Jeff Bezos - net worth $80 billion - health problems: notoriously thin skin
A new trend in mainstream media and the liberal side of the political establishment is that, aware of public feeling for once, they are turning on their recent darlings, the Silicon Valley elites. As public criticism of the ethical decrepitude common to tech and internet giants such as Google (don't be evil, that's our job,) Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and Amazon to name a few, the politicians and media luvvies are as usual piling on the bandwagon.
Last week, even say-anything-in-return-for-a-donation
Hillary Clinton attacked Facebook for allowing someone who
may have been Russian to buy $50,000 worth of political ads on their site. Blithely sidestepping around the irony the irony of that statement when it is a matter of public record that Facebook execs gave millions to Hillary's 2016 campaign, we would ask our readers to cut FB some slack. Recent revelations about how much of their estimated revenue is down to click fraud makes one realise how desperate for cashflow Zuckerberg and Co. must be.
Jumping on this hate-silicon-valley-control-freaks bandwagon may have unexpected consequences however, another trend that has gone largely unremarked is the acquisition by tech billionaires of traditional media organizations (i.e. the ones that make money in the real world, not in Ponzi schemes like crypto-currencies. So if you are a writer and have intentions of joining in with the tech-billionaire bashing jamboree, it might be wise to make sure you know who owns the news organ you write for. Telling the world via your Facebook timeline that your boss is a bastard is bad, doing the same thing in a big circulation news sheet he or she owns is not just career suicide, it's oblivion. Unfortunately, Fredrick Kunkle of the Washington Post didn't heed that advice when he published a scathing op-ed about Jeff Bezos in the
Huffington Post. It is of course possible than Kunkle did not know the Amazon founder now owns WaPo, but journalistic training covers the importance of fact checking surely. Here's a taste of what he had to say:
One of the wealthiest men in the world is thinking of ways to give back. But he’s still taking from the very people who helped him build his fortune.
But as Bezos, whose worth now exceeds $80 billion, loosens his pockets, it’s important to put his charitable giving — and the philanthropy of the super-rich — into perspective: Many people worked hard for Bezos to help make him so rich, and he has a record of treating them poorly.
Amazon’s history of dodging taxes, its mistreatment of workers, and its ruthlessness toward even the smallest competitors have been well documented. It put ambulances outside distribution centers rather than install adequate air conditioning. It broke up a union organizing effort by closing the call center and dismissing everyone who worked there. The New York Times documented its punishing work environment in a front-page exposé. The company’s actions, as Forbes put it, hark back to an earlier time when workers were treated as “replaceable cogs in the machine.”
Everyone at the Post wants it to succeed and prosper. But we want our employees to succeed and prosper, too.
Two years ago, however, Bezos slashed retirement benefits. For reasons that remain unclear, he froze a pension plan that was awash in so much money that neither he nor the company would possibly have faced additional liabilities. He also spurned the sort of compromise plan The New York Times Co. had pioneered - an adjustable pension plan that would have ensured the Post would never encounter a problem funding it. In essence, this innovative approach, developed by the financial services firm Cheiron, would have mitigated the company’s risks by sharing them with employees and continued to grow their annual retirement benefit.
Bezos’ decision on retirement benefits had nothing to do with the balance sheet and, arguably, everything to do with ideology. And it almost overshadowed Bezos’ demand for the right to cancel everyone’s health insurance and his push to take it away from part-time employees.
Bezo's ideology appeares to be based on, "Fuck the workers, I want all the money." Oh well, he has no influence over this small publication.
Unfortunately the same is not true of The Washington Post (sic) and not surprisingly, Kunkle's efforts earned him this sternly-worded warning from WaPo's Director of Labor Relations for his "willful and intentional violation of The Washington Post’s standards and ethics policy." In the circumstances use of the word 'ethics' in that sentence seems completely inappropriate. Of course, we wouldn't be surprised if this letter turns out to be just a prelude to Kunkle's eventual dismissal ... or his being sent a big dead fish wrapped in his favourite shirt.
Unless Kunkle deliberately provoked Bezon having first conspired to set him up. Punishing staff for "publicizing a dispute with management" apparently violates union rules and has earned WaPo an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board. It might be time to teach the shiny - headed shite you can't run an organization like Washinton Post with zero - hour contract labour.
RELATED POSTS:
Former Amazon Workers Speak Out Against Third World Working Conditions
Amazon are earning a reputation for bad business practice, what with their tax avoidance, dodgy accunting practices, slowness at paying bills and now imposing slave labour conditions on their workers. Well folks, there are plenty of other online retailers out there, as I'm sure you all know.
Slaves To The Machine
Some say technology is the new magic and are willing to believe every new gadget launched improves beyond recognition the lives of those who own one. Others say we are becoming slaves to our machines and losing the ability to think for ourselves as well as our social lives and cultural bonds.
