intelligent and nice, so I agreed. He told me the story of him becoming
homeless. Both he and his wife worked and rented an OK place in OK part of SF.
His wife got into a car accident and their crappy insurance couldn't handle
it, the deductibles were astronomical because, as usual, some of the
"independent businessmen" who "provided care" were out of network, as if the
unconscious victim had any control over who touched her.

So they had to drop their income below certain level to qualify for free
healthcare. Now he didn't have enough for rent and moved to under a highway
bridge and was visibly embarrassed by it.

~~~
tim333
That's a bit of a shocker really.

------
etaty
All hail to Bezos...

 _Earlier this year, under pressure from Amazon and other large employers,
Seattle’s City Council repealed an employee head tax designed to provide
housing and services for the homeless. In a statement, Amazon called the vote
“the right decision for the region’s economic prosperity. We are deeply
committed to being part of the solution to end homelessness in Seattle and
will continue to invest in local nonprofits” that work with the homeless._

Oligarchy?

~~~
pinewurst
Speaking as a Seattle resident, and despite my dislike for Bezos, this was a
stupid tax - more connected to Seattle's dysfunctional politics than solving
our bad homeless problem. Among other things, it was keyed to revenues not
profits (specifically to target Amazon) but it ended up burning the likes of
grocers who provide decent jobs but don't have a lot of margin even with large
revenues. Good riddance to it and a pox on our local Pol Pot that drove it.

~~~
dunpeal
As a Seattle resident, what do you think of the argument that Amazon greatly
contributed to homelessness in Seattle?

I read somewhere that Amazon's explosive growth raised the property values in
Seattle, which in turn caused a surge in homelessness. Is that true?

~~~
pinewurst
My 2 cents is that Amazon isn't a major cause. There's a few things going
on(1):

\- exploding drug addiction and related mental health issues

\- Seattle does a remarkably crappy job of assigning the low income housing we
build and/or contract for. Too many people get it who shouldn't qualify. Too
many non-profits cherry pick their clients. Etc, etc.

\- It's super hard to get coherent services out of the system. Which makes it
self-selecting in the sense of concentrating the worst cases.

Amazon, to a certain degree, was/is part of running up the price of apartments
and homes. Some homelessness is a consequence, but mostly that pushed people
further (or totally out) of the area.

I'm not at all convinced that if we raise 2x the money, we'll spend it
intelligently enough to make a difference here.

(1)My partner worked in the area homeless system and I'm getting a lot of my
info from that.

~~~
emodendroket
> \- exploding drug addiction and related mental health issues

I think cause and effect are backwards here. Low wages and high housing prices
seem like they'd naturally lead to homelessness and rates of drug addiction
and mental illness among the homeless, although very high compared to the
general population, are nowhere near as high as people would like to think.

~~~
lostmsu
We are talking about sentient people. Wages and housing prices may be an
excuse, but they don't shove drugs down people's throats.

Mental illness - may be. But one needs to know if it's the cause, or simply an
exposing factor.

~~~
emodendroket
I don't think it's even controversial to say that people can turn to substance
abuse due to adverse exogenous circumstances.

~~~
lostmsu
It is controversial by definition, because you just disagreed.

~~~
emodendroket
It's not controversial to say the sky is blue because you can turn up a couple
people who say it is green. You've really never heard of people turning to
drink or drugs because of, day, the death of a family member? You can't see
why someone who sleeps rough might seek escape through psychoactive drugs?

~~~
lostmsu
People turn to drugs because they decide to. You might blame circumstances,
but I will always blame people.

~~~
emodendroket
They are not literally forced to take drugs, but the idea of escaping reality
is obviously more appealing if reality is unending misery.

------
fixermark
Utilitarian question:

Can he do more net good spending $2 billion to help the homeless, or spending
an equivalent amount to double the take-home pay of warehouse employees and/or
convert the "money towards medical insurance" plan into a company-supplied
medical plan?

(Follow-up question is "Given he doesn't have plurality control of the stock
votes, does he have the authority to do so in a vacuum without getting ejected
from his own company?")

~~~
ericpauley
Amazon has (conservatively) over 500,000 employees. This $2B would cover a
pre-tax salary increase of $4000 for one year, which wouldn't come close to
doubling take-home pay.

~~~
fixermark
I was thinking specifically of anyone making below $15/hr, not of the entire
employee pool.

Amazon software engineers, I love you to pieces, but you're capable of
negotiating your own salary or leaving the company to pursue other
opportunities if you're feeling under-paid. ;)

------
karangoeluw
I have always wondered which one is better:

1\. Contribute early on little by little 2\. Contribute nothing to very little
for a while amassing huge fortunes (and compound interest magic), then donate
big.

Pretty much the same question as lump sum vs dollar cost averaging in
investing.

Have there been studies on this?

