Project 217

[Remarkableriots]

Jeff Bezos and the secretive world of superyachts

WWW.BBC.COM

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The world's richest man will reportedly set sail next month on one of the largest superyachts ever built.

Quote

It is estimated to cost about $500m (£350m), a drop in the ocean for the world's richest man, whose wealth at one point jumped $13bn in a single day in 2020. His estimated net worth now stands at nearly $200bn.

 

That price tag does not include a smaller motorised "support yacht" that Bezos also plans to buy. The smaller yacht features a helicopter landing pad - Bezos' girlfriend, TV host Lauren Sanchez, is a trained helicopter pilot.

The main yacht is unable to support its own helipad due to the three sailing masts on its deck.

The smaller yacht is also expected to be loaded with other goodies, such as cars, luxury speedboats, and probably even a submarine, experts say.

The highly secretive superyacht project, known as Y721, is due to be completed sometime next month, according to Bloomberg. It's likely that Bezos' order was placed several years ago, since custom-made ships like this can take around five years to build.

 

[Kal-El814]

I hope the helicopter carrying him crashes into the smaller yacht he needs to access this larger yacht, which then somehow crashes into the bigger yacht, which then sinks.

[CitizenVectron]

35 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

I hope the helicopter carrying him crashes into the smaller yacht he needs to access this larger yacht, which then somehow crashes into the bigger yacht, which then sinks.

 

And it crashes because the helicopter pilot loses control whilst peeing into a bottle due to no breaks.

[mclumber1]

I see nothing wrong.  Building this giant boat likely employed hundreds of skilled workers for a lengthy period of time.  

[Kal-El814]

1 hour ago, mclumber1 said:

I see nothing wrong.  Building this giant boat likely employed hundreds of skilled workers for a lengthy period of time.  

 

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[TheLeon]

I assume he’ll need this super yacht to access his lair in the base of an active volcano.

[Jason]

1 hour ago, mclumber1 said:

I see nothing wrong.  Building this giant boat likely employed hundreds of skilled workers for a lengthy period of time.  

 

Î

[Kal-El814]

14 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

I assume he’ll need this super yacht to access his lair in the base of an active volcano.

 

Hey man, as long as he ends up in an active volcano, I'm in.

[mclumber1]

15 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

I assume he’ll need this super yacht to access his lair in the base of an active volcano.

 

Bezos is shit at space, so we know his secret lair isn't on the moon. 

[Jason]

1 minute ago, Kal-El814 said:

 

Hey man, as long as he ends up in an active volcano, I'm in.

 

[Greatoneshere]

14 hours ago, mclumber1 said:

I see nothing wrong.  Building this giant boat likely employed hundreds of skilled workers for a lengthy period of time.  

 

Yeah Bezos is such a philanthropist whose main intent when he does things is help others.

[LazyPiranha]

For $500 million that boat is as ugly as shit.  I bet his wife divorced him the first time she saw it and realized he spent half a billion dollars on something Micro Machines would pass on for being too lame.

[mclumber1]

20 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

Yeah Bezos is such a philanthropist whose main intent when he does things is help others.

 

He helped hundreds of skilled workers with high paying jobs who built his boat. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Quick how did Bezos "earn" his billions? High paid "skilled"* workers? No?

 

 

*All work requires skill, but only some work is valued in the market

[mclumber1]

1 minute ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Quick how did Bezos "earn" his billions? High paid "skilled"* workers? No?

 

 

*All work requires skill, but only some work is valued in the market

Not all skills are equal

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

1 minute ago, mclumber1 said:

Not all skills are equal

Yes, and it is worth parsing why and how some skills are more valued than others. I'll give you a hint: racism and sexism are very big parts to explaining why.

[mclumber1]

7 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Yes, and it is worth parsing why and how some skills are more valued than others. I'll give you a hint: racism and sexism are very big parts to explaining why.

 

Yep it's racism and sexism that causes warehouse sorters to get paid less than welders and license electricians.  You nailed it. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

6 minutes ago, mclumber1 said:

 

Yep it's racism and sexism that causes warehouse sorters to get paid less than welders and license electricians.  You nailed it. 