Will humans become Redundant In Your Lifetime
Increasingly technology is replacing us and the momentum behind the drive towards a global, totalitarian scientific dictatorship in increasing. Can science and technology really make us redundant or is scientific tunnel vision blinding our leaders.
Carry On Up The Amazon
Scholar Fired By Think Tank For Criticizing Google
McDonalds Is Replacing 2,500 Minimum Wage Workers With Digital Cashiers: Here Is Its Math
Punish Google Tax Dodging And Sink The Corporate Pirates
The Wisdom of Crowds
Tighter Copyright Controls Could Be An Opportunity For Original Content Creators
So Tinfoil Hats Are Not Such A Bad Idea After All
Yeah you all know the story of the guy who thought the government were beaming control signals into our brains from the dishes on cellular telephobe and radion masts, or if you don't, you should by now. The man was nuts, right? Bonkers in the head, mad as a box of frogs, a paranoid conspiracy theorist ...
Improvement In Empoloyment Figures Is Another Statistical Deception
Politicians, economists and others with an interest in talking up the economy to get us all spending and taking on debt and mortgage loans again may rave about recovery. With our industrial base so depleted where will the jobs come from that we need to lead a recovery?" They may call it fiscal prudence, we call it loonytoons economics...
What Is Really Killing Town Centres And Jobs
It is very easy to blame the internet for the decay of our town centres. As high streets and shopping malls appear to have more shops boarded up and bankrupt than are open for business, blaming the internet alone is too easy. The digital revolution must take some of the blame for stubbornly high jobless statistics too, but the whole picture is far more complex.
Broken Societies
An appraisal of Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010 by Charles Murray. inequality is a very hot topic, Murray is one of the few people looking at it from a conservative point of view, which is strange when one looks at what is most likely causing this divide. Policically nations have never ben more polarised with conservatives and liberals both convinced the other is evil, while the gap between rich and poor widens, the middle class disintegrates and the working class becomes a state dependent underclass.
No Jobs For The Masses In The New Economy Despite University Education
No matter how leaders like David Cameron and Barack Obama try to talk up their economies or assure voters the jobs market is improving, growth returning and unemployment will soon start falling, the truth is change does not equal progress and forcing the pace of social change has only masked the true depth of economic and social problems. One of these is unemployment and particularly joblessness among the young. Even a universdity education does not provide a guaranteed career path.
More Graduates Stuck In Low Skill Jobs
More University graduates, on leaving college are being forced into taking jobs that do not require graduate level educational qualifications due to lack of openings for graduates in the jobs market, according to research published today. The study shows that six months after leaving university, approximately 40% of last year's graduates are ...
Number Of Jobless Falls But Are Figures True?
The total number of unemployed people decreased by 17,000 in the three months to February, according to official figures. The official number unemployed, based on those claiming jobseekers allowance stands at 2.48m. The drop was greater than the 4,000 decrease expected. The unemployment rate for all age groups also fell unexpectedly by 0.1% to 7.8%.
Councils Still Creating Non Jobs
As Coalition ministers strive to find ways of cutting Britain's crippling public sector deficit, Labour councils are still creating 'non - jobs', positions created to appease politically correct prejudices, service the vanity of executives and elected officials and buy votes from minoroties. We look at the nature of some non jobs taxpayers are funding ...
The Real Story Behind Obama's Job Creation
Last week's announcement by the U.S. labour department that the American economy had created 216,000 jobs in March was seized on as cause for celebrations by sychophantic Obamessiah cultists desperate for something to praise "The greatest human being who ever lived" for. Obama cult inhouse newssheets The New York Times, the Washington Post reported that ...
Welcome To New World Order
Is there really a shady group of super rich individuals, George Soros, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Mauruice Strong and others less well known but just as powerful who are collaborating to overthrow the free nations and establish a global oligarchy, Novus Ordo Seclorum, the New World Order,. You have heard all the conspiracy theorie, now see the evidence.
The 99ers: Death Of The American Dream.
The 99ers are a new social class createde by the economic recession in the USA. This new demographic, not one the advertizing industry will be interested in are jobless people whose unemployment benefit (job sekers in UK parlance) benefit has run out and thus who have dropped off the unemployment statistics. But even for people who are not 99ers times are hard scross the pond ...
British Workers Compete With Immigrants For Jobs
The main controversy in today's news stories is the response of Work amd Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith to the citicisms made by the Archbishop of Canterbury about the government's handling of the long term unemployment problem.
Poverty and Common Sense
Two stories, both concerning jobs, one on poverty and one on benefits sat next to each other on the BBC website today. They made me think once again about the insanity that seems to have infected the nations of the developed world.
