The first trillionaire

Jeff Bezos, the brains behind Amazon, is set to become the first trillionaire. Even the pandemic hasn’t dented his good fortune, indeed the company is so busy now that his wealth keeps growing. Some may say that this is capitalism working its magic yet I feel it is both sad and plain wrong. 

It is wrong that the system we live in allows so much wealth to be accumulated in one individual. Yes, he is a talented person and Amazon has completely transformed the way that online trading is done but is he that deserving? If money is the measure of success, is he a thousand times better at what he does than a billionaire, or a million times better than a mere millionaire?

I know a lot of his wealth is in the company but it is impossible for anyone to spend a billion dollars let alone a trillion. All you can really do with it is to buy other billion dollar companies, or perhaps a country or two.

In reality we should all be worried about this because with such wealth comes enormous power. He can literally buy and sell any one of us. We should all be kicking off big time but we keep buying. We should also be kicking off about other big companies, think Facebook  and Cambridge Analytica but as long as we have cat videos…

It feels almost hopeless. I don’t think most people care to be honest, yet that is what governments are for, to think about things that are beyond people’s ken.

Amazon needs to be broken up, as does Facebook and probably Google, Apple etc. For example content providers should not be carriers and should not be data analysis companies. This may be less efficient but it is far less dangerous.

But here’s the kicker, it’s hard to get governments to act when it benefits them to do nothing. Facebook lures governments by thinking it is helping them but it is merely bringing them under its control. Amazon helps to solve PPE distribution problems for ‘free’ while getting enormous state handouts by paying people minimum wage. Each of them is making themselves indispensable. Governments are addicted to them.

We need to wake up and lift the scales from our eyes. The concentration of so much wealth in so few people is dangerous for humanity. I for one will try and stop buying from Amazon. Bezos will be weeping all the way to the bank.