Tag: jeff bezos

Elon Musk Reclaims Position as World’s Richest Person After Bernard Arnault’s Louis Vuitton Shares Drop

Elon Musk has yet again claimed his position as the world’s richest person after beating the CEO of the French luxury brand Louis Vuitton Bernard Arnault, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as of Thursday, Musk’s net worth was about $192 billion (roughly Rs. 15,82,483 crore), with Arnault’s $187 billion (roughly Rs. 15,41,272 crore).

Index data showed behind Musk and Arnault are Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates at $144 billion (roughly Rs. 11,86,862 crore) and $125 billion (roughly Rs. 10,30,262 crore), respectively.

The index is a daily ranking of the world’s wealthiest people. Details about the calculations are provided in the net worth analysis on each billionaire’s profile page. The figures are updated at the close of every trading day in New York.

Tesla chief Musk is back on top of the list of wealthiest persons after shares of Arnault’s firm fell over 2 percent in the latest trade.

The rise in Musk’s wealth can also be partly attributed to the latest surge in Tesla stock prices. They rose about 89 percent so far in 2023, data showed.

Musk and Arnault have been neck-and-neck on the list of the richest people.

In December 2022, Bernard Arnault reportedly overtook the Tesla head when he was in the second spot for more than two months. Musk reclaimed again in late February. 

Samsung Galaxy A34 5G was recently launched by the company in India alongside the more expensive Galaxy A54 5G smartphone. How does this phone fare against the Nothing Phone 1 and the iQoo Neo 7? We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

In December 2022, Bernard Arnault reportedly overtook the Tesla head when he was in the second spot for more than two months. Musk reclaimed again in late February.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Jeff Bezos shut out of Commanders sale, could be eyeing Seahawks

Amazon owner Jeff Bezos was denied in his attempt to buy the Washington Commanders as owner Dan Snyder explores a sale – but he could now turn his attention to another team closer to home.

Bezos had not put together a bid to buy the Washington, D.C.-area football team despite rumors the multi-billionaire was interested, per The Washington Post and Puck.

According to The Washington Post, Bezos was denied by Snyder due to his ownership of the paper – which played a large role in revealing widespread allegations of workplace misconduct against the team’s owner.

However, now Bezos could turn his focus to the Seattle Seahawks, who could be the next team to be sold, according to Pro Football Talk.

“Bezos knows that Seattle is sitting there,” a person with knowledge of the NFL’s inner workings told The Washington Post.

Former Seahawks owner Paul Allen passed away in 2018, and his sister Jody, who is now the principal owner of the team, has been slowly selling off his assets since his death.

It is unlikely that the team is sold before May 2024, as 10 percent of the sale would go to the state of Washington due to the terms of their stadium deal.

But after that, many around the league expect the team to be sold – and Bezos could be the first in line to offer billions to the Allen family.


Jeff Bezos
Getty Images

Dan Snyder
Getty Images

Seattle is much closer to Bezos – Amazon’s corporate headquarters is located in the city – and the Seahawks are in much better shape as a franchise than the Commanders, who are still looking for a new stadium and have been a dumpster fire under Snyder’s ownership.

While the Commanders are currently the more valuable franchise, Seattle already has an iconic stadium that is only around 20 years old, and they have been far more successful on the field.

So, while Bezos becoming an NFL owner isn’t imminent, Snyder may ultimately be doing him a favor by shutting him out of a Commanders bid.

Snyder is expected to sell the team soon, according to several reports.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Lauren Sánchez kisses ‘favorite person’ Jeff Bezos at Versace show

Lauren Sánchez can’t get enough of boyfriend Jeff Bezos.

The former news reporter, 53, and Amazon founder, 59, showed some PDA while on an “unforgettable” date at the Versace Fall-Winter 2023 fashion show in Los Angeles.

“Right before the Versace fashion show in LA with my favorite person ❤️,” Sánchez captioned a snap with her billionaire beau on Instagram Thursday.

“The clothes were jaw-dropping and Donatella Versace is a fashion icon. Thanks for an unforgettable show. @donatella_versace.”

The couple snuggled up to one another in the front row.
Matt Baron/BEI/Shutterstock
Sánchez showed off her curves in a belted, black mini dress.
REUTERS

The pair — who began dating in 2019 — matched in all black, with Sánchez rocking a dress covered in belts while Bezos opted for jeans and a patterned suit jacket.

