Norway is the only major economy in Europe where young people are getting markedly richer.
↩︎ BBC News
NEWS YOU CAN USE: The Joy of Home Distilling: The Ultimate Guide to Making Your Own Vodka, Whiskey, Rum, Brandy, Moonshine, and More.
Bloomberg News – “Jeff Bezos is the richest person in modern history. The Amazon.com Inc. founder’s net worth cracked $150 billion in New York on Monday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That’s about $55 billion more than Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates, the world’s second-richest person. Bezos, 54, also has topped Gates in inflation-adjusted terms. The $100 billion mark that Gates hit briefly in 1999 at the height of the dot-com boom would be worth about $149 billion in today’s dollars. That makes the Amazon chief executive officer richer than anyone else on earth since at least 1982, when Forbes published its inaugural wealth ranking…”
- See also – Washington Post – Worker strikes and a site crash dent Amazon’s Prime Day shopping bonanza – “Thousands of employees worldwide have walked off the job on the company’s biggest sales day of the year to bring attention to working conditions and benefits.
- See also -CNBC – Amazon suffers glitches at the start of Prime Day, its biggest shopping day of the year. [Some users saw an error page featuring the “dogs of Amazon” and were initially unable to enter the site. – Yes that would be me – The collies were not amused!]
- See also – BBC News – Shoppers thinking of taking part in internet giant Amazon’s Prime Day are being warned that not all the items on sale could be the bargains they seem.
“Many booksellers on Amazon strive to sell their wares as cheaply as possible. That, after all, is usually how you make a sale in a competitive marketplace. Other merchants favor a counterintuitive approach: Mark the price up to the moon. “Zowie,” the romance author Deborah Macgillivray wrote on Twitter last month after she discovered copies of her 2009 novel, “One Snowy Knight,” being offered for four figures. One was going for “$2,630.52 & FREE Shipping,” she noted. Since other copies of the paperback were being sold elsewhere on Amazon for as little as 99 cents, she was perplexed. “How many really sell at that price? Are they just hoping to snooker some poor soul?” Ms. Macgillivray wrote in an email. She noted that her blog had gotten an explosion in traffic from Russia. “Maybe Russian hackers do this in their spare time, making money on the side,” she said.
a Zowie. Amazon is selling copies of my One Snowy Knight for $1,558.59 + $5.49 shipping + $0.00 estimated tax or $2,630.52 & FREE Shipping + $0.00 estimated tax Hang in there, it’s being reprinted in July for MUCH less…lol pic.twitter.com/eEqWUzg7kf
— Deborah Macgillivray (@Scotladywriter) June 5, 2018
Amazon is by far the largest marketplace for both new and used books the world has ever seen, and is also one of the most inscrutable. The retailer directly sells some books, while others are sold by third parties. The wild pricing happens with the latter. Books were Amazon’s first product. They made the company’s reputation and powered Jeff Bezos’ ascent to his perch as the world’s richest person. Amazon sold books so cheaply that land-based shops could not compete. It controls about half the market for new books, more than any bookseller in the history of the United States…”
“Amazon is driving us insane with its willingness to allow third-party vendors to sell authors’ books with zero oversight,” said Vida Engstrand, director of communications for Kensington, which published “One Snowy Knight.” “It’s maddening and just plain wrong.”
“Amazon is driving us insane with its willingness to allow third-party vendors to sell authors’ books with zero oversight,” said Vida Engstrand, director of communications for Kensington, which published “One Snowy Knight.” “It’s maddening and just plain wrong.”
Like Kylie Jenner, I Was on a Forbes List. Here Are the Hidden Privileges That Made Me a “Success.”, by Aditi Juneja (J.D. 2017, NYU):
Gracing
the cover of Forbes’s 60 Richest Self-Made Women issue this week was
none other than Kylie Jenner, the 21-year old member of the Kardashian
family dynasty and cosmetics mogul.
The
problem with this particular cover, and more generally with magazine
lists like these, is they often gloss over the role intergenerational
wealth and access plays in success. This is especially true when that
success is achieved at a young age. I should know. I was on the Forbes
“30 Under 30” list this year for Law and Policy.
In his biography of Apple founder Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson reports on some comments Jobs made over dinner to News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch about Fox News in 2010.
In return for speaking at the retreat, Jobs got Murdoch to hear him out on Fox News, which he believed was destructive, harmful to the nation, and a blot on Murdoch’s reputation. “You’re blowing it with Fox News,” Jobs told him over dinner. “The axis today is not liberal and conservative, the axis is constructive-destructive, and you’ve cast your lot with the destructive people. Fox has become an incredibly destructive force in our society. You can be better, and this is going to be your legacy if you’re not careful.” Jobs said he thought Murdoch did not really like how far Fox had gone. “Rupert’s a builder, not a tearer-downer,” he said. “I’ve had some meetings with James, and I think he agrees with me. I can just tell.”
Such an insightful comment by Jobs. As John Gruber notes:
This line from Jobs — “The axis today is not liberal and conservative, the axis is constructive-destructive” — is truly the best summary of Trumpism I’ve seen.
It’s been eight years since that conversation and the Republican Party & their voters have doubled down in destroying opportunities for people (particularly those with little power), driven by the likes of Fox News. This destruction will be felt for generations to come.
Global 500 / Search and Explore The 500 -“The world’s 500 largest companies generated $30 trillion in revenues and $1.9 trillion in profits in 2017. Together, this year’s Fortune Global 500 companies employ 67.7 million people worldwide and are represented by 33 countries.
Global 500 / Search and Explore The 500 -“The world’s 500 largest companies generated $30 trillion in revenues and $1.9 trillion in profits in 2017. Together, this year’s Fortune Global 500 companies employ 67.7 million people worldwide and are represented by 33 countries.
- InteractiveVisualize – “The Global 500 Each year a whole host of factors – the global economy, trade policies, mergers and acquisitions and corporate upheaval among them – push and pull at the Global 500 rankings. To help you quickly see how each country is represented on the list, we put the Global 500 on a world map. Now you can see each company’s location, revenue and profit at a glance. We also invite you to take a look at how each Global 500 company has moved around in the ranks over the past two decades.”