~~~
sabalaba
1\. Usually will end when you pass away.

2\. (Especially if establishing a foundation.) Will outlive you and continue
on for potentially hundreds of years into the future. For example:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Foundation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Foundation)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Endowment_for_Interna...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Endowment_for_International_Peace)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Foundation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Foundation)

~~~
istjohn
Money given today pays dividends in the lives of those who benefit and the
lives of people who are around them, it just doesn't show up on any balance
sheet. The after school program that provides the missing support network for
a child, keeping them out of a street gang and later prison, and helping them
develop the skills to find gainful employment pays hidden dividends of tens or
hundreds of thousands of dollars for society. Also there are second and third
order effects that amplify those gains further. If that money was instead
earning 5% in an endowment fund, it may keep the name of a robber baron alive
for perpetuity, but it does far less for society today. And if you could trace
the knock-on effects of the money given today, you would likely find that the
benefits distributed throughout society accumulate quicker than the 5% rate of
growth achieved by that endowment fund.

------
1053r
Homelessness in the USA in most places is an emotional or mental problem, but
in some parts of the country, it's actually an affordability / NIMBYism /
price control problem. For example, in the San Francisco Bay Area, there is a
broad swath of folks who work full time (or more!) who have three choices:

1) Live with roommates, often exceeding the legal limits on the dwelling on
the number of occupants, or live in illegal and often not-up-to-code housing.

2) Live two or more hours from their job(s), each way.

3) Live in a van, tent, or truck.

Sometime, people make a sane (for them) choice to choose the last one. Driving
around the bay area, one can see these tents and vans in many places. There
are obviously thousands of people (perhaps tens of thousands?, it's hard to
get a census of these folks) who are plainly visible once you know the signs
(blacked out windows, small exhaust vents, generators, etc.)

On the margin, some folks end up sleeping in doorways because of the pressures
involved with choosing one of those choices. You could see the evidence for
this in a recent article in the Economist which included a diagram of feces
complaints spreading out from the Tenderloin (bad neighborhood in central San
Francisco) across the city, and the new mayor has hired a "poop patrol" to
start cleaning up after them.

Meanwhile, homes that would rent for under $1000/month in many parts of
America are renting for over $5K a month. (Actually, in most parts of America,
these homes would come with much larger yards, as well as lower prices.)
Proposal after proposal to densify the bay area or improve transit get shot
down on thinly veiled racist or nakedly self interested grounds. Those
proposals that get through are intensely profitable, often to the tune of 5x
return on investment or more (not counting fighting the inevitable lawsuits),
because the market is so starved for housing.

Forgive the rant, but price controls never work,* and efforts to mitigate the
problems caused by price controls are so expensive as to never really solve
the problem. The only solution here is to abolish the price controls and the
incentives they cause for subsequent laws and zoning which make development
impossible. However, that's politically untenable at this time. (So
frustration and rants.)

* Actually, the price controls in CA do EXACTLY what they were intended to do, which is to raise the prices on homes, to the benefit of homeowners. As a side effect which many folks foolishly welcome, they also serve to keep Hispanics and Blacks in deeply segregated neighborhoods.

~~~
skrebbel
I'm a clueless foreigner [0], and HN is my only window into the Bay Area (and,
in a more general sense, into America), so I appreciate your writeup. On HN my
impression that absolutely everybody agrees that SF and the cities near it
should just build more and higher. It appears to solve all the problems
(insane rent, extreme commutes, homelessness, poo), so why is it politically
untenable? Who exactly is pro insane rent, extreme commutes, homelessness and
poo?

I mean, the home owners can't be the voting majority right?

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17932484](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17932484)

~~~
mywittyname
Let's say you paid $1,000,000 for a home that would fetch $200,000 in most
other parts of the country.

What would you do if someone proposed a law that you figured would half the
value of your home? Eat the loss or oppose the law?

Property owners in CA are being rational. They don't like the poop, commutes
and homelessness. But they aren't willing to take a half-million dollar bath
on their real-estate investment.