After getting settled into their front row seats, Sánchez gave Bezos a sweet kiss on the cheek, as seen in a photo posted by Derek Blasberg.

The twosome looked every bit in love as they snuggled up to one another as Sánchez latched onto Bezos.

The mom of three often shares little snippets into the pair’s relationship on social media.

Yet despite their lavish lifestyle, the former TV reporter says her favorite thing about Bezos is his laugh.

For more Page Six you love …

“When I first heard his laugh, I was like, ‘Whoa! What is that?’ Now I love it,” she told WSJ. Magazine last month.

The pair started dating in 2019.
WireImage

“He’s so happy, he inspires me every day, he makes me a better person every day; he’s the most loving human I know,” she said.

Prior to their romance, Bezos was married to MacKenzie Scott, whom he divorced in April 2019 after 25 years of marriage. The former couple share four children.

Similarly, Sánchez was married to Patrick Whitesell for 13 years. The twosome settled their divorce in October 2019.



Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Jeff Bezos girlfriend Lauren Sanchez didn’t make ‘The View’

When Lauren Sanchez left Fox to start contributing to “Extra,” she was ready for her TV career to take flight. But she didn’t reach her dream destination.

The 53-year-old TV host and helicopter pilot who has catapulted into the public eye with her relationship with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2019, recalled in an interview with WSJ Magazine the moment she felt like her career was crashing down in 1999. She didn’t get her dream job — a role on Barbara Walters daytime talk show “The View.” 

“It was one of the most devastating days of my life,”  Sánchez told Derek Blasberg in an interview with WSJ Magazine published Wednesday. 

Sanchez recalled bonding instantly with Walters while auditioning for “The View,” though she admitted clashing with original cast member lawyer and journalist Star Jones, 60. Their differences may have cost her the role. Instead, journalist Lisa Ling took the coveted spot alongside Jones, Meredith Vierra, Joy Behar and Walters, who personally phoned Sanchez to tell her the disappointing news that left her in tears for days. 

Sanchez said Jones later apologized and that Walters remained a mentor. 


Lauren Sanchez (from left) on “The View” with Star Jones and Barbara Walters.

“She [Walters] really helped me with my career. Not only as someone I looked up to, but really guided me when I was up for The View,” Sánchez told WSJ Magazine after Walters died in December. 

“Producers were trying to make me dress extra conversative and she saw me and said, ‘What happened?’ She said, ‘They will try and make you ordinary. Don’t let them. Then, if you fail, at least you fail as yourself.’ I never forgot that.” 

She found the silver lining in the career setback. 

“It turned out to be a good thing because I wouldn’t have had Nikko,” Sánchez said of giving birth to her first child, who is now 21, with former NFL tight end Tony Gonzalez. 

“Everything happens for a reason,” she said.


Sanchez, 53, an Emmy-award winning TV host and helicopter pilot, catapulted into the public eye for her relationship with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2019.
Daniel Jack Lyons for WSJ. Magaz

Before TV, Sanchez initially wanted to be a flight attendant. At age 18, she moved to Los Angeles with hopes of working for Southwest Airlines. Her weight thrawted her from landing the role.

“Back then, they weighed you, and I weighed 121 pounds,” she told WSJ Mag of a required weigh-in she failed back in 1989, during the time weight restrictions were common in the industry. “They said, ‘You need to be 115.’”


Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos.
Getty Images

Today, she said, she’d clap back saying: “I don’t want to be a stewardess. I want to be the pilot!” 

Her relationship with Bezos has also taken flight with the duo jet setting to the likes of the Taj Mahal, hiking with King Charles in Scotland and getting chatty with Leonardo DiCaprio at the LACMA gala.

Sanchez cut her teeth in Hollywood at age 28 when she landed a small role as a TV reporter on “Fight Club” in 1999 doing a breaking news segment on underground boxing clubs.

“Jared Leto calls me hot—I peaked!” she quipped.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Jeff Bezos, Lauren Sanchez reveal space travel plans as they praise each other in first joint interview

Teamwork makes the romance work, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and longtime girlfriend Lauren Sánchez gush in their first interview as a couple.

Bezos, the fourth wealthiest person in the world, and journalist Sanchez shared their mutual adoration during a sit-down interview with CNN.

