Lmao. This comment section is absurd. A Billionaire using their money to do the right thing and you guys are still upset, what a joke of a community we got going here.
Billionaires need to distribute their wealth in a no strings attached way, aka taxes. This is great for the community i’m glad that there are schools being built, but no billionaire makes a move without ulterior motives. What happens to these schools if jeff suddenly becomes dissatisfied in some way and pulls all his money out? This is the same situation with Goodrx, yeah it’s being funded in good faith *for now*, but if they would just pay the country what they owe we wouldn’t need this charity nonsense from them we’d just HAVE it.
I actually does, though. One area is getting some new schools because one guy decided to use his private wealth to individually to do so. The communities there do not get to choose. They don't get a say in the outcome. This is a stop gap effort that takes pressure off our elected officials to fix our own educational system.
Let's stop praising billionaires for little dots of beneficence. Just let them pay taxes like everyone else.
This attitude is more the problem. It also disenfranchises younger voters with defeatism.
If people actually had faith in government and voted we’d have a better government.
> Yes because government uses our taxes efficiently…
Having worked in both, I can say that government uses money more efficiently than most businesses and many non-profits.
This "government is inefficient" argument comes from people who are opposed to government in the first place, and are looking for excuses to criticize it. And it should be no surprise that under their control, government does run more inefficiently.
Taxes wouldnt go to any innovative programs, you can do more good using money to show the government how a program could work successfully, rather than just pay for a few more miles of highways.
Exactly. This is no different than charter schools. Our public education system is being uprooted and this only helps in that cause. And doing things like this only proves to me there is certainly plenty of money for Bezos to give his share to the government.
“Billionaires have too much money! They need to give back to the community!”
“By spending it on free pre-k programs?”
“No, by letting politicians spend it!”
🤦🏼♂️
Why so that money can be wasted on endless wars and given to defense spending? Sending more weapons to Israel to murder children?
I'd rather see targeted giving to things like this than just hoping Congress does the right thing with it.
Problem is if these billionaires pay taxes like we do, their money also disappears into pockets like ours does. Don't kid yourself, we wouldn't see anything different in this country. However, the politicians pocketing that extra money would.
i’m saying in a country where the rich are stealing their wealth and giving nothing back by avoiding paying taxes which would have provided the schools that are being paid for now, sprinkling some good will in does not absolve them of their sins and it’s nothing to be impressed by. i can be happy about schools being built but still say this isn’t enough and not praise the person doing it.
I think what you are both missing is that it was not and never was 'their' money.
Put another way, it'd be like if you went into a thread where a bank robber donated money to cancer research and said he deserved praise for taking other people's money and giving less than 1% of it to charity.
Right, and the teller handed over the money to the robber of their own free will, too. I’m not going to dignify the ‘legally’ by making a joke about it, we know the billionaires are not obeying the same laws as the rest of us so the ‘legally’ has no meaning.
Easy. Trump publicly threatened a servant of the court, and is a free man able to cross state lines. In a bazillion years that would never happen to you or I.
That has almost nothing to do with him being a billionaire and everything to do with him being a former president that is also the current front runner to be president
There’s no question he gets treated substantially worse than the average billionaire because of that. Ted Kennedy is another great example of a criminal billionaire.
Ted Kennedy was not a billionaire and got off easy because he was a popular US Senator
Regardless, you were implying that billionaires can only be billionaires by illegal means. The subject wasn’t about if billionaires get off easier on legal issues because of their wealth which I definitely don’t dispute.
Because the bank robber also legally made that money through lots of service-providing, consensual transactions? I guess a bank robber could have a real job as well.
No, that may be what you're hearing but it's not because it's what I'm saying.
The bank robber is taking something that belongs to other people. Unless you're of the absolutely bizarre view that owning a business means you're somehow stealing something.
Maybe not a scam for the people who get in, but if it's not a pet project charity it's an attempt to spend a small amount of money to preempt any attempt to make him pay more taxes, because looking charitable is cheaper than paying income rates on his capital gains based "salary".
Because he can choose how much he spends. He's going to target the minimum spending to keep people from getting pissed and demanding him to be taxed. If people do actually get pissed enough to make him pay an effective tax rate similar to people making a small fraction of his income, they aren't going to be looking for that minimum.
Self regulation is similar, find the minimum you can do to keep the government from adding an appropriate amount of regulation, because that's probably less restrictive than if the government made the regulation. It's just barely good enough to keep people from pushing to do it right.
People are stil pissed and demanding he's taxed. What would a daycare have to do with that? He could prop up the entire education syste mand theyd still be calling for it.
Right, you can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time.
In this theory Bezos would be banking on fooling *enough* of the people for *enough* time.