~~~
skrebbel
Sure, but my question was why they control the vote.

~~~
erikpukinskis
If you have $1M for an apartment, you have $1k for a political contribution.

If you can barely afford your $2k rent, you don’t.

------
ahh
Bezos pays the Danegeld. I'm disappointed in him. I'm also not sure what
political player he's paying off...he didn't seem to need much influence with
Seattle politicians lately.

Bezos is smart enough to know that the problem with Seattle homelessness has
nothing to do with access to money. The city spends like water on the
homeless, and we see nothing from it (which makes the spending a complete
success for its intended beneficiaries, the bureaucrats in charge of the
money.) We need a new policy to deal with them, and with this we won't get it.

------
ProAm
For a billionaire who is slowly killing small business (because your margins
are his opportunity), forcing people to earn less I find this ironic.

~~~
lostmsu
It's like saying, that industrial revolution killed artisan makers. It did,
but it also was a global good. Small businesses must adapt.

~~~
thieving_magpie
If I have this right, the moral of your story is that small businesses will
die and amazon-sized corporations are for the global good.

~~~
lostmsu
But with Amazon you don't have to build your own storefront, or online site at
all. Just make a listing, and ship to FBA. I imagine that alone creates more
businesses.

~~~
ProAm
Businesses originally existed and had a profit margin. Then Amazon came along
and competed directly against that profit margin so businesses lost business.
Then Amazon said you can sell on our site, but in order to compete there
businesses had to compete at the new lower profit margin, but then ontop of
that give a slice of that to Amazon, so now they are losing profit margin, but
losing more giving amazon a slice of the pie. It will take a LOT of extra
business to make that part up. Walmart is a town killer, Amazon is a business
killer.

~~~
lostmsu
Without numbers it is unclear which effect is stronger.

------
wlesieutre
How about paying the warehouse employees more?

------
jandrese
Nice, maybe now those Amazon warehouse workers will be able to find a home
they can afford.

------
loceng
The reason Bezos is the richest man in the world is he successfully tapped
into facilitating the supply chain and has continued to fill different roles
of the whole funnel and on a massive, growing scale. His success is shining a
light on the future of using autonomous systems to further reduce costs and
increase profits, however that doesn't lead to any individually owned system
or organization to being incentivized to allocate their services or products
to take care of society's basic needs. This is where government should come
in, however then you have competition against what's best for society - you
have layers upon layers of for profit systems pressuring the system for their
own advantage, their own specific needs to succeed and benefit the most, at
the direct or indirect cost of others and society of a whole. Jeff and no one
should have to shoulder these costs on their own, though he certainly is
heavily benefitting from the status quo, and the exponential benefit weighted
towards his scale and foundational transactional layer they support, and so
it's good he's directing some resources - however whether his core values and
efforts are attempting to solve the deeper problems or if he and his companies
will simply pressure existing systems to benefit their own systems they excel
at primarily for their own benefit, and not the benefit of the system as a
whole, is what we should be questioning.

------
antirez
Strange to think that a model where people getting disproportionately rich,
then give some of that richness away to poors, is going to work. The problem
with US seems more that people lose the way because the state does not provide
any fundamental help when you need it. So IMHO makes more sense to increase
spending (and maybe taxes) in order to provide things like free health care,
minimum pension, and so forth. This way the homeless can be, in part,
prevented.

------
beenBoutIT
Is $2B enough to assist all of the homeless people currently employed by or
working for Amazon?

------
aaroninsf
Great!

I would still much prefer to live in a culture in which obscene concentration
of wealth–not least at the expense of meaningful government checking of the
race to minimize employee count and wellbeing–does not mean we are beholden to
gracious oligarchs to bestow basic services, thereby distinguishing themselves
from the oligarchs who invest only in consolidation of their own power.

------
forapurpose
Recall that Bezos effectively undid a Seattle tax, already passed by the
democratic government there, to fund affordable housing.[0] This is not a
substitute for that tax and policy. Instead, it part of a dangerous trend
where an aristocracy substitutes for a democratic society, seizing power and
decision-making from fellow citizens.

If Bezos or his company would pay their share of taxes, then society could
make a joint decision and investment on how to help the homeless. Instead he
does not pay, undermining democracy, and then he has power over the homeless
and over the policy of his country.

(In fairness, not all charity is aristocracy, but I'm talking about charity in
the absence of democracy and as a substitute for it.)

[0] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/12/technology/seattle-tax-
am...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/12/technology/seattle-tax-amazon.html)

------
marricks
It’s pretty telling that his company went all out against increased taxes in
Seattle to help the homeless only to then start this initiative once being
attacked by Bernie.