“We’re really great teammates, and we also have a lot of fun together,” Sánchez said. “And we love each other … We always look at each other and we’re the team.”

Bezos added that “it’s easy.”

“We bring each other energy, we respect each other. So, it’s fun to work together,” the online retail titan said.

Bezos, 58, who also is founder of the spaceflight company Blue Origin, said he hopes to make space travel accessible for everyone — and believes in his lifetime everyone who wants to should be able to travel to space.

“Let me give you an example. The Wright brothers flew this tiny little plane, just a couple hundred feet. And if you told the Wright brothers a hundred years from now, there’s going be a 787 that carries 400 people, they’d laugh,” Bezos said.

“We bring each other energy, we respect each other. So, it’s fun to work together.” Jeff Bezos said.
CNN

Sánchez, 52, an Emmy-award-winning journalist, asserted she plans on flying to space in 2023 on a flight accompanied by a “great group of females.” Sánchez is also a licensed pilot and founder of Black Ops Aviation, the first female-owned and operated aerial film and production company.

“I’ve also learned how to fly the helicopter,” Bezos said, prompting a laugh from Sanchez. “And she’s a horrible backseat pilot. She’s terrible!”

Sánchez countered she “realized that when I’m in the back of the helicopter when he’s flying, I just kind of have to look out the window, just kind of enjoy the scenery.

During the interview Jeff Bezos revealed he plans to give away most of his wealth during his lifetime.
CNN

“I’m like, ‘No, no. Pull up. Okay. Okay, Slow down.’ But he’s very good.,” she said.

The normally-private pair also spoke about their typical weekends, admitting Saturday nights consist of watching movies and spending time with their families.

“We can be kind of boring,” Sánchez said. “I would say normal. We have dinner with the kids. That’s always fun and a great conversation. There’s seven between us, so there’s a lot of discussion. And then we watch a movie … by committee. It takes a long time to find that movie.”

“We probably spend more time picking the movie than we need to,” Bezos added.

During the interview Bezos also revealed he plans to give away most of his wealth during his lifetime, admitting he doesn’t yet have a plan on how to unload his billions on issues like climate change.

Lauren Sánchez is an Emmy-award winning journalist and licensed pilot.
Instagram/@laurenwsanchez

He said he plans on taking his time doing so.

“It’s not easy,” Bezos said. “Building Amazon was not easy. It took a lot of hard work, a bunch of very smart teammates, hard-working teammates, and I’m finding — and I think Lauren is finding the same thing — that charity, philanthropy, is very similar.”

“There are a bunch of ways that I think you could do ineffective things, too,” he added. “So you have to think about it carefully and you have to have brilliant people on the team.”

Bezos’ ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, has given away nearly $4 billion to 465 organizations in less than a year and twice that amount over the past two years.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Jeff Bezos, Andy Jassy Ordered by US FTC to Testify in Amazon Prime Investigation

Federal regulators are ordering Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and CEO Andy Jassy to testify in the government’s investigation of Amazon Prime, rejecting the company’s complaint that the executives are being unfairly harassed in the probe of the popular streaming and shopping service.

The Federal Trade Commission issued an order late Wednesday denying Amazon’s request to cancel civil subpoenas sent in June to Bezos, the Seattle-based company’s former CEO, and Jassy. The order also sets a deadline of Jan. 20 for the completion of all testimony by Bezos, Jassy and 15 other senior executives, who also were subpoenaed.

Jassy took over the helm of the online retail and tech giant from Bezos, one of the world’s richest individuals, in July 2021. Bezos became executive chairman.

Amazon hasn’t made the case that the subpoenas “present undue burdens in terms of scope or timing,” FTC Commissioner Christine Wilson said in the order on behalf of the agency. However, the FTC did agreed to modify some provisions of the subpoenas that it acknowledged appeared too broad.

The FTC has been investigating since March 2021 the sign-up and cancellation practices of Amazon Prime, which has an estimated 200 million members around the globe.

The company said it was disappointed but not surprised that the FTC mostly ruled in favor of its own position, but it was pleased that the agency “walked backed its broadest requests” in the subpoenas.

“Amazon has cooperated with the FTC throughout the investigation and already produced tens of thousands of pages of documents,” the company said in a statement. “We are committed to engaging constructively with FTC staff, but we remain concerned that the latest requests are overly broad and needlessly burdensome, and we will explore all our options.”