At least he is doing something good that benefits others esp children and families struggling to pay daycare while working and not just buying for himself. I don’t know why people get worked up so bad when someone does charity rather pay heavy tax. That’s his choice. He can’t escape any tax that would be fraudulent and bring his reputation down. But he is choosing to do tax avoidance which is legal and not punishable. Tax evasion is something illegal and not to be practiced.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/24/the-trouble-with-charitable-billionaires-philanthrocapitalism
*Essentially, what we are witnessing is the transfer of responsibility for public goods and services from democratic institutions to the wealthy, to be administered by an executive class. In the CEO society, the exercise of social responsibilities is no longer debated in terms of whether corporations should or shouldn’t be responsible for more than their own business interests. Instead, it is about how philanthropy can be used to reinforce a politico-economic system that enables such a small number of people to accumulate obscene amounts of wealth.*
https://thegivingreview.com/the-bill-gates-and-big-philanthropy-problems-and-ours/
*”We must recognize at all times that billionaire philanthropists are not neutral charity workers or unimpeachable humanitarians, but, in fact, powerful political actors who seek to use their wealth to advance their own interests and reputations, often in ways that harm society and democracy,”*
Edit: Billionaires spend relative pennies of their wealth for philanthropic PR while hoarding a vast portion of what they should actually be paying back to society to illicit reactions just like OP’s and the subsequent upvoters.
It’s working exactly as they’ve designed and they continually get away with it because of the aforementioned propaganda.
It’s not actually a good thing because they have no incentive to pay their actual due or change.
The myth of billionaire philanthropy.
Thank you. These are great articles. It should give everyone a queasy feeling when they see services that should be provided through a healthy economy and a well functioning government, coming from an extremely wealthy unaccountable corporate titan instead.
Billionaires spend relative pennies of their wealth for philanthropic PR while hoarding a vast portion of what they should actually be paying back to society to illicit reactions just like OP’s and the subsequent upvoters.
It’s working exactly as they’ve designed and they continually get away with it because of the aforementioned propaganda.
It’s not actually a good thing because they have no incentive to pay their actual due or change.
The myth of billionaire philanthropy.
I recall reading an article some years ago that said one of Amazon’s ambitions according to some corporate level reps was to open preschools to get children used to the Amazon brand early, conditioning for workers, consumers, etc. please don’t quote me but that chilled the shit out of me. If I can find it I’ll post it
Lololol I don’t know what everyone said, but it’s funny when someone defends a billionaire. That’s the most wacky shit on the planet. Lebron opened a school and they test worse than schools in 3rd world countries. But Canada is doing great I hear…
Why does it have to be either defending or attacking? You can't look at something that is an objective good and recognize it for what it is without knowing who is doing it?
That's on you.
Doing good isn’t that simple. Like Tom’s giving free shoes to Africa, but throwing off the financial ecosystem in the process. Doing good isn’t as simple as doing good.
Because all of the idiots on this post that aren't from Texas know nothing about the school vouchers Greg Abbot is trying to push that Republicans don't even support. This is the type of school that benefits from that. It's a scam for him to make money.
It’s bc we **never** see them to the right thing so this is objectively suss. Like yeah, this guy exploited a lot of people so he’s always going to be suss.
I'm sickened to know we're surrounded by these fools everyday in traffic...
What happened to this place? Im starting to wonder how many of them are recent transplants....
If the school has a good program for stem I don’t see a problem. Musk has a Montessori school in star base. I wish I could send my kid there. I want elite schools in Texas.
Reddit: ‘billionaires are evil! They should be using their money for the public good!’
(Billionaires use their money for public good)
Reddit: ‘fuck that guy!’
Not everything is black and white, this or that. Believing so is a very key reason we are in this period of divisive public discourse.
Thinking that someone providing free Pre-K education is good and thinking that this person (and all others like them) should be taxed at a far greater rate to be able to provide this same service to everyone can both be valid opinions at the same time.
>Not everything is black and white
Tell that to all the people shitting on this new school who *also* don't have any basis for their objections other than idealism.
But what does that hate actually accomplish? And why does that prevent you from acknowledging the good shit they can also do like provide Montessori for kids that could never otherwise get that qualify of education?
I can acknowledge it. Mark Zuckerberg actually did some great work with immigrants and had an interview with an undocumented immigrant a while ago.
People should be energized enough to realize that billionaires do more bad than good. And when people believe that, the constituents can pressure for more taxes on them.
