Comments by "Kim O\x27Brien" (@kimobrien.) on "How Amazon Paid $0 Federal Income Tax in 2018" video.

@sploofmonkey That's always been the case with the factory system. Just watch Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times" which was made in 1936. Alienation comes from the bargain workers make with the capitalists. You go to work do what you are told and in return your allowed to leave go home, sleep and return the next day and do the same thing all over again. Your wage is only meant to keep you alive so you can come back and work the next day. So when you leave your employers property your always left with a sense of having left something behind.
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@patdeen6648 That's just the natural workings of capitalism. In order to keep up profits they must continually cut labor costs. However the world is finite in size and the workers can not buy back all that we produce which leads to continual economic crisis. Capitalism is the first system to suffer from crisis of over and not under production. The capitalist close plants if the can't make a profit or can make bigger profits elsewhere.
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@charlesdean03 There are aspects of the capitalist economy that maybe essential to the system but don't directly create a profit. The Military is the biggest outlay that requires that its costs to be paid by federal income tax. For companies like GE and Amazon taxes are basically voluntary. When you can buy politicians to write the laws why wouldn't you not want to have yourself made tax exempt. The capitalist recognize the need for a military to defend foreign investment and they know that they have to be a source for that cost. Extending that cost directly onto the backs of working people was first done by FDR with the cost of WW2.
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@JustAGentleman Spoken like a true member of the Upper Class or middle class seeking recognition from the upper class. Obviously you think of yourself as a consumer because that's your main role in society "to consume". Why not dress up as the last English Viceroy of India holding a tea cup and asking a servant if it's time for tea.
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@Wamsuo58u The system is such that it rewards sociopathic behavior. Behind every US Military adventure is a boss seeking higher profits form his foreign investment.
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@Wamsuo58u What business tycoon is not a greedy capitalist who would sell his own grandmother if it meant bigger profits and market share. A capitalist who refuses to be greedy and compete is headed for bankruptcy court.
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@republicansthatdidntvotefo1605 The wealthy pay a voluntary tax. They have armies of accountants, lawyers, politicians and lobbyist who participate in making tax law. It seems to me that no one really knows what Bezo's paid because tax records are confidential and releasing government info is a leakier law violation. So unless the government takes you to court no one knows what anyone paid in taxes as an individual. What a publicly traded company paid might show up in stock holder info and any company leaker releases might also show up. Even if a leaked document showed up how would you verify its authenticity? I tend to doubt that Bezo's released his own tax records voluntary.
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@JustAGentleman US wealth in general has more to do with the size and large population of the country, the land for farming and the country being untouched by war since the end of the civil war in 1865. Being connected with England and its Industrial revolution rather than Spain and it quest for gold didn't hurt either.
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@Skylancer727 As long as their is another human being on earth that needs clean water, food, medical care or shelter than Amazon's profits are excessive.
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@donaldduck2986 What he's talking about is workers being classified as independent contractors. There was a time before the 1099 form that the IRS was told to take a hike when they wanted to tax those who made a living doing casual labor. By paying you as an independent contractor and issuing you a 1099 form the companies avoid having to pay payroll taxes and the minimum wage. You are then responsible for a tax of over 15% for Social Security and medicare and that's before any additional federal income tax.
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@republicansthatdidntvotefo1605 It's corruption legal and illegal that keeps them going. It doesn't matter who wins an election when they fund the candidates of both parties.
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@J Idowu Nice to know that you have reached the economic understanding attained by the citizens of the Roman Empire using salt and coins as money. Did the have movable type back then so a scholar such as yourself could impart your economic wisdom?
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@stephenmartin5766 You will be impacted by the class struggle one way or another because capitalism can't help but have economic recessions, depressions and wars no matter how much you love your job. No matter what Trump or the conservatives of both parties call it. We already have a social democratic regime in the US just like the Nordic Counties Regimes. Bernie Sanders wants more Social Democracy the Conservatives want less. World Stalinism at its very center, the Moscow regime in the Soviet Union, collapsed because any kind of workers democracy ended with the 1936 to 1938 Great Purge trials of the old Bolsheviks. Something else also happened no longer can the Stalinist pose as communists with their rotten methods and backward thinking. You don't get to socialism by shutting working people up, carrying out a socialism in one country policy or giving greater and more privileges to party officials.
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@J Idowu Why is it that people such as yourself feel the need to lecture socialist about money and simple trade? I live in the US, I've had more than one job, do the grocery shopping, fix what I can to save the cost of the maytag repairman. Yet somehow people such as yourself feel the need to lecture about money, barter, trade and theft. I also ran a paper route when I was about 14 to 16 years old. I have never taken a college course on business or economics. One only needs to read and be able to do simple arithmetic to gain a simple insight as to how a business works in " Introduction to Karl Marx’s Wage Labour and Capital" By Fredrick Engles. You only need to google it and read it for free. Its about 25 paragraphs long.
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@luigidaniele6613 and Skylancer727 Basically when you reach Jeff Bezo's level taxes are voluntary. You hire Accountants, Lawyers, and Lobbyist to get what you feel you should pay in taxes. To do this you use all kinds of creative accounting methods like I was paid for doing this job but I'm a philanthropist so I shouldn't pay taxes because government is evil. These guys have a legal way to make and use as many loopholes as needed.
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@luigidaniele6613 "it's part of the tax system not a loophole." Exactly the bosses write themselves the tax laws they want because they buy the politicians loyalty with campaign contributions. It is what's called legal corruption. You don't have to be a genius to realize what's going on.