This shouldn’t be praised as companies doing good, it’s them shirking their
taxes and having enough money to start a 2 billion dollar PR campaign.

Same shit with Amazon helping start a new Insurance plan, they want to
demonstrate they have an alternative solution to Medicare for all.

Heck, look at the fall out from the Facebook / Cambridge Anlytica scandal, no
new regulation, just a brief verbal flogging and FB assuring they will change.

This is all a sign of the times, corporations can’t be regulated and only when
threatened, or in a deep scandal, will they briefly self regulate to show how
they don’t need it.

Conservatives already hate the government and liberals buy up this PR, we seem
pretty screwed. Goodbye democracy hello corporatocracy.

------
msie
Hopefully it does better than Mark Zuckerberg’s 100 million dollar gift to
Newark schools. Oh brother!

------
beezischillin
The thing that pisses me off, more than anything, is that huge companies like
Amazon take advantage of a society and lobby for laws more favourable to them
until society reaches a breaking point in tolerating it. Small businesses are
already pretty much dead in the water by the time that happens due to the
anti-competitive nature of these behemoths. And then the government decides to
crack down and regulate and once more it's always the small businesses that
suffer the most or go out of business.

A self-regulating free market with competition would be beautiful but at this
point we're past that and this scorched earth policy has to end somehow
because it's a race to the bottom.

------
arcticbull
As much as I wish it would pass - and know it won't - Sanders' plan of
charging back to employers the cost of social assistance incurred by employees
who are paid below the cost of living is a clean and elegant solution to this.

~~~
justbuchanan
I'm curious why you see Sanders' plan as a "clean and elegant" solution to
this problem. It is _a_ solution, but it seems likely to introduce some bad
incentives at hiring time. For example, if a high school student and a single
mother apply for the same job, which one should Amazon hire? Right now, both
cost Amazon the same, but under the Sanders plan, hiring the single mother
would likely cost a lot more due to the chargeback.

This writeup has some more discussion on the likely negatives of the plan:
[https://www.cbpp.org/poverty-and-inequality/sanders-
khanna-b...](https://www.cbpp.org/poverty-and-inequality/sanders-khanna-bill-
risks-unintended-side-effects-that-could-hurt-lower).

~~~
arcticbull
Fair, I hadn't considered that. I guess I'm just happy the conversation is
being had.

That said to solve your specific problem, I'd say this is meant to be a
punitive measure and therefore it doesn't need to be a 1:1 dollar-for-dollar
cost recovery program. Take the 80th percentile burden on the government from
underpayment, assign a 50% surcharge as penalty, then apply it for each
employee paid less than a living wage, period. Now the mother costs just as
much as everyone else, and it's a lot - so now it's in their interest to
simply pay a living wage as it would be less expensive than paying the
penalties. These problems have solutions, let's focus on finding them instead
of pointing out problems and throwing our hands up.

Or better yet don't tie it to the cost. Fine them. Or like. Set a living
minimum wage.

------
carlosag
It's great to see Bezos invest in a way that is quite different than other
folks in tech's Big Philanthropy approach. Many are piling their money into
trusts to avoid taxes now, but don't deploy their philanthropic dollars
quickly. Even with increasing wealth and charity dollars in cities like San
Francisco, local charities have had a hard time making ends meet.
International philanthropy and trusts are not bad in and of themselves, but
need to support local charities as well which seems to be the goal. Pretty
awesome.

------
throwaway180915
Alternate heading: “Bezos donates 1.2% of his net-worth to help homeless”

------
watertom
The homeless issue is, IMHO, a mental health crisis. We as a society didn't
want to pay for the freeloading mental health patients, so now we have the
homeless.

In 1955 there were 560,000 patients in all mental hospitals across the united
states, private, public and government.

In 2010 there were 43,000 psychiatric beds in the United States, or about 14
beds per 100,000 people—the same ratio as in 1850