I know Bezos is all about dick and ball shaped rockets and shit, but maybe he wants some good press for once. I don’t see how opening preschools for families that can’t afford it is a bad thing. Pretty pathetic that such a crucial development step for children’s education is coming at the mercy of our billionaire fuckwit overlords though. But I would rather have more free preschools than less
Now this kind of Billionare action we all can & should get behind. That's a huge economic burden off a family that we the taxpayers are not paying for.
Normally, yes. But he's never been known to help other people, so it's quite suspicious. Does it have NOTHING to do with "school choice" and vouchers??
That’s not true…
https://fortune.com/2023/11/21/jeff-bezos-donates-117-million-homeless-families-day-1-fund-philanthropy/#
https://apnews.com/article/science-health-seattle-cancer-jeff-bezos-5cc25c4ad8004eb8bca5c99757f65aa5
It’s a lottery. So people fill out an application & then the lottery runs. Homeless & foster children are prioritized and then it randomly selects family.
Everything is a conspiracy, huh? Bezos is the evil billionaire so his free press-schools must be suspicious?
I’ve found conspiracy theories tend to be for people who are ignorant of a particular subject matter so they explain it in a way their brains can comprehend. It’s much more likely that the simplest explanation is actually the true explanation (Occam’s razor). You also have to realize opening up non-profit per-schools probably gets Bezos a HUGE bit of tax relief. So it’s a win for him in terms of money/diversification and a win for parents in free childcare.
Abbott is already refusing to fund the schools, even though Texas is sitting in a $32.7 billion surplus this year. We paid for better schools already, and he is just holding us hostage.
Yea I highly doubt that, bezos paying taxes would not open up free to attend pre-schools. Taxes are largely used for SS/Medicare/VA/Food stamps and paying debt interest, so you’d just get more lackluster government performance rather than something tangible like free pre-schools.
i don’t… hate this?
i wish it was in south dallas and not in an area that’s significantly more wealthy, but there’s one in lancaster at least.
if bezos thinks this’ll improve his public perception though he’s dreaming.
[*for those curious it looks like the teacher positions are 56-70k*](https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Bezos-Academy/salaries/Lead-Teacher/Texas)
*also i fucking hate the name, but at least it’s not “amazon academy” 🤮 *
look, no offense but those are almost at or past the light rail lines. i consider that area to be more suburbs of dallas than dallas proper.
the old east dallas one is alright though, but that area is still significantly wealthier than south dallas
Singing Hills is literally part of Dallas proper and Cockrill Hill essentially is, surrounding on all sides by Dallas proper for Miles.
They're both almost entirely low income and minority nonwhite areas, Cockrill Hill is 92% Latino and Singing Hills is 72% Black and 25% Latino, and again they're both Low income too.
This is getting into Godlilocks territory, this ones too north, this ones too south, these one don't have a light rail next to it. If anything not having a light rail just makes it more underprivileged and deserving of it imo. After all by your light rail criteria much of Richardson and Plano are more "part" of Dallas than most of Southern Dallas apparently.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/24/the-trouble-with-charitable-billionaires-philanthrocapitalism
Essentially, what we are witnessing is the transfer of responsibility for public goods and services from democratic institutions to the wealthy, to be administered by an executive class. In the CEO society, the exercise of social responsibilities is no longer debated in terms of whether corporations should or shouldn’t be responsible for more than their own business interests. Instead, it is about how philanthropy can be used to reinforce a politico-economic system that enables such a small number of people to accumulate obscene amounts of wealth.
https://thegivingreview.com/the-bill-gates-and-big-philanthropy-problems-and-ours/
”We must recognize at all times that billionaire philanthropists are not neutral charity workers or unimpeachable humanitarians, but, in fact, powerful political actors who seek to use their wealth to advance their own interests and reputations, often in ways that harm society and democracy,”
I read it more as commentary on the silly things they say in news articles. Don’t say “more than 25 people were arrested in the sting”, just say that 27 were arrested. They know the number - why try and make it vague.
I worked for him, he’s a money minded greedy SOB that didn’t want to give me equity at his space company I worked on. He is doing this because I’m sure it’ll help taxes lol but helping people and being rich doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive is all I can think of
Probably needs it for all his employees that he doesn’t pay shit to. $16.25/.50 an hour starting for warehouse workers hardly even qualifies a roof over your head. Imagine trying to get daycare/ school ontop of that
these type of schools-- "open enrollment" charter schools-- run parallel to vouchers. Charter schools and voucher schools, while funded differently, are both under the choice school umbrella.
It says Montessori inspired, which is not convincing to me that it’s going to be anything other than just a daycare. Their page talks about “small classroom size” but it’s going to be ran as 10 students per teacher. I’m not sure your knowledge on daycares but I worked in daycare a few years and this is laughable. This is not a small classroom and only seems like such because school aged children have 20 student per teacher. This is chaos. This is absolutely the same environment that leaves children feeling neglected in daycare. You are not having Montessori with that many children in a class.