Certainly has nothing to do with historical and current unionization rates in these occupations. (Unionization largely tied to race, as Blacks were often excluded from unions historically)

 

Why do home health aides and farmworkers make even less than warehouse workers? What genders and races are disproportionately involved in the work in each of these occupations? Do you think this is mere coincidence? Is it something innate among the people working these jobs? Or is it a product of the racial and gender based economic hierarchy that exploits these divisions and purposely places higher value on the work products of those occupations that just so happen to be whiter and male dominated so to further entrench this hierarchy?

[MarSolo]

3 hours ago, mclumber1 said:

 

He helped hundreds of skilled workers with “high paying” jobs who built his boat. 

FTFY.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

*All work requires skill

I’m just making this stuff up as I go, no clue what I’m doing!

[Uaarkson]

The only “skill” is your natural aptitude for something, and if your aptitude is for cleaning toilets or teaching children you get fucked. No society is made up entirely of doctors and engineers, so what the fuck are we doing here? We used to pay people a middle class wage for stamping sheet metal together.

[Greatoneshere]

5 hours ago, mclumber1 said:

 

He helped hundreds of skilled workers with high paying jobs who built his boat. 

 

He wasn't intentionally helping them. That's just an accidental byproduct of conducting transactional business. Intent matters, and the yacht speaks for itself. I don't think he gets credit for wanting things and paying people alone.

[MarSolo]

2 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

He wasn't intentionally helping them. That's just an accidental byproduct of conducting transactional business. Intent matters, and the yacht speaks for itself.

Oh come on. Bezos would have totally built that boat himself.

[Chris-]

5 hours ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Certainly has nothing to do with historical and current unionization rates in these occupations. (Unionization largely tied to race, as Blacks were often excluded from unions historically)

 

Why do home health aides and farmworkers make even less than warehouse workers? What genders and races are disproportionately involved in the work in each of these occupations? Do you think this is mere coincidence? Is it something innate among the people working these jobs? Or is it a product of the racial and gender based economic hierarchy that exploits these divisions and purposely places higher value on the work products of those occupations that just so happen to be whiter and male dominated so to further entrench this hierarchy?

 

Moreover, unless you are suggesting 'low skilled workers' only work those jobs out of choice (as opposed to necessity and/or a lack of realistic opportunity), you are cosigning people to poverty through no fault of their own. That's pretty fucked up!

[Ghost_MH]

2 hours ago, Uaarkson said:

The only “skill” is your natural aptitude for something, and if your aptitude is for cleaning toilets or teaching children you get fucked. No society is made up entirely of doctors and engineers, so what the fuck are we doing here? We used to pay people a middle class wage for stamping sheet metal together.

 

The fucked up thing is that we still do...in the right parts of the world. McDonald's pays their part timers in like Denmark $20/hr with heaps of vacation time and, shocker, they're still in business. It's crazy. What witchcraft is this?

[Fizzzzle]

4 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

The fucked up thing is that we still do...in the right parts of the world. McDonald's pays their part timers in like Denmark $20/hr with heaps of vacation time and, shocker, they're still in business. It's crazy. What witchcraft is this?

Where I live minimum wage is like 13.25, guess what... The sky hasn't fallen. I think I'm still alive and can still go buy a burger.

 

Edit: it goes to 14 in July

[Ghost_MH]

Just now, Fizzzzle said:

Where I live minimum wage is like 13.25, guess what... The sky hasn't fallen. I think I'm still alive and can still go buy a burger.

 

The minimum wage is $13.50 here in Massachusetts. I'm shocked I was still able to buy my kids Happy Meals. I live right on the New Hampshire border. Minimum wage there is tied to the federal minimum, so $7.25. McDonald's does tie the price of food to the price of labor, so a Big Mac just north of the border is a whole 50¢ cheaper even though they're paying their employees like $4 less than they are in Massachusetts. It's even more fun when you take land prices in Massachusetts versus New Hampshire into account.