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@1bc003 Who will fill the boxes without the box fillers?
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Show me where and how Marx, Engles, Lenin, Trotsky, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara acted like corrupt businessmen. You problem is capitalism has turned you into a cynic who fears any kind of fight with the corrupt businessmen. You think Cuba is educating doctors for the foreign exchange? A corrupt businessman can not believe otherwise so in order to clamp down on the corruption and deny profits to competitors that corrupt businessman secretary of state Pompao says they will deny visa's to all Cuban doctors. This is just another example of something that is unexplainable to those who drink the Kool aide.
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@dswarriors Taxing is not a solution because what Peter gives to Paul goes back to Paul again. For corporations taxes are voluntary anyway. If you want to slow automation short of a socialist revolution. Where you build what is needed instead of what is profitable. Then you must strike at profits because then that slows investment in new machinery. You do that with unions willing to fight for higher wages. The capitalist can't simply raise prices which is why they fight so hard against any wage increases.
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As far as automation goes a fundamental law of capitalism is profits flow to those companies and branches of industry that can cut labor time and cut wages. They must keep cutting labor time or wages otherwise prices will on average drop to production costs with no profits. The reason that few companies cut wages they way the did years ago is inflation does the dirty work. With the introduction of the Central bank by playing with interest rates and making talk about inflation a self fulfilling prophecy occurs. Bosses raising prices means real wages are cut through inflation. Every boss tells his workers we are raising the price to give you a raise. (Anytime you hear a boss talking about giving you anything hold onto your wallet). Next thing you know the grocery store prices just went up. You boss then blames it on other companies not doing well and lazy union workers. The reality is all the capitalists as a class are responsible for the way the system works and robs us everyday.
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@dswarriors Here's my argument as to why the federal income tax is voluntary assessment. The Federal Income tax began with the 16th Amendment than the tax was enacted. To get the 16th amendment passed when its use was not for any federal social welfare and incomes of less than $4,000 went untaxed the rich and the corporations must have wanted it just like the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank. How else could they have gotten the supermajority to pass the 16th amendment? Fast forward today most of us realize that the Congress, Courts and President do the bidding of campaign donors. Actually it's always been this way at least for sometime since the civil war. Lobbyist bring in their request for tax breaks. But if the tax law said hay give GE a break with this rule everyone would see that. So instead they create a rule for companies making jet engines for America in Massachusetts or if they want to give the same tax break to Pratt and Whitney they say Massachusetts and Connecticut. Many times they make it in a single county and state that way it often makes it even more obscure to anyone who doesn't know who owns what in that particular county. Manufacture of say water pumps helping America with fresher water. It helps if you can say somehow your helping the country with some particular problem. No one in Congress is going to get up and denonce Jet Engine manufacturers or water pump makers for fresher water.
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@felixu-mh2mx Unless the Amazon workers are on strike boycotting serves no purpose since exploration takes place at the point of production not when you buy something. You end up in the belief that some bosses are better than others when the are all responsible for the workings of capitalism. Even when the workers win a union victory it is just a temporary victory as the system once again begins the inevitable competition for jobs which once again drives down wages.
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@wynnhorton1208 If you start a Nike boycott without the Nike's workers onboard then all the company will do is say these people are attacking our company and we will have to fire you if we lose business. Fascism has a specific definition. It's a movement of a middle class suffering from the crisis of capitalism that also attracts declassed elements like the long term unemployed and petty criminals. The begin by using political violence against any kind of opposition especially meetings like those of the unions and the workers parties. The ruling class usually rejects them unless the fear their loss to a socialist revolution. That's why Hitler was jailed after the "Beer Hall Putsch" but later handed power by Paul von Hindenburg.
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@wynnhorton1208 Yours is the predicament of the small businessman on one hand you have a payroll to meet and on the other you can find that the banks are unsympathetic when you need a loan. Then there is always the possibility that the market will change somehow and put you out of business. While things may be going well or Okay when a crisis hits you are placed into a vice by the very system you think is good.
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@ihl0700677525 Keep telling the workers that BS about how they need to sacrifice for he good of the company, the need for profits, incentives and endless wars. We communists will tell them exactly the opposite. That no human being on earth needs to starve, to die on the job or in a war. That we don't need a private space program so Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk can go to mars or put an automobile in space. The labor of millions of human beings is wasted by your idiotic profit system.
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Van Damage Simple because they have the capital and the services government provides overwhelmingly benefit them. You can't squeeze blood out of a stone either.
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@TheAamax1 This we create jobs reason for subsidies and taxes breaks is just more BS. They don't hire anyone legal, illegal, marshine or earthling unless they think they can make a profit out of our sweat and toil. The unions need to fight back with strikes, protests and call for an unconditional amnesty for all immigrant workers regardless of papers or IDs.
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@ambassadorgonk4325 In US Federal Prisons inmate are required to work unless sick. Your job may be internal to the prison or you may work as contract labor for private enterprise. You are paid but you are not legally permitted to strike although strikes occur anyhow. The thirteenth amendment makes involuntary servitude illegal except as punishment for a crime. So with the end of reconstruction after the civil war the Southern States came up with increasing numbers of petty crimes like loitering and vagrancy which poor whites and blacks could be arrested and convicted of who would then be used as convict contract labor in chain gangs, coal mines and industry.
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@garlandremingtoniii1338 IRS have been know to show up at the homes or workplaces of people who often receive tips with their wages like Taxi drivers seeking higher earnings estimates.
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