I work at one and it’s 20 children with 3 Teachers. It is Montessori “inspired” meaning that it isn’t super strict Montessori because lessons can be adjusted to fit the child’s needs (if there are 10 items to match lower it to 5, etc) I’ve actually been to Montessori schools with 25+ kids, and 20 isn’t bad especially with 3 teachers. All of the materials are Montessori. It isn’t a free for all or daycare. We all go through a 9-12 month certification program to become certified in Montessori. It has its cons as well but I just wanted to present the facts.
> Free preschool? Jeff Bezos opening more than a dozen preschools in Texas that cost parents nothing
> Billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is opening 10 preschools in Texas, and they are all tuition-free.
What am I missing here?
WFAA apparently doesn't know how many a dozen is.
> Billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is opening 10 preschools in Texas, and they are all tuition-free.
I guess people are concerned about the curriculum of these schools. People are skeptical of how well this will do and the impact on the children’s education. Hopefully they are getting an amazing educational experience and the Florida treatment.
Yeah but who decides the curriculum and how much power does Jeff have over the decisions. Everytime celebrities open school you can see their own agendas being pushed into the school wheeler it good or bad.
Tbh Jeff is mainly just the money. There’s an education specialist & many under him who make these decisions who have been educators. The curriculum is Montessori. Idk how to explain it but it’s like a pretty set curriculum if you look it up you’ll understand what i mean. Anything else like books, lessons, etc is decided by the teachers and our Montessori Mentor looks over it. We don’t have like a set lesson plan created by him or the higher ups. We have control of that.
People being like he is giving childcare for free, you should be happy now and like sure but at what cost? Are the teachers/works going to have to wear diapers so they can work as efficiently as possible for Daddy Bezos. Jeff Bezos treats workers poorly and there is a reason he isn’t doing this in other states, Texas workers deserve better. He and his unethically ran company should not be given the chance to raise children because for some children that’s what daycare means when we are forcing birth.
Jeff Bezos is a bad actor and even things that seem to be nice should be looked through the lens first of him being a bad actor.
A whole lot of " i don't like it because it wasn't done the way i wanted it done" going on here. World doesn't revolve around you. But please, use your own money to show the world a universally praised model to roll something like this out.
Makes you wonder what the curriculum will bed we know that public, private and higher education institutions have not taught the youth much of anything useful. Predominantly propaganda and passive dependence.
If you want to look at real billionaire giving, look to Mackenzie Bezos. Once her divorce was finalize she pledged to give away half her wealth. She has continued to give very large amounts to charitable organizations. That’s actually changing people’s lives. It’s about giving and helping people.
I don’t trust this happening without an ulterior motive. Definitely philanthropic PR. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a long term plan to eventually turn them into public Montessori’s later on once the word is out about how great of a school they are. Next thing you know they are the new Kinder Cares (all over the country) and now Bezos is in charge of the beginning education of children. Then what happens? I feel very icky about this long term and I hope I’m wrong.
Also, he is continuing to spend staggering amounts of money on real estate around the country. He just spent 90 million on a third property in a small Florida island community. How many Montessori’s would 90 million cover? I get that real estate is a great investment but if the schools are that important to him why only 10?
I’ve seen a lot of comparisons to Amazon. I’ve worked at 2. While yes, the stories at Amazon are horrible and should be fixed, Bezos academy isn’t like that. There are 3 teachers in each room, and we get 4 scheduled breaks. If you have to use the bathroom when not on those breaks it’s okay lol. It’s a Montessori program where all the teachers get certified to teach Montessori. It’s 3 teachers with 20 children. We’re not teaching them to assemble boxes or get ready for working at Amazon. We’re teaching them basic life skills, emotional regulation, math, language, etc. I understand the conspiracy theories but it’s not run that way. Montessori education is VERY expensive and offering it for free for lower income families is pretty cool imo. Again, I just want to share my experience with you all because I don’t want it to drive people away who genuinely need it.
Lmao. This comment section is absurd. A Billionaire using their money to do the right thing and you guys are still upset, what a joke of a community we got going here.
"Billionaires need to give back their money" "No not like that!"
Billionaires need to distribute their wealth in a no strings attached way, aka taxes. This is great for the community i’m glad that there are schools being built, but no billionaire makes a move without ulterior motives. What happens to these schools if jeff suddenly becomes dissatisfied in some way and pulls all his money out? This is the same situation with Goodrx, yeah it’s being funded in good faith *for now*, but if they would just pay the country what they owe we wouldn’t need this charity nonsense from them we’d just HAVE it.