In 1950 there were 300 state psychiatric hospitals in the U.S., with 320,000
patients, today there are about 180 hospitals, with and about 20,000 patients.

~~~
refurb
It’s not about not wanting to pay, it’s about the changing attitude towards
institutionalizing people, in particularly when it’s involuntary. Around the
1970-80s there was a big push to move mental patients out of institutions and
into the community. It was viewed as more “humane”.

------
rectang
From _A History of Richard the Third_ by Jacob Abbott (1901):

"This ceremony being concluded, a company of heralds came forward before the
king, and proclaimed 'a largesse,' as it was called. The ceremony of a
largesse consisted in throwing money among the crowd to be scrambled for.
Three times the money was thrown out, on this occasion, among the guests in
the hall. The amount that is charged on the royal account-book for the expense
of this largesse is one hundred pounds."

------
bitxbit
At some point in the next decade, I believe shareholders or the govt will
break up Amazon into retail and aws. There’s just too much unwanted public
attention at this scale.

------
miesman
Reminds me of how Pablo Escobar gave money to the poor in Medellín. Not
implying Bezos is a narcoterrorist but the goals seem similar to me.

------
gerardnll
He employs the working class with shitty salaries/conditions but then he keeps
some of them out of the streets. Thanks

------
07d046
As someone on Twitter said, this is like taxation, but he pays less, and gets
more credit for it.

------
entwife
Bezos ought to start by paying each and every one of his employees enough so
that they don't qualify for public assistance, and are able to support
themselves in the respective community where they work.

~~~
rosege
Agreed and same goes for Walmart

------
Covzire
Nice. Now if every multi-Billionaire built a Desalination plant...

------
SketchySeaBeast
You know he could just pay his staff more directly. I guess he found a
loophole where the money ends up at the same place, but this way it's more of
a tax write-off.

------
benologist
In anticipation of many of his employees, sorry contractors, being unable to
afford 24/7 rent no matter how many bottles they piss in.

------
onemoresoop
If Amazon had paid their federal income taxes this philanthropy wouldn't be
necessary.

Amazon paid no federal income tax in 2017: [https://www.politifact.com/truth-
o-meter/statements/2018/may...](https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2018/may/03/bernie-s/amazon-paid-0-federal-income-
taxes-2017/)

------
dsabanin
What's up with the critical comments in here? How many of the judgemental and
jaded posters here donated anything close to this to a charitable cause?

Good deeds must be applauded, not shamed for not being better. Especially if
the definition of "better" is made up randomly on the spot.

~~~
jakelazaroff
No one's shaming him for not doing something better. They're shaming him for
having a direct role in creating the problem this charity is supposed to
resolve.

~~~
NeonVice
How is Amazon creating more homeless people?

~~~
lev99
Increasing home prices in Seattle, where the median rent is $2,400 [0]. By
bringing in people from out of state with high salaries Amazon is making the
housing market in Seattle much more expensive as more people compete for a
mostly static stock of housing. Zoning laws, mandatory parking, improved
public transportation, affordable housing regulations, and new development
could all improve the current situation so local and state governments play a
role, but it would be naive to assume the largest private employer in the
region didn't play a role in creating the current situation either.

[0] [https://www.zillow.com/seattle-wa/home-
values/](https://www.zillow.com/seattle-wa/home-values/)

~~~
corysama
:/ The math you are presenting is “One family gets a large raise. Another gets
a slightly harder time finding affordable housing”. Multiply that by a large
number and you get a large number of families cannot find affordable housing.
But, a similar number got large raises. It’s not a universal win, but it’s
still a net win. It’s not even a horribly skewed distribution.

If I could make a genie wish, it would be that there was a bunch of luxury
condo&apt construction for the new residents so that none of the old residents
would have any pressure to move. But, I can’t blame the lack of construction
on Amazon.

~~~
jakelazaroff
How is increasing inequality a net win? The situation you've presented is even
somewhat zero-sum, i.e. the first family's gain comes at the expense of the
second. That's exactly what we should be trying to _prevent_.

~~~
corysama
It's not zero sum. One family makes more than before. The other makes the same
as before. Net win. The extra money in the pocket of the first family is not
coming out of the pocket of the second. It's coming out of Amazon's pocket.

The alternative is that no one gets raises. That's would be loss for a large
number of families and no change for others.

~~~
jakelazaroff
You are not presenting a scenario in which one family gains and the other
stays the same, you're presenting one in which one family makes more money
(gain) while the other makes the same amount of money but is less able to find
affordable housing (loss).

It's not _strictly_ zero-sum because the gains and losses may not exactly
offset each other, but one agent's gains still come at the expense of another.

~~~
corysama
I don't know what you are advocating. Amazon paid people a lot locally. That's
usually considered a nice thing. As a side effect, that inflated prices
locally. That's sad. So, to not be shamed by you, they should have been doing
_ambiguous something_ all along. What?

~~~
jakelazaroff
I suppose I'm advocating that we structure our society such that one person
gaining wealth does not make it more difficult for another to live their life.
I'm pointing out that, in a vacuum, this specific scenario:

 _> One family gets a large raise. Another gets a slightly harder time finding
affordable housing._

is something to _avoid_ , not strive for.