In a petition to the FTC filed last month, the company objected to the subpoenas to Bezos and Jassy, saying the agency “has identified no legitimate reason for needing their testimony when it can obtain the same information, and more, from other witnesses and documents.” Amazon said the FTC was hounding Bezos, Jassy and the other executives, calling the information demanded in the subpoenas “overly broad and burdensome.”

The investigation has widened to include at least four other Amazon-owned subscription programs: Audible, Amazon Music, Kindle Unlimited, and Subscribe & Save, as well as an unidentified third-party program not offered by Amazon. The regulators have asked the company to identify the number of consumers who were enrolled in the programs without giving their consent, among other customer information.

With an estimated 150 million US subscribers, Amazon Prime is a key source of revenue, as well as a wealth of customer data, for the company, which runs an e-commerce empire and ventures in cloud computing, personal “smart” tech and beyond. Amazon Prime costs $139 a year. The service added a coveted feature this year by obtaining exclusive video rights to the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football.”

Last year, Amazon asked unsuccessfully that FTC Chair Lina Khan step aside from separate antitrust investigations into its business, contending that her public criticism of the company’s market power before she joined the government makes it impossible for her to be impartial. Khan was a fierce critic of tech giants Facebook (now Meta), Google and Apple, as well as Amazon. She arrived on the antitrust scene in 2017, writing an influential study titled “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox” when she was a Yale law student.

Buying an affordable 5G smartphone today usually means you will end up paying a “5G tax”. What does that mean for those looking to get access to 5G networks as soon as they launch? Find out on this week’s episode. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

IPL Media Rights: Amazon Pulls Out of Bidding War, Viacom18 is Strongest Contender, Says BCCI

The much-anticipated duel between Jeff Bezos and Mukesh Ambani for acquisition of one of world’s costliest sporting properties won’t materialise now as OTT giants Amazon on Friday pulled out of IPL media rights bidding, scheduled to start on Sunday.

Reliance Industries Limited owned Viacom18 is considered to be one of the strongest contenders both in TV and digital space.

Bezos-funded Amazon was expected to be one of the biggest bidders in digital space but pulled out of the race without revealing the reason.

“Yes, Amazon is out of the race. They didn’t join the technical bidding process today. As far as Google (YouTube) is concerned, they had picked up the bid document but didn’t submit it. As of now, 10 companies (TV and streaming) are in fray,” a senior BCCI official told PTI on conditions of anonymity.

A four-way battle —There are four specific packages in which e-auction will be conducted for 74 games per season for a five-year period from 2023-to 2027 with a provision of increasing the number of matches to 94 in the final two years.

The Package A has Indian sub-continent exclusive TV (broadcast) rights while Package B covers digital rights for Indian sub-continent.

The Package C is for 18 selected games in each season for digital space while Package D (all games) will be for combined TV and digital rights for overseas markets.

“Let’s make it clear, the Viacom 18 JV (Joint Venture), current rights holder Walt Disney (Star), Zee and Sony are the four contenders for the packages with solid footprints in both TV and digital market,” the official said.

Some of the other contenders, primarily for digital space are: Times Internet, FunAsia, Dream11, FanCode while Sky Sports (UK) and Supersport (South Africa) will be vying for overseas TV and digital rights.

The last time, Star India bought rights for both TV and digital with a composite bid of Rs. 16,347.50 crore but this time the composite base price is more than Rs. 32,000 crore.

All bidders will have to make separate bids for each package, this time.

As of Friday, some of the big players who are involved with the bidding process, feel that Rs. 45,000 crore is the amount that BCCI could expect which will be a two-and-a-half times increase in valuation.

PTI has prepared ‘Ready Reckoner’ for IPL Media Rights

Q: What are the dates of media rights auction?

A: It is expected to be for two days — June 12 and 13.

Q: What is the period of IPL Media Rights?

A: The period is for five years from 2023-2027.

Q: Number of matches per season?

A: It is 74 with provision of going up to 94 in last 2 seasons.

Q: What is current valuation of IPL Media Rights?

A: Rs 16,347.50 crore for both TV and Digital with Star India.

Q: What are the packages on offer?