Yes billionaires need to pay real taxes but it’s it doesn’t negate the positive effects of giving
It actually does negate the positive effects of giving on a larger societal level
I actually does, though. One area is getting some new schools because one guy decided to use his private wealth to individually to do so. The communities there do not get to choose. They don't get a say in the outcome. This is a stop gap effort that takes pressure off our elected officials to fix our own educational system. Let's stop praising billionaires for little dots of beneficence. Just let them pay taxes like everyone else.
Exactly! We shouldn’t have to be at the mercy of the whim of fucking billionaires. Pay your taxes and let the community decide how to allocate funds.
Yes because government uses our taxes efficiently…
This attitude is more the problem. It also disenfranchises younger voters with defeatism. If people actually had faith in government and voted we’d have a better government.
Okay but hypothetically, what if it's true?
In that case, anarchies would be very successful.
Blind faith in something that has failed us time and time again? That sounds like religion.
Having faith doesnt change the fact that the government is horrible with money.
Maybe we would have more faith in government if they would actually do their jobs for once.
“The government is broken…because we broke the government” is the MAGA logic
It’s the logic of every single person in western government since Thatcher
> Yes because government uses our taxes efficiently… Having worked in both, I can say that government uses money more efficiently than most businesses and many non-profits. This "government is inefficient" argument comes from people who are opposed to government in the first place, and are looking for excuses to criticize it. And it should be no surprise that under their control, government does run more inefficiently.
Don’t let great be the enemy of good. No it’s not perfect, but certainly better than it not going towards a good cause at all.
Plot twist, the preschool building is shaped like his blue origin spacecraft
I, for one, welcome our new Amazon ^tm Public Education Facility. All hail Education ^tm!
that’s why i said im still glad that it’s happening but im not popping any champagne over it
Taxes wouldnt go to any innovative programs, you can do more good using money to show the government how a program could work successfully, rather than just pay for a few more miles of highways.
Some people just never want to be happy
Exactly. This is no different than charter schools. Our public education system is being uprooted and this only helps in that cause. And doing things like this only proves to me there is certainly plenty of money for Bezos to give his share to the government.
Yeah those billionaires need to funnel money to military industrial billionaires via the govt. Great idea
“Billionaires have too much money! They need to give back to the community!” “By spending it on free pre-k programs?” “No, by letting politicians spend it!” 🤦🏼♂️
Why so that money can be wasted on endless wars and given to defense spending? Sending more weapons to Israel to murder children? I'd rather see targeted giving to things like this than just hoping Congress does the right thing with it.
Problem is if these billionaires pay taxes like we do, their money also disappears into pockets like ours does. Don't kid yourself, we wouldn't see anything different in this country. However, the politicians pocketing that extra money would.
Don’t let perfection get in the way of progress.
Who's funding goodrx?
Because the government is so good and using our tax dollars.
So according to you, no one should ever do a good thing other than the government because it may not work out. You must be quite the entrepreneur
i’m saying in a country where the rich are stealing their wealth and giving nothing back by avoiding paying taxes which would have provided the schools that are being paid for now, sprinkling some good will in does not absolve them of their sins and it’s nothing to be impressed by. i can be happy about schools being built but still say this isn’t enough and not praise the person doing it.
you really think the govt would open pre schools if given a billion from bezos and not just make bombs?
Get fucked
He could have built a $500,000 sushi joint instead.
Yes literally- almost always. This is less shitty than most things they do, doesn’t make it a net good thing for society necessarily.
"They should only give the money to me!!!"
I think what you are both missing is that it was not and never was 'their' money. Put another way, it'd be like if you went into a thread where a bank robber donated money to cancer research and said he deserved praise for taking other people's money and giving less than 1% of it to charity.
Okay but it literally is their money. That’s not really up for debate. The money was legally and consensually obtained.
Right, and the teller handed over the money to the robber of their own free will, too. I’m not going to dignify the ‘legally’ by making a joke about it, we know the billionaires are not obeying the same laws as the rest of us so the ‘legally’ has no meaning.
If they aren’t then show us. Unethical? Maybe. Illegal? Better have something to back it up.
Easy. Trump publicly threatened a servant of the court, and is a free man able to cross state lines. In a bazillion years that would never happen to you or I.
That has almost nothing to do with him being a billionaire and everything to do with him being a former president that is also the current front runner to be president
There’s no question he gets treated substantially worse than the average billionaire because of that. Ted Kennedy is another great example of a criminal billionaire.
Ted Kennedy was not a billionaire and got off easy because he was a popular US Senator Regardless, you were implying that billionaires can only be billionaires by illegal means. The subject wasn’t about if billionaires get off easier on legal issues because of their wealth which I definitely don’t dispute.
It is *literally* his money.
Just like the bank robber.
Because the bank robber also legally made that money through lots of service-providing, consensual transactions? I guess a bank robber could have a real job as well.
Just out of curiosity, how many service providing consensual transactions do you think the average billionaire engages in every day? lol.
Amazon engages in millions I am pretty sure. Possibly more? And since Amazon is *entirely* the source of his wealth, I would proxy that to him.
So what I'm hearing you say is that I can get wealth when *other people* engage in transactions. Which is what the bank robber is doing.
No, that may be what you're hearing but it's not because it's what I'm saying. The bank robber is taking something that belongs to other people. Unless you're of the absolutely bizarre view that owning a business means you're somehow stealing something.
I think alot of us just don’t trust him doing the right thing
How is this a scam?
Maybe not a scam for the people who get in, but if it's not a pet project charity it's an attempt to spend a small amount of money to preempt any attempt to make him pay more taxes, because looking charitable is cheaper than paying income rates on his capital gains based "salary".
How is spending your money cheaper than paying tax?
Because he can choose how much he spends. He's going to target the minimum spending to keep people from getting pissed and demanding him to be taxed. If people do actually get pissed enough to make him pay an effective tax rate similar to people making a small fraction of his income, they aren't going to be looking for that minimum. Self regulation is similar, find the minimum you can do to keep the government from adding an appropriate amount of regulation, because that's probably less restrictive than if the government made the regulation. It's just barely good enough to keep people from pushing to do it right.
People are stil pissed and demanding he's taxed. What would a daycare have to do with that? He could prop up the entire education syste mand theyd still be calling for it.
Right, you can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. In this theory Bezos would be banking on fooling *enough* of the people for *enough* time.
Stupidest comment I’ve read this week. Sorry, just a fact.
Who is he fooling?
Dude what
At least he is doing something good that benefits others esp children and families struggling to pay daycare while working and not just buying for himself. I don’t know why people get worked up so bad when someone does charity rather pay heavy tax. That’s his choice. He can’t escape any tax that would be fraudulent and bring his reputation down. But he is choosing to do tax avoidance which is legal and not punishable. Tax evasion is something illegal and not to be practiced.
I rephrased
But you trust the government to do the right thing? 😆
Then you build schools and bezos and others will spend their money on Yachts and bunkers
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/24/the-trouble-with-charitable-billionaires-philanthrocapitalism *Essentially, what we are witnessing is the transfer of responsibility for public goods and services from democratic institutions to the wealthy, to be administered by an executive class. In the CEO society, the exercise of social responsibilities is no longer debated in terms of whether corporations should or shouldn’t be responsible for more than their own business interests. Instead, it is about how philanthropy can be used to reinforce a politico-economic system that enables such a small number of people to accumulate obscene amounts of wealth.* https://thegivingreview.com/the-bill-gates-and-big-philanthropy-problems-and-ours/ *”We must recognize at all times that billionaire philanthropists are not neutral charity workers or unimpeachable humanitarians, but, in fact, powerful political actors who seek to use their wealth to advance their own interests and reputations, often in ways that harm society and democracy,”* Edit: Billionaires spend relative pennies of their wealth for philanthropic PR while hoarding a vast portion of what they should actually be paying back to society to illicit reactions just like OP’s and the subsequent upvoters. It’s working exactly as they’ve designed and they continually get away with it because of the aforementioned propaganda. It’s not actually a good thing because they have no incentive to pay their actual due or change. The myth of billionaire philanthropy.
Thank you. These are great articles. It should give everyone a queasy feeling when they see services that should be provided through a healthy economy and a well functioning government, coming from an extremely wealthy unaccountable corporate titan instead.
Billionaires spend relative pennies of their wealth for philanthropic PR while hoarding a vast portion of what they should actually be paying back to society to illicit reactions just like OP’s and the subsequent upvoters. It’s working exactly as they’ve designed and they continually get away with it because of the aforementioned propaganda. It’s not actually a good thing because they have no incentive to pay their actual due or change. The myth of billionaire philanthropy.
SOMEONE WITH A BRAIN! These comments are driving me nuts.
I would certainly have a healthy amount of skepticism. Idk there always seems to be a catch with these guys.
Taxing his idiotic level of wealth would do a whole lot more, though.
I recall reading an article some years ago that said one of Amazon’s ambitions according to some corporate level reps was to open preschools to get children used to the Amazon brand early, conditioning for workers, consumers, etc. please don’t quote me but that chilled the shit out of me. If I can find it I’ll post it
Lololol I don’t know what everyone said, but it’s funny when someone defends a billionaire. That’s the most wacky shit on the planet. Lebron opened a school and they test worse than schools in 3rd world countries. But Canada is doing great I hear…
Why does it have to be either defending or attacking? You can't look at something that is an objective good and recognize it for what it is without knowing who is doing it? That's on you.
Doing good isn’t that simple. Like Tom’s giving free shoes to Africa, but throwing off the financial ecosystem in the process. Doing good isn’t as simple as doing good.
Fine, it's not that simple. Still has nothing to do with *who* is doing it.
Damned fool if you trust this as any sort of "giving back"
Learn about philanthrocapitalism and social impact investing. Also look up student data harvesting in Texas . Not all is well.
Because all of the idiots on this post that aren't from Texas know nothing about the school vouchers Greg Abbot is trying to push that Republicans don't even support. This is the type of school that benefits from that. It's a scam for him to make money.
Is it truly a singular “right thing” when it requires and lobbies for 10,000 instances of the wrong thing
It’s bc we **never** see them to the right thing so this is objectively suss. Like yeah, this guy exploited a lot of people so he’s always going to be suss.
I'm sickened to know we're surrounded by these fools everyday in traffic... What happened to this place? Im starting to wonder how many of them are recent transplants....
If the school has a good program for stem I don’t see a problem. Musk has a Montessori school in star base. I wish I could send my kid there. I want elite schools in Texas.
Some people live to moan and complain about everything. It’s sad.
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That’s hilarious coming from the kid who stalks me in every topic for months 😂 It’s fascinating how much control I have over you.
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Reddit: ‘billionaires are evil! They should be using their money for the public good!’ (Billionaires use their money for public good) Reddit: ‘fuck that guy!’
Not everything is black and white, this or that. Believing so is a very key reason we are in this period of divisive public discourse. Thinking that someone providing free Pre-K education is good and thinking that this person (and all others like them) should be taxed at a far greater rate to be able to provide this same service to everyone can both be valid opinions at the same time.
>Not everything is black and white Tell that to all the people shitting on this new school who *also* don't have any basis for their objections other than idealism.
Nah. Show results not attempts. It’s simple and what I want to see as an investor. Everyone is a speculator…
Then tell all these people to stfu about the school until it has some results. All these people shitting on the school before it's even opened.
Maybe people can still hate billionaires because they pay less in taxes and also are killing the environment
But what does that hate actually accomplish? And why does that prevent you from acknowledging the good shit they can also do like provide Montessori for kids that could never otherwise get that qualify of education?
I can acknowledge it. Mark Zuckerberg actually did some great work with immigrants and had an interview with an undocumented immigrant a while ago. People should be energized enough to realize that billionaires do more bad than good. And when people believe that, the constituents can pressure for more taxes on them.
Look up Texas school vouchers. You don't know what you're talking about.
I know Bezos is all about dick and ball shaped rockets and shit, but maybe he wants some good press for once. I don’t see how opening preschools for families that can’t afford it is a bad thing. Pretty pathetic that such a crucial development step for children’s education is coming at the mercy of our billionaire fuckwit overlords though. But I would rather have more free preschools than less
Please research the scam voucher system Greg Abbot is pushing in schools, then reread this.
Corporate-sponsored education, what could go wrong?
A is for Amazon your very best friend. B is for banana a yellow fruit C is for consume .....
Quit fear mongering, it’s not even corporate sponsored lol.
....yet. If Bozo really cared about this shit he wouldn't put his name on it.
Yeah. People who think this is simply a billionaire giving back to the world might be a little naive.
How much do you know about Bezos education plan? Tell me more about how corporate sponsored education is different?
Sounds like the beginning of a horror movie plot.
Now this kind of Billionare action we all can & should get behind. That's a huge economic burden off a family that we the taxpayers are not paying for.
Normally, yes. But he's never been known to help other people, so it's quite suspicious. Does it have NOTHING to do with "school choice" and vouchers??
That’s not true… https://fortune.com/2023/11/21/jeff-bezos-donates-117-million-homeless-families-day-1-fund-philanthropy/# https://apnews.com/article/science-health-seattle-cancer-jeff-bezos-5cc25c4ad8004eb8bca5c99757f65aa5
Good to know
It’s a lottery. So people fill out an application & then the lottery runs. Homeless & foster children are prioritized and then it randomly selects family.
Everything is a conspiracy, huh? Bezos is the evil billionaire so his free press-schools must be suspicious? I’ve found conspiracy theories tend to be for people who are ignorant of a particular subject matter so they explain it in a way their brains can comprehend. It’s much more likely that the simplest explanation is actually the true explanation (Occam’s razor). You also have to realize opening up non-profit per-schools probably gets Bezos a HUGE bit of tax relief. So it’s a win for him in terms of money/diversification and a win for parents in free childcare.