~~~
corysama
Sure. But, it feels like there is a lot of shooting the messenger here. There
is obviously a fault in the housing market of Seattle. If there wasn’t, supply
would have risen to meet demand. But, Amazon didn’t cause the fault. They just
made it obvious. So, when shit gets bad, who does the pitchforks come out for?
The ones who made the problem obvious.

------
mothsonasloth
Curious to know if there is an Amazon killer company(ies) that will emerge in
the future?

~~~
rhexs
Sure, after anti-trust, which isn't a thing in the United States anymore.

All hail the ever increasing stock and housing market, the savior of the
boomers, the one true political goal.

------
detcader
Serious albeit philosophical question: Why not more? Why not $160B?

~~~
kashyapc
Your question reminds me of the Australian moral philosopher (and one of the
founders of the "Effective Altruism" movement) Peter Singer. I have an inkling
that you know him.

He talks about (and makes people squirm) "how much should one give?":

" _[...] In particular, he expands upon some of the arguments made in his 1972
essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", in which he posits that citizens of
rich nations are morally obligated to give at least some of their disposable
income to charities that help the global poor. He supports this using the
drowning child analogy, which states that most people would rescue a drowning
child from a pond, even if it meant that their expensive clothes were ruined,
so we clearly value a human life more than the value of our material
possessions. As a result, we should take a significant portion of the money
that we spend on our possessions and instead donate it to charity._"

People have punched some solid holes through his argument, I can't link to
them all, as I'm typing on the phone. But regardless, it's impossible to
ignore Singer's arguments.

~~~
detcader
An "anonymous" author sharpens this argument in a Current Affairs essay called
_It 's Basically Just Immoral To Be Rich_. The logic works better applied to
super-rich people than trying to get to the assertion that everyone should
give up expensive things they have or want and live in some minimal way. Also
check out _This Little Rock And All Who Sail On It_ on the same website.

~~~
kashyapc
True; Singer's argument that "everyone should get enlightened on this" is a
hard sell and isn't going to happen in real life.

Thanks for the other recommendations.

------
slantedview
Is he going to start by paying his warehouse workers a living wage?

~~~
fixermark
Does he have authority to? Immediately yes, but he only owns 17% or so of the
company. If he doubles / triples the wage in absence of market pressure to do
so to keep competent staff in the warehouses, how long does he get to do it
before the stockholders gang up and replace him?

------
wwarner
I think it's good for Bezos to fight homelessness, but funding drug treatment
programs from the sale of legal drugs would be a better long term solution.
Treatment should be the first, if not the only, spending target of marijuana
revenue.

~~~
SurgeonOfDeath
It depends. Like in USA i would agree because there is a lot of mentally ill
people on street. In other cases like teaching is better. They spend all day
on street. Going somewhere learn it is just much better environment for them.

I don't drink but If was homeless in cold country I would drink and take drugs
to forget about cold. It requires so much strong will to live in this
environment.

------
kolanos
Call me cynical, but shouldn't this $2B go towards compensating his employees
well enough to not have to use government welfare programs? [0]

[0]: [https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-takes-walmarts-
spot-w...](https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-takes-walmarts-spot-with-
bezos-act-2018-9)

~~~
woah
What is the problem with the employees using public benefits? Genuinely
curious.

~~~
maxxxxx
This means that the public is subsidizing a company owned by the richest man
in the world because he refuses to pay his employees a living wage. Doesn't
this sound wrong?

~~~
rahul003
But isn't he paying market wages for them? Similar to what the other companies
are paying them.

~~~
rifung
Yes and presumably other companies should also pay them more but I suppose the
blame is more focused on Amazon/Bezos because he is the richest person in the
world and this article is about him.

------
wiz21c
FTA :

> The child will be the customer.

Maybe he could just start giving a proper salary to his work force (the one
who's moving the boxes around) ?

------
mabbo
Jeff Bezos, for once in his life, gives away a money and all anyone has to say
is that he's a monster for not doing something else. He doesn't have to. It's
a free country and he follows the laws.

I work most days inside Amazon Fulfillment Centers. No one is forced to be
there and most are happy they have the jobs they do because every other
company out there treats them as bad or worse. If they don't want to be there,
they can quit at any time. The problem isn't Amazon, it's a society that
doesn't give a shit about the lower class and won't pass any laws to help
them. Not if it would mean higher prices. Not if it's the demonized
'socialism'.

