Bezos is notorious for treating his workers like ****:
Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace. The company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers to get them to achieve its ever-expanding ambitions.
Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon’s sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers
Amazon has recognised humans are the least efficient part of the operation - it makes more money by treating its workers as expendable commodities
EXCLUSIVE: Amazon workers sleeping in tents near fulfillment centre
I Do Not Know One Person Who Is Happy at Amazon
etc.

I haven't read this, but would believe it. I think it is despicable that things like this are legal and that law should be among the first changed. Of course, if benefits like healthcare were nationalized it would be less of a problem, but would still be an issue on the retirement funding front (where we could use legislation too).

WTF is this flu-ridden AIDS ****?

I believe the government should take a little bit from all of us to pay for it. What I'm saying that you're not getting is that your endorsement of market outcomes as moral, as just, as OBLIGATED...

why should the government have paid for it? Where do they get that money? Why shouldn't it be up to him, maybe me if I'm feeling generous? The market is quite clear that he should be dead.

Or maybe instead of this alternative reality you guys keep making up, there was talk in this very thread how Bezos should get beheaded and/or his wealth should get distributed evenly among the workers of amazon.

Well I obviously think that almost all politicians are complete POS who are generally running re-election campaigns, allowing people to buy influence, and generally NOT doing their job which is to serve ALL of their constituents. If politicians acted in good faith this problem would solve itself, but pretty much every single one acts on behalf of special interests.

There needs to be radical campaign finance reform and the electorate needs to vote out incumbents who won't act in their interest.

This is a textbook example of your naivety in these issues. This legislation won't happen pretty much exactly because of the wealth inequality that exists. Whilst the combination of extreme wealth inequality and wealth correlating directly with influence on policy both exist, policy will continue to move in a direction that increases wealth inequality at the expense of the average worker.

you just asked this question and got a response

Again, this is an expected result of wealth inequality. You can't be completely in favour of people being allowed to use their huge amount of leverage (that is a direct result of their wealth) to influence specific things in their favour and then complain about the system as a whole being completely biased in their favour.

I believe the government is responsible for providing some basic necessities for the citizens of the country. Among these are universal healthcare and basic income in an amount that is sufficient for food and housing. I accept that these are not views that are universally held or even held by the majority. I do not believe that the government is responsible for constructing a set of rules that prevents individuals from acquiring a certain amount of wealth regardless of what that specific threshold is. I also acknowledge that this is not a universally held view.

The government gets that money from additional INCOME taxes. I've said this many times.

I don't believe I am naive on this specific issue. I don't think that these policies WILL get implemented any time soon. I merely think that they SHOULD be implemented.

Separately, I do not think that Trump will be impeached and removed from office but I think he SHOULD be.

Its possible to want something to happen and think it should happen while also acknowledging that there is a very slim chance that it will actually happen.

Letting billionaires amass wealth in unprecedented fashion, and use that wealth in an unchecked fashion, virtually guarantees that your other stated policy preferences will never happen.

Sure I can. First off, if you are the decision maker as a Congressman you can simply not allow people to buy your influence. That's an action that is possible and in fact also moral. In addition to that, allowing your influence to be bought in that role is a direct violation of your job description.

Furthermore, no one has answered my question as to why wealth inequality is the problem and not poverty? My whole argument hinges on the fact that we need to raise the lower rung of society out of poverty. Without poverty wealth inequality is fine. With poverty we would be failing as a society even if we have the lowest levels of wealth inequality in the world.

Yeah, CDL does genuinely believe contradictory things wrt his world view and most of these are because he slightly malfunctions at any topic tangentially related to finance.

Round and round on the CDL bull**** wheel we go, remember this part. We are at the part where billionaires have an obligation to offer bribes to politicians to maximize their shareholder value but politicians also have a moral obligation to reject the bribes. Simple, just make bribery illegal, but what about finding ways to circumvent anti-bribery laws?

Our great scholar believes billionaires have an obligation to attempt to circumvent anti-bribery laws and politicians should both reject such attempts personally and continually rewrite the laws to prevent such circumvention.

At all times, the billionaires have an obligation to try to screw us and if we are unable to stop them, then c'est la vie.

Because most of us don't think there is enough wealth that can be spontaneously created to end poverty and also make billionaires proportionately have that much more. Also, having proportionately that much more influence on society makes us more of an oligarchy than a democracy.

Poverty is the problem, but wealth inequality is a major driver of increases in poverty levels. Specifically the way in which the rich are allowed to generate their wealth has a major impact on how those at the lower echelons of the economic ladder fare. A very obvious example of this is how inequality levels have increased as compensation-per-production has reduced.

Another example would be a company playing off cities/states (and effectively taxpayers) against each other in an effort to increase their profits at the cost of the average tax-payer being worse off (sound familiar?). This is increasing wealth inequality by making the richest richer and contributing towards poverty by actively reducing the funds available for public good projects.

bribery of government official is already illegal

I also don't think anyone has an obligation to circumvent anti-bribery laws. In fact, I think everyone has a legal and moral obligation to follow them. I do think a CEO has an obligation to seek what is best for their company within the law.

Is Bribery illegal though? Paul Ryan got a 500k campaign donation from the Kochs after the tax bill passed. They're going to spend another 400 million on GOP campaigns.

CDL thinks CEOs should put their shareholders first. We think they should put their employees first. Unless I'm wrong in that what you meant by "seek what is best for their company." I assume you didn't mean "the happiness and well being of their employees" which is, the actual correct answer.

Things that don't meet the current standard of bribery are still really ****ty for billionaires to be able to do, and they are currently pervasive, cf. rich donors shutting off campaign donations if Republicans don't deliver a tax cut.

BootlickBot.exe is just incredible

Since donating to political campaigns is completely legal, you are essentially saying that CEOs should always donate to politicians who will implement policies that benefit their company. They don't have to do anything illegal to have a major influence on the way policy is shaped.

I don't even want billionaires to have more. I think Bezos has more than enough. However, I don't think there should be any restriction on how much wealth someone can have. If the good policies like higher income taxes to fund UBI and universal healthcare end up lowering wealth inequality then that's perfectly fine. I'm not in favor of policies set for the reason of increasing wealth inequality, but if we create a system where people have healthcare and no one lives in poverty and there is even more wealth inequality then that's ok too.

Wealth inequality is not a problem. It is a symptom of a flawed system. But even in a better system it will exist. At some point someone will have a great idea even in the ideal hypothetical society and it will be worth an unfathomable amount of money. If that person retains significant enough ownership then they will become more wealthy than anyone currently is even if we have markedly higher taxes on the wealthy.

its both. again this isn't mutually exclusive. you can seek profit and do what's best for the employees. Every company will have a different balance, but no company is good enough that they can forever forgo what's best for shareholders to do whatever it takes to make employees happy. If they do they will be run into the ground. Likewise, if they ignore the needs of their employees or treat them poorly enough over time eventually their business will suffer and it will be bad for the shareholders.