The $150 billion sitting in bezos bank account does very little for everyone. If it was distributed among the population of America, most of it would be spent very quickly and there would be huge benefits for everyone. Preventing hoarding would do a lot of good for society.
On the contrary. Most of that money is the capital that makes up Amazon and its subsidiaries, which has consistently grown faster (created more wealth/benefit) than almost any other entity in our society.
That's your neoliberal take. Personally, I'm a little dubious that wealth created is 1:1 with social benefit created. But to say that his bank account benefits nobody would be a misrepresentation.
For society, by making the distribution of goods/services more efficient. Amazon enriches our lives (compared to no Amazon) every time anyone uses it. The resources we all save, the delta, go partially to Mr. Bezos and owners of Amazon stock in the form of profit. They are rewarded for having allocated their capital efficiently. They can spend the money on whatever they want, but it is mostly allocated back into making Amazon more efficient -- not locked away as the gp suggests.
Bear in mind this is the extremely idealistic neoliberal take.
Fine, 30b in his bank account and 120b in his portfolio. All of that money was at one point in a consumers pocket and now sits removed from the wider economy in one of Jeff Bezos accounts for the sole purpose of furthering future growth of these accounts by further extraction of money out of the wider economy.
How would the accounts grow if they weren't doing something that created wealth, i.e. generated value for the economy? They're re-invested in other companies, to be put to good use.
Generated value for whom? The size of amazon? To be put to good use figuring out more ways to eavesdrop information for advertising? They aren't going to pay their workers who piss in bottles any more if they beat earnings, although the shareholders might have some big ticket purchases in mind. It is still money removed from consumers pockets and used to inflate the company, and only very few people in the company benefit from that ballooning.
I'm sure amazon does provide value to it's customers, but it was at the expense of consuming and destroying local small business economies where the profit would have stayed and been spent there, not in Seattle, not on exotic mansions and watercraft, not on the latest Echo endeavor that may or may not ever come to fruition. Just as Nestle bottles water from local aquifers and sells that water elsewhere outside of that watershed, eventually depleting the aquifer, Amazon takes local wages away from the economy and either sits on this pile of cash or on lavish compensation for the few at the top of the company.
If people choose to purchase through Amazon, it's generally because they provide a better experience (i.e. more value per dollar spent) than their competitors.
Sitting on cash is expensive, due to inflation and taxes. It's generally better to re-invest. People are generally compensated as a function of the value they add to the company. If someone else can do a better job for less money, it would be in the board's best interests to hire them.
I do agree, though, that unwise expenditure of resources (mansions and watercraft, et all) should be criticized, though not high net-worth per-say. The problem, though, is that the common man is also guilty of unwise expenditure of resources. E.g. taking a vacation instead of providing life saving vaccines.