A: TV Rights for Indian sub-continent at Rs. 49 crore per game.

B: Digital Rights for Indian sub-continent at Rs. 33 crore per game.

C: 18-match, non-exclusive digital package at Rs. 11 crore per game.

D: Overseas TV and Digital Rights at Rs. 3 crore per game.

Q: What is composite base price for all packages?

A: Total composite base price for all four packages is Rs. 32,440 crore.

Break-up: Package A is Rs. 18,130 crore (74x49x5) Package B is Rs. 12,210 crore (74x33x5) Package C is Rs. 990 crore (18x11x5) Package D is Rs. 1110 crore (74x3x5)

Q: Which are major companies bidding?

A: There are 10 companies in fray: Viacom18 JV (Joint Venture) with Lupa Systems (Uday Shankar and James Murdoch), Walt Disney (Star), Zee, Sony (both India media and digital rights).

Times Internet, Fan Code, FunAsia, Dream11 (only digital rights).

Supersport (South Africa) and Sky Sports (UK) vying for Overseas TV and Digital rights.

Q: Can one entity make a composite bid like Star did last time?

A: No. Every package will be awarded to highest bidder.

For example, Facebook had presented highest digital bid for Rs. 3900 crore in 2017 but Star grabbed the rights with a huge composite bid despite lower digital bid.

Q: Can one entity get two packages?

A: Yes, that is possible.Suppose, if Star has the highest bid for India TV rights (Package A) for an ‘x’ amount and Sony places the highest bid for India digital rights for ‘y’ amount, both the companies can challenge each other in a tie-breaker.

Q: Which package could see a close fight?

A: Package C, which has non-exclusive rights for 18 games that include opening game, final, three play-offs and a few weekend double headers.

All major players (Viacom, Zee, Sony, Star) would like to own this digital package. If a company wins India digital rights and loses out on non-exclusive rights, then it loses out on massive revenue (advertisement plus subscriptions) for those 18 games which can be accessed at any other platforms. Companies would like to buy it to kill competition.

Q: What is the type of auction that is being held?

A: Just like last time, it will be e-auction where companies can raise their bid by Rs. 50 crore at one go. E-auction is transparent but time- consuming.

Q: What is kind of money expected by the BCCI?

A: The BCCI is expecting that over and above their Rs. 32,440 crore composite base price, it could earn another Rs. 12,000 to 12,500 crore which may take the valuation up to Rs. 45,000.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Amazon Consumer Business CEO Dave Clark Resigns After 23 Years of Service, Replacement to Be Named Soon

Dave Clark, the executive who made Amazon.com Inc into a worldwide delivery behemoth, is stepping down as chief executive of the online retailer’s consumer business to pursue other opportunities, the company said on Friday.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said he expects to name a replacement in the next few weeks and that the company has work ahead “to get to where we ultimately want to be” in the division Clark ran. Clark’s last day will be July 1, after 23 years with the company.

The departure further solidifies a changing of the guard at Amazon, which for years had veteran ranks under founder Jeff Bezos. A string of management departures including vice presidents and Bezos himself have shaken up the e-commerce and cloud company, though executives have aimed to maintain the customer focus and startup mentality of their founder.

The online retailer is also girding for economic challenges, recently reporting a $2 billion (roughly Rs. 15,538 crore) hit from having built too much warehousing and transportation capacity, vowing now to reduce the costs of fulfilling orders.

In a statement on Twitter, Clark said he wanted to get back to building. “It’s what drives me,” he said, adding he leaves Amazon with “a solid multi-year plan to fight the inflationary challenges we are facing in 2022.”

Clark no longer wanted Jassy, his new manager, to second-guess him, a person familiar with the matter said. Amazon declined to comment.

Clark joined Amazon in May 1999, a day after graduating from business school. He quickly rose ranks, from an operations manager in Kentucky to running all of Amazon’s retail, logistics and other consumer-facing businesses as of last year. In the process he built an in-house delivery operation that rivaled industry stalwarts FedEx Corp and United Parcel Service.

“He took risks that others wouldn’t consider,” said Michael Indresano, an Amazon logistics vice president until 2017. Clark, his former boss, had the idea of acquiring dozens of planes to give Amazon more control over shipping, and he championed the use of robots in warehouses, Indresano said.

