Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

[Kepler]

Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Tax them more.

[aparch]

Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

The push for "interest rates lower than Germany and Japan" once again proves he doesn't have a fu**ing clue.

Exhibit A
Exhibit B

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

The push for "interest rates lower than Germany and Japan" once again proves he doesn't have a fu**ing clue.

Exhibit A
Exhibit B

He only cares what works for his real estate business. He doesn't know anything else.

[St. Clown]

Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

The push for "interest rates lower than Germany and Japan" once again proves he doesn't have a fu**ing clue.

Exhibit A
Exhibit B

He's looking for a scapegoat and trusting that his rank-and-file worshipers are too lazy or ignorant to understand the ramifications of such policies. And he's right in that trust.

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

He's looking for a scapegoat and trusting that his rank-and-file worshipers are too lazy or ignorant to understand the ramifications of such policies. And he's right in that trust.

He's appealing to that guy who took one economics class in high school, made it through half of Capitalism and Freedom 30 years ago, actually finished The Fountainhead, and still believes in trickle-down.

[French Rage]

Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

I know it's not like he has any logic behind what he says, but I'm curious how others are running circles around us and laughing to the bank. I'd like some concrete examples, and how they apply to interest rates.

[Kepler]

Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

He's appealing to that guy who took one economics class in high school, made it through half of Capitalism and Freedom 30 years ago, actually finished The Fountainhead, and still believes in trickle-down.

The Road to Serfdom sits on his dresser, still unread.

[Kepler]

Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Farmers Insurance pulls $1M advertising account from Deadspin.

It wasn’t until nearly 1 p.m. Thursday, after the Washington Nationals’ stunning upset victory Wednesday night over the Houston Astros, that the site’s only story on the game was posted — shortly after its author, managing editor Samer Kalaf, said he was resigning.

All five top editors have now resigned along with virtually all the writers.

In a farewell tweet, Deadspin editor David Roth said he posted a story about a Jordanian pro soccer team — to guarantee that the freelance writer was paid. Then Roth resigned.

Deadspin writer Drew Magary on Thursday morning said he was quitting. Writers Dom Cosentino, Luis Paez-Pumar and Dan McQuade also tweeted their farewells Thursday, adding to the seven who had resigned Wednesday.

The story follows with quotes from Management lecturing the editors, writers, and commenters about what readers want, while their jobs and their owners' investment goes down the toilet. (Business people are dumb. We hire you to do the boring bookkeeping stuff so that we're free to create, experiment, do art, do science, live. That money we give you? That luxury crap we train you to want? It's beads.)

Edit: the Farmer's ad pull wasn't in response to the firings, it helped precipitate it.

A full timeline of the events from the NYT here.

On Monday, the day of the “stick to sports” memo, all of the G/O Media websites published posts that decried the new video ads on their home pages. The ads were offensive to readers, the articles argued, because they were set to play automatically, with sound. Such ads are broadly understood to lift advertiser impressions while annoying readers. The posts were swiftly removed without a warning from G/O Media to the sites’ editors.

“We were existentially angry about a post being taken off our website — a red line we thought was uncrossable,” said Tom Ley, Deadspin’s features editor, who resigned Wednesday.

Staff members, members of the Writers Guild of America East union, discussed how to respond on a private Slack channel. Their collective-bargaining agreement included a no-strike clause, so a strike seemed out of the question. And quitting seemed drastic.

“It’s hard to lose your job,” said Ms. McKinney, the former staff writer. “There are not a lot of jobs in our industry.”

They settled on a protest consistent with the site’s cheekiness: They would conspicuously post stories that had nothing to do with sports.

“We thought that was a Deadspin-style way of handling it, and something that our readers would be in on and find clever,” Mr. Ley said. “We didn’t want to be preachy, we just wanted to try to have some fun with it.”

And so on Tuesday morning, Deadspin featured articles on subjects like a Washington pumpkin thief and the German actor who played a villain in “Ghostbusters II.”

Mr. Petchesky, the interim editor in chief, was pulled out of a meeting and escorted to the office of Mr. Spanfeller, the chief executive. There, he was fired. Mr. Petchesky said Mr. Spanfeller ordered him to leave using an obscenity. (Through a spokesman, Mr. Spanfeller declined to comment.)

Shaken by the editor’s departure, Deadspin staff members retreated to a nearby Planet Hollywood in Times Square for a drink. Roughly a third were ready to quit, Ms. McKinney estimated. The others thought they should try to negotiate editorial protections or the reinstatement of Mr. Petchesky. They gathered again later that evening at the Magician, a Lower East Side bar popular among Gawker-era bloggers, for a planned wake for Splinter.

On Wednesday morning, the workers met in Ms. Greenwell’s vacated office. The sentiment had turned. More staff members were inclined to leave.

[SJHovey]

Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Farmers Insurance pulls $1M advertising account from Deadspin.



The story follows with quotes from Management lecturing the editors, writers, and commenters about what readers want, while their jobs and their owners' investment goes down the toilet. (Business people are dumb. We hire you to do the boring bookkeeping stuff so that we're free to create, experiment, do art, do science, live. That money we give you? That luxury crap we train you to want? It's beads.)

Edit: the Farmer's ad pull wasn't in response to the firings, it helped precipitate it.

A full timeline of the events from the NYT here.

Deadspin was killed because it could be killed.

These little pamphlets have been around, on this continent at least, since long before The Revolutionary War, and will be around long after we're gone. But they have to be stamped into the ground, periodically.

They can't make any money because not that many people want to read them, despite what you and the writers want everyone to believe, and despite the important purpose they serve. If they become mainstream enough to actually make money, they turn meh.

Besides, this will be good for your little friends. It helps keep the bile up, and that's when they're good. If the artist isn't starving anymore, what's the point?

If you don't want this to happen, I have an idea. Why don't you find a billionaire, a hedge fund, a venture capital firm or corporation that has the same world view as you and your friends? Good luck with that.

[Kepler]

Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;
’twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.

Go back to your beads.

[SJHovey]

Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;
’twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.

Go back to your beads.

Real question.

Does it just chap your azz that you have to work for the man.

[MissThundercat]

Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Real question.

Does it just chap your azz that you have to work for the man.

You didn't ask me, but it does chap my hide that I work for the man. But for me, unless I become a successful author, I'll be working for "the man" until I retire.

Speak of the devil, I have about 175 more pages to write in my memoir, plus about 85 more recipes to test for a cookbook.

[Kepler]

Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Real question.

Does it just chap your azz that you have to work for the man.

Wage slavery is a fact of life currently. It will not always be. Your class is a temporary necessity. Who was Homer's patron?

As for me, I am still a little shaken that A Mistake Was Made and I wasn't born an 18th century gentleman of leisure. I would have made a great lepidopterist, whatever that is. And my Irish servant girls would never go hungry.

[rufus]

Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Wow, someone's especially bitter and spiteful today.

[SJHovey]

Re: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 8: Bezos Takes Over the World

Wage slavery is a fact of life currently. It will not always be. Your class is a temporary necessity. Who was Homer's patron?

As for me, I am still a little shaken that A Mistake Was Made and I wasn't born an 18th century gentleman of leisure. I would have made a great lepidopterist, whatever that is. And my Irish servant girls would never go hungry.

My class is always a temporary necessity. Unfortunately, we're all here only temporarily.

Look at it this way. Without my class, how boring would your websites be? Without the Joker, Batman is just a perv lurking in the dark in a bad costume.