2,153 billionaires in the world

[mysteryowl]

This count is from March 2019, Forbes.
https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/#727d27f5251c

Bezos #1
Gates #2
Bloomberg is listed as #9

Kylie Jenner is the youngest billionaire, age 21

Trump is listed at 3 billion, down from 4.5 billion a few years ago. (how could anyone know this without seeing the taxes?)

USA has 607 of them

[Midnight Writer]

1. And not a goddamn one of them is my relation!

[BeyondGeography]

2. They're outnumbered

[yonder]

3. Yes. They. Are.

[BigmanPigman]

4. How much do the Americans pay in taxes?

I bet it is less than I do and I make under $33,000 and pay 25%.

[mysteryowl]

5. They pay as little as they possibly can.

They hire droves of people to help them avoid taxes.

We know that Bezos's Amazon company pays $0.00 taxes!!

[BigmanPigman]

6. I knew that about Bezos but a friend didn't.

She told be how much he makes and I told her how little ($0) he pays in taxes and her mouth dropped open. I wish Americans would wake up and get their heads out of the sand, maybe if they did they would start caring about something besides themselves and realize their ignorance is keeping them at the bottom of the heap.

[mysteryowl]

7. The middle class is how they make their money.

Every purchase off of Amazon is another few pennies in Bezos pocket. I only use Amazon to look up items and then I buy it elsewhere.

[BigmanPigman]

8. Good!

I only buy a few items from them (under 10 a year). They cost too much for my budget. Besides, people steal packages left at doors right and left.

[Recursion]

10. Amazon still hasn't made a profit, so it doesn't pay a corporate tax

I'm honestly OK with that. The problem isn't anything Amazon or Bezos did (Bezos has only made $85K a year from Amazon for the past 25 years), but the fact that people are willing to pay so much for a non-dividend-paying share of Amazon that the company is "worth" a trillion dollars.

[Doormouse]

9. Seeing Trump's taxes won't tell you his net worth. Forbes and Bloomberg are probably good ballpark.

Bezos owns 16% of Amazon's stock.

In July and August of 2018 Bezos sold $2.8 Billion of Amazon stock. Capital gains tax on that is @23%. The remainder he invested directly into Blue Origin. His target is to invest $1B per year in Blue Origin going forward.

50% of Amazon's sale are 3rd Party sellers.

Amazon pays zero taxes largely because all profits are invested in expansion and new business.

There was a big hubbub the other day about Fedex paying $0 taxes. No one seemed to notice the reason was heavy investment in new equipment including 24 Boeing 767 and 777 freightliners at a cost of $6.6B.

All those investments yield tax payments. It's just further down the line.

[Recursion]

11. Exactly. We don't actually want corporations paying a corporate tax

If they're paying a corporate tax it means they're taking profits and just sitting on them. The tax is to discourage that.

We either want them to return those profits to shareholders, at which point we tax them as capital gains, or to spend that money investing in the business by paying people to make and do things.