Clark’s departure is the second high-profile exit this week after Meta Platforms operations chief, Sheryl Sandberg, announced that she was leaving the company after 14 years.

Tumult in Amazon’s warehouse and delivery operation that Clark steered has been relentless since COVID-19 began spreading more than two years ago. As home-shopping orders jumped, workers fell ill and the company had to usher in more than 150 changes, from adding temperature scanners to technology for monitoring social distancing.

The change coincided with an increase in union organizing and scrutiny of Amazon’s safety conditions, pay and productivity tracking. Clark defended Amazon vociferously, occasionally trading barbs with critics. “I often say we are the Bernie Sanders of employers, but that’s not quite right because we actually deliver a progressive workplace,” he tweeted last year.

More recently Clark has contended with a shortage of workers willing to fill warehouse jobs and higher gas prices. That led to the company’s first-ever fuel and inflation surcharge on merchants who pay Amazon to fulfill their products in the United States, among other measures to address costs.

 

© Thomson Reuters 2022



Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Jeff Bezos, Joe Biden Engage in War of Words: Can Corporate Taxes Tame Inflation?

Jeff Bezos this weekend became the latest centibillionaire to launch a political fight on Twitter by denouncing a tweet from President Joe Biden about corporate taxes as “disinformation” and “misdirection.”

The White House quickly retorted Monday that Bezos “opposes an economic agenda for the middle class.” And then Bezos fired back, arguing that the Biden administration would have made inflation worse if its $3.5 trillion (roughly Rs. 2,72,14,250 crore) economic and social spending bill, known as “Build Back Better,” had made it into law.

“They failed, but if they had succeeded, inflation would be even higher than it is today, and inflation today is at a 40 year high,” Bezos tweeted.

The dispute marks an unusually high-profile one for Bezos, who has generally sought to avoid political fights in public. Bezos is the second-wealthiest person in the world, with a net worth of $150 billion (roughly Rs. 11,66,325 crore), behind Elon Musk, whose wealth has reached $268 billion (roughly Rs. 20,50,725 crore). Musk, the Tesla founder who is seeking to purchase Twitter, has frequently used the social media platform to attack his perceived critics and to pick fights about free speech.

The spat began on Friday, when Biden’s account tweeted: “You want to bring down inflation? Let’s make sure the wealthiest corporations pay their fair share.”

Biden has often accused Amazon, the e-commerce giant that Bezos founded and led for nearly a quarter-century, of failing to pay its fair share in taxes. In 2017 and 2018, Amazon paid no income tax despite earning billions in profits. Since then, the company has made modest tax payments.

“Raising corp taxes is fine to discuss,” Bezos tweeted in response. “Taming inflation is critical to discuss. Mushing them together is just misdirection.”

On the actual policy question — whether raising corporate income taxes would in fact restrain inflation — most economists give Biden the edge, with a caveat.

Larry Summers, a Harvard economist who served as Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration, tweeted, “I think Jeff Bezos is mostly wrong in his recent attack” on the Biden administration.

“It is perfectly reasonable to believe, as I do,” Summers added, “that we should raise taxes to reduce demand to contain inflation and that the increases should be as progressive as possible.”

Indeed, raising corporate taxes would reduce corporate spending, lowering overall demand “and put downward pressure on prices,” said Michael Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

Still, Strain and other economists caution that it would take many months for any rate increase to have much impact, and even then, would not reduce inflation by much.

“Of all the things I would do to rein in inflation, the corporate income tax is a long way down the list,” added Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust, an asset management firm in Chicago.

Alan Auerbach, an economist and tax expert at the University of California, Berkeley, suggested that Bezos has a point when it comes to the longer-run impact of higher corporate taxes.

A higher corporate income tax would leave companies with less money to invest in extra capacity, Auerbach said. Over time, this financial burden would increase their production costs.

“In the long run, it would be true that you’d expect prices to be higher as a result of a higher corporate tax,” Auerbach said.

Neither the White House nor Bezos mentioned one curious backdrop to their dispute: A year ago, Bezos endorsed a Biden proposal to raise the corporate income tax rate to pay for more infrastructure investment.

“We recognize this investment will require concessions from all sides — both on the specifics of what’s included as well as how it gets paid for (we’re supportive of a rise in the corporate tax rate),” Bezos wrote on Amazon’s website in April 2021.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Exit mobile version