Jeff Bezos. Going into space.

[Cumbrian Mackem]

With his brother. That’s better than paying his workers a decent living wage and giving them workers rights.

 

[LEEDSLADGONE SOUTH]

My old man always said I’d have bee shot into space if he hadn’t been 3 sheets to the wind. 

[DavidM]

I took my brother on the bus to Flimby . 

[Wiltshire Rhino]

9 hours ago, DavidM said:

I took my brother on the bus to Flimby . 

Did you leave him there?

[DavidM]

19 minutes ago, Wiltshire Rhino said:

Did you leave him there?

I told him to bring enough bus fare . That’s his fault .

He found his way home eventually . No idea what happened to his pram 

[JonM]

20 hours ago, Cumbrian Mackem said:

With his brother. That’s better than paying his workers a decent living wage and giving them workers rights.

There's quite a few Amazon offices here in Cambridge - people working on Alexa/ voice recognition stuff, AWS Cloud Services, prime video software, drone delivery research. The people my age I know who work there as programmers and managers are typically on £150K+ packages plus their share options have been worth more than that again in recent years because the share price has tripled. 

My youngest son has several friends from his year at school who work for Amazon. Three of them joined as software engineers straight out of university aged 21, getting £70K in their first year, plus shares etc kicking in in the future. He has a couple of mates who deliver for them too - on about £400 per week. Classic two tier economy stuff - the very smart kids from school who were good with maths and computers earning a fortune, the less fortunate getting only a couple of quid an hour over minimum wage.

[Cumbrian Mackem]

13 hours ago, DavidM said:

I took my brother on the bus to Flimby . 

By force?

[Cumbrian Mackem]

4 hours ago, Wiltshire Rhino said:

Did you leave him there?

Even Cain wouldn’t leave Abel in flimby.

[JonM]

5 hours ago, DavidM said:

I told him to bring enough bus fare . That’s his fault .

He found his way home eventually . No idea what happened to his pram 

Reminds me of a story in the local newspaper in Runcorn many years back. Old feller suffering from dementia left his house and started walking. Various police alerts put out after he'd been missing for a day or so. About two weeks later he was found in North Wales. They phoned up his younger brother to come and collect him and the brother said "well, he walked there, what's stopping him walking back, I'm not driving all that way for the silly old ######". 

[Mister Ting]

22 hours ago, DavidM said:

I took my brother on the bus to Flimby . 

Is it nice there?

[DavidM]

3 minutes ago, Mister Ting said:

Is it nice there?

Gorgeous , lovely beach . Took this pic while i was there

[Mister Ting]

5 minutes ago, DavidM said:

Gorgeous , lovely beach . Took this pic while i was there

Reminds me of Workington.

[langpark]

On 07/06/2021 at 15:51, Cumbrian Mackem said:

With his brother. That’s better than paying his workers a decent living wage and giving them workers rights.

 

Apparently they ar racing the clock (and Richard Branson) in order to see who can get their first.

Branson's company, Virgin Galactic have been at it for years and he himself was planning to go up later this year. But since Bezos' announcement, apparently they are secretly trying to send him up as early as next month (4th of July according to the rumours). 

Will be interesting to see how it unfolds and in some ways it is a bit reminiscent of the old space race between USA and the Soviet Union.

[Cumbrian Mackem]

1 hour ago, langpark said:

Apparently they ar racing the clock (and Richard Branson) in order to see who can get their first.

Branson's company, Virgin Galactic have been at it for years and he himself was planning to go up later this year. But since Bezos' announcement, apparently they are secretly trying to send him up as early as next month (4th of July according to the rumours). 

Will be interesting to see how it unfolds and in some ways it is a bit reminiscent of the old space race between USA and the Soviet Union.

Vanity project.

imagine if they concentrated all of that energy and resources into something more worthwhile like ending homelessness or full employment.

[langpark]

42 minutes ago, Cumbrian Mackem said:

Vanity project.

imagine if they concentrated all of that energy and resources into something more worthwhile like ending homelessness or full employment.

Agreed. A few apoilt rich kids playing games and having ego battles, rather than doing something more meaningful with their wealth. 

[DavidM]

Does it stop on the way at a service station for snacks ?

[Cumbrian Mackem]

28 minutes ago, langpark said:

Agreed. A few apoilt rich kids playing games and having ego battles, rather than doing something more meaningful with their wealth. 

It always amazes me how little if at all any criticism they receive in the corporate media. Or then again maybe not.

Im sure the feeling of helping another human being out either struggling with homelessness or unemployment would far outweigh that of these pointless vanity projects.

or better yet do both.

[Cumbrian Mackem]

Just now, Johnoco said:

Surely it's up to them what they spend their money on? 

Of course it is but wouldn’t helping out their fellow man/woman struggling with homelessness or unemployment be better?

[DavidM]

2 minutes ago, Johnoco said:

To clarify, if I had their wealth I'd give most of it away but I wouldn't knock someone for not doing that.

If you did can I have it ?

[Cumbrian Mackem]

49 minutes ago, Johnoco said:

Absolutely and I like to think I'd spend most of a similar fortune in doing good work to help people - in fact I definitely would. 

But it could well be a lifelong dream of his and if he's in a position to achieve it, I wouldn't slag him off for doing it. 

Normally I wouldn’t but the fact that he refuses to pay his workers a decent living wage with decent working conditions won’t allow me not to “slag him off.”