[Fizzzzle]

1 minute ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

The minimum wage is $13.50 here in Massachusetts. I'm shocked I was still able to buy my kids Happy Meals. I live right on the New Hampshire border. Minimum wage there is tied to the federal minimum, so $7.25. McDonald's does tie the price of food to the price of labor, so a Big Mac just north of the border is a whole 50¢ cheaper even though they're paying their employees like $4 less than they are in Massachusetts. It's even more fun when you take land prices in Massachusetts versus New Hampshire into account.

Yeah, people opposing the wage don't understand, of course we know the price of things will rise. The rise in price so far has generally not mirrored the rise in wages. People who say businesses won't be able to stay afloat are full of shit or maybe should replan their business strategy.

[Guest]

(Minimum wage increases don’t increase real wages)

[Ghost_MH]

28 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

(Minimum wage increases don’t increase real wages)

 

Yeah, but that's neither here nor there. What you're saying is absolutely true. Productivity and value has risen while wages stagnate, incredibly so when up against inflation. But like the lowest on the totem pole also totally deserve more than $7.25. Does it change the math much? No. Does it help the like million or so people working for wages below the poverty line? Does it also potentially reverbiate into other jobs that were above minimum wage, but now would look bad being actual minimum wage jobs? Possibly. Totally worth the effort, though.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Minimum wage is only good in so far as we don't have sectoral bargaining for wages

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

Yeah, but that's neither here nor there. What you're saying is absolutely true. Productivity and value has risen while wages stagnate, incredibly so when up against inflation. But like the lowest on the totem pole also totally deserve more than $7.25. Does it change the math much? No. Does it help the like million or so people working for wages below the poverty line? Does it also potentially reverbiate into other jobs that were above minimum wage, but now would look bad being actual minimum wage jobs? Possibly. Totally worth the effort, though.

Compare the two states you just mentioned. What does the higher minimum wage net the residents of Mass? Lower poverty rates? Higher purchasing power? 

[Ghost_MH]

9 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

Compare the two states you just mentioned. What does the higher minimum wage net the residents of Mass? Lower poverty rates? Higher purchasing power? 

 

Massachusetts also has a much higher cost of living compared to New Hampshire. New Hampshire also has more than 10% of their workforce work out of state in either Massachusetts or Maine. There's a reason Massachusetts was looking into taxing employees that were now 100% remote and from out of state. It's not an insignificant number. It's also not like Massachusetts is very bad in this regard. We have one if the lowest poverty rates in the country.

 

New Hampshire is surrounded by states with higher minimum wages worth no good public transportation, which cause companies like McDonald's to pay their workers above minimum wage to keep them from jumping the border. Any McDonald's north of the border from here is paying $10-12/hr, not $7.25. That's not our of the goodness of McDonald's heart. That's because that lines up with the rest of New England, outside of Massachusetts.

[Guest]

You are doing an excellent job of explaining how minimum wages don’t affect real wages  

[Ghost_MH]

36 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

You are doing an excellent job of explaining how minimum wages don’t affect real wages  

 

I already said you were absolutely right about that. I'm just saying the fact that it will help those working on minimum wage, even if it were only a million or so Americans, and even if it doesn't move the larger needle much is worth the effort for those it will help.

 

Beside, New Hampshire is a small state that affords people the option of traveling out of state for higher wages which raises all wages within the state. Compare that to poverty rates in a larger state with fewer opportunities to commute out of state like Texas. The cost of living down south is succinate less than in Massachusetts while Texans also don't have the chance to commute out of state in search of higher wages due to sheer logistics of size. With a $7.25 minimum wage Texas has one of the worst poverty rates in the country. There are a lot of things that should be taken into account here. California is also huge and difficult to commute out of. They have a pretty middle of the road poverty rate, but their cost of living is similar in scale to the difference between Massachusetts and Texas.

 

Yeah, poverty, minimum wage, and real wages aren't exactly linked, but who cares when it helps people on the margins? The effect on businesses is negligible. It's $13.50 here in Massachusetts. We still somehow manage to have Dunkin Donuts that are in business and small mom and pop donut shops that do just fine.