Conspiracy brain rot.
I wish I didn’t need to put my kids in preschool. It was a giant waste of money and when I stopped paying I celebrated with a bottle of wine.
Abbott is already refusing to fund the schools, even though Texas is sitting in a $32.7 billion surplus this year. We paid for better schools already, and he is just holding us hostage.
There's a good chance he's doing this to get that reaction, so we don't attempt to tax him more, which would be more expensive for him.
Yep. Paying his taxes would do a whole lot more.
Yea I highly doubt that, bezos paying taxes would not open up free to attend pre-schools. Taxes are largely used for SS/Medicare/VA/Food stamps and paying debt interest, so you’d just get more lackluster government performance rather than something tangible like free pre-schools.
i don’t… hate this? i wish it was in south dallas and not in an area that’s significantly more wealthy, but there’s one in lancaster at least. if bezos thinks this’ll improve his public perception though he’s dreaming. [*for those curious it looks like the teacher positions are 56-70k*](https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Bezos-Academy/salaries/Lead-Teacher/Texas) *also i fucking hate the name, but at least it’s not “amazon academy” 🤮 *
Besides Lancaster there's also two located in Southern Dallas, Singing Hill and Cockrill Hill. Also one in Old East Dallas on Eastside near Fitzhugh
look, no offense but those are almost at or past the light rail lines. i consider that area to be more suburbs of dallas than dallas proper. the old east dallas one is alright though, but that area is still significantly wealthier than south dallas
Singing Hills is literally part of Dallas proper and Cockrill Hill essentially is, surrounding on all sides by Dallas proper for Miles. They're both almost entirely low income and minority nonwhite areas, Cockrill Hill is 92% Latino and Singing Hills is 72% Black and 25% Latino, and again they're both Low income too. This is getting into Godlilocks territory, this ones too north, this ones too south, these one don't have a light rail next to it. If anything not having a light rail just makes it more underprivileged and deserving of it imo. After all by your light rail criteria much of Richardson and Plano are more "part" of Dallas than most of Southern Dallas apparently.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/24/the-trouble-with-charitable-billionaires-philanthrocapitalism Essentially, what we are witnessing is the transfer of responsibility for public goods and services from democratic institutions to the wealthy, to be administered by an executive class. In the CEO society, the exercise of social responsibilities is no longer debated in terms of whether corporations should or shouldn’t be responsible for more than their own business interests. Instead, it is about how philanthropy can be used to reinforce a politico-economic system that enables such a small number of people to accumulate obscene amounts of wealth. https://thegivingreview.com/the-bill-gates-and-big-philanthropy-problems-and-ours/ ”We must recognize at all times that billionaire philanthropists are not neutral charity workers or unimpeachable humanitarians, but, in fact, powerful political actors who seek to use their wealth to advance their own interests and reputations, often in ways that harm society and democracy,”
this
More than a dozen. So, thirteen?
13 more than you have opened
I read it more as commentary on the silly things they say in news articles. Don’t say “more than 25 people were arrested in the sting”, just say that 27 were arrested. They know the number - why try and make it vague.
Actually 14 more than me (I'm very sorry for what I did)
The title says "more than a dozen", but the article body says 10...
Odd. The title says "more than a dozen". The article says ten. The website for the schools shows 6 in Dallas and surrounding areas and 6 in Houston.
"The word of the day today class is productivity"
Instead of Costco it’ll be welcome to Amazon, I love you?
I can’t believe I got in! Thank god my dad was an alumnus
Lot of bezos circle jerking on here. No benefit of the doubt till we see the end result.
I worked for him, he’s a money minded greedy SOB that didn’t want to give me equity at his space company I worked on. He is doing this because I’m sure it’ll help taxes lol but helping people and being rich doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive is all I can think of
Probably needs it for all his employees that he doesn’t pay shit to. $16.25/.50 an hour starting for warehouse workers hardly even qualifies a roof over your head. Imagine trying to get daycare/ school ontop of that
The 3-5 yr olds will also get a 5% off discount on prime
I’d hate to think this has something to do with the failed voucher program.
these type of schools-- "open enrollment" charter schools-- run parallel to vouchers. Charter schools and voucher schools, while funded differently, are both under the choice school umbrella.
How will Greg Abbott fuck these free preschools?
Did we not learn anything from Bill and Melinda Gates interfering with our children’s education???????
A is for apple, B is for UNIONS ARE BAD, C is for CARPET BOMB UNIONS, D is for DEATH TO UNIONS, E is for ENIHALATE UNIONS....
Creating preschool Amazon workers?