Complaining about Bezos feels great, but it doesn't do anything. Lobby your
congressman and senator for law changes that force _all_ companies to treat
their lowest-paid employees better. Tell them to support Sander's "stop Bezos
act" too if you like- I think it's a great idea.

Fight the root of the problems, not the symptoms. And don't complain when
someone actually tries to do good for once.

And of course, bias note: I work for Amazon but I don't speak for the company
in any capacity. These opinions are my own.

------
ccc111
and turn them into cheaper amazon labor.

gg mr bezos

------
throwaway39233
He's obviously trying to diffuse the momentum of a movement that is aligning
against him. The most popular politician in America just introduced the Stop
BEZOS act:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/09/05/bernie-
sa...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/09/05/bernie-sanders-
introduces-stop-bezos-act-senate/)

The 2B are less costly than losing the whole shebang. I would not be surprised
in the least if he ends up still controlling the 2B and this ends up as just a
headline.

~~~
vxNsr
> _The most popular politician in America just introduced the Stop BEZOS act_

from the article: > _Bernie Sanders_

Popular by who's standards?

~~~
stevenwoo
2016, 2017 polls by Harvard/Harris of nation, polls about senators within
their states.

[https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/04/bernie-
sanders-...](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/04/bernie-sanders-most-
popular-politician-country-poll-says/)

[https://morningconsult.com/july-2017-senator-
rankings/](https://morningconsult.com/july-2017-senator-rankings/)

------
kevmo
"Philanthropy" is just another way that oligarchs take tax-free control of our
society and shape it to their whims. A fine example of this is Bill Gates -
with no educational training or experience, he used his fortune to push
failing methods on millions on American kids.[1]

Bezos is a great creator of poverty. He is the wrong person to try and fix it.
We need to just make these oligarchs pay taxes and living wages, full-stop.

[1] [https://www.philanthropydaily.com/gates-philanthropy-
failure...](https://www.philanthropydaily.com/gates-philanthropy-failure-
common-core)

~~~
dharmon
Gates also has no educational training in Computer Science / Engineering nor
Business, and he's seem to have done pretty well in those areas. :)

There's plenty of room to throw rocks at billionaire philanthropists, but
Gates is more knowledgeable about the areas in which his foundation operates
than the heads of most well-known non-profits and relief organizations.

~~~
mikeyouse
> Gates is more knowledgeable about the areas in which his foundation operates
> than the heads of most well-known non-profits and relief organizations.

This is laughably absurd. Come on.

 _Edited because I was still thinking about this_

Who do you think knows more about Malaria, Bill Gates (who is incredibly
knowledgeable about Malaria) or Dr. Pedro Alonso who runs the WHO's malaria
program?

> _His professional career began in The Gambia in the 1980s. A study on the
> validation of verbal autopsies was followed by the scientific assessment of
> the efficacy of Insecticide Treated Nets (ITNs) as a preventive tool against
> malaria. The utility of such nets was, at the time, controversial, and the
> publication of new results in The Lancet[1] was critical for the launching
> of subsequent studies confirming first evaluations. Based on this evidence,
> WHO recommended the universal use of ITNs as a vector control tool, since a
> pillar in the fight against malaria. It is estimated that extensive
> distribution programs of ITNs can claim responsibility for 69% of the 663
> million of averted malaria cases in Subsaharan Africa between 2001 and
> 2015.[2]_

..

> _With the support of the Hospital Clínic and the University of Barcelona, he
> founded in 2006 the Barcelona Centre for International Health Research
> (CRESIB). In this institution he accomplished one of his most renowned
> works, the contribution to the clinical development and impact assessment of
> a new malaria vaccine: RTS,S. In collaboration with the Manhiça Health
> Research Centre in Mozambique, he implemented two proofs of concept that
> established for the first time the efficacy of the vaccine in infants[3] and
> children aged 1–4 years.[4] These results opened the door to subsequent
> assessments and to a Phase 3 clinical trial performed in 11 African research
> centres. Ultimately, this vaccine received a positive assessment by the
> European Drugs Agency, in 2015,[5] while the highest expert committees at
> WHO have recommended that it starts to be utilized, as of 2018, in pilot
> programs in three African countries.[6]_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_L._Alonso](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_L._Alonso)

~~~
dharmon
I appreciate you editing to acknowledge that Gates does, in fact, know a _lot_
about these topics (the main point I was trying to address with the parent
post).

I was thinking of your example (and others in the WHO) as exceptions when I
said "most". I more had in mind people who run organizations like the Red
Cross.

Anyways, did not mean to denigrate the non-political / non-figurehead
appointments.

------
sonnyblarney
I don't believe these externalized 'throwing money at things' solves much.

What he can do is find innovative solutions within is own organization for the
wellbeing of his own staff.

And given his power in the value chain, start to demand basic rights in the
crap countries of the world where the crap he peddles is made.

Steve Jobs had so much power that literally in one, single email, in one
sentence, could have changed workers rights globally. His supply chain would
have had to bend to his specific requirements and it would have propagated. A
simple 'charter of workers rights', you know, like the 'right to go to the
bathroom' and to 'not be woken up in the middle of the night' etc. would have
been nice to see.

~~~
notaboutdave
Here's a Henry Rollins anecdote on how throwing money at tent cities might not
be the best idea:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY2n4BYbgYE&t=23m51s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY2n4BYbgYE&t=23m51s)

~~~
projektir
Meanwhile:
[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/10/25/240590433/what...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/10/25/240590433/what-
happens-when-you-just-give-money-to-poor-people)

------
2bitmachine
That he subverted democracy by threatening the Seattle city council as they
attempted to address their homelessness crisis makes me skeptical of this
effort. I doubt we can do much to fix the underlying issues in a context where
billionaires can intimidate governments into surrendering power to their
unilateral, authoritarian control.

------
TuGuQuKu
So brave of him to donate 1.2% of his vast fortune to a PR project with his
name on it! This really makes up for the whole FOXCONN-level human despair
harvesting labor practices thing imo. Hell, we don't even need to go through
with that legislation any more.

------
perfunctory
$2B is ~1% of his net worth. Not that impressive. And much lower than Thomas
Picketty's proposed wealth tax rate.

~~~
neonate
That criticism only makes sense if he never gives anything else.

~~~
perfunctory
Even if he gives this amount every year it's still lower than Picketty's tax
rate.

------
beerbajay
Fix capitalism's problems with charity lol

------
maym86
How about pay your workers so they're not on food stamps and pay taxes so
public schools are supported first.

------
mc32
I don’t agree with Bezos on a few things, but this is big. It’s about time
companies care for their down and out compatriots.

Progressives make all kinds of noise and virtue signal for people outside our
care, but where the rubber meets the road, they fall short on helping fellow
Americans—this is a nice start. Let’s see where it goes.

Wonder if he’ll get Bernie to contribute (tongue in cheek)

~~~
geofft
> _Progressives make all kinds of noise and virtue signal for people outside
> our care, but where the rubber meets the road, they fall short on helping
> fellow Americans_

Can you expand on this?

~~~
mc32
We have homeless, we have veterans, we have addicts, we have people with
mental health issues and we have illegal immigrants. The latter gets much more
vocal support from progressives over fellow americans. We can have an
influence on how we treat compatriots. So while some progressives want to
subsidize services out of our tax dollars for people who have not contributed
to our society, they don’t fight for fellow Americans in need with the same
vigor, nor do they even denounce the policies or governments in those
countries which contribute to those counties’ economic malaise —quite the
opposite, some admire Chavista and Catroist policies.

~~~
barneygumble742
I have never seen or heard of progressives voting down on programs meant to
help the homeless, veterans, addicts, people with mental health issues, or
illegal immigrants. I do see progressives being more vocal about illegal
immigrants because that is the only group that is vilified by the current
administration. Illegal immigrants do contribute to society by being nanny's,
cleaning houses, working at farms, and paying sales tax.

------
burlesona
I hope this works and is successful. Still I can’t help but be reminded of the
saying that roughly goes “the people who are paid to solve a problem end up
having a vested interest in the problem not being solved.”

Specifically with regards to homelessness, the problem seems to be the
critical shortage of housing for people in general, leading to a total crisis
of affordable housing, rather than a specific problem of insufficient services
exclusively for “the homeless.” Certainly there are people who need support
above and beyond affordable housing, but isn’t the bedrock of this whole
crisis the shortage of homes in the places where people are trying to live and
work?

~~~
umvi
> the people who are paid to solve a problem end up having a vested interest
> in the problem not being solved.

AKA the Shirky Principle

[https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-shirky-prin/](https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-
shirky-prin/)

~~~
burlesona
Thanks for the link! I couldn’t remember the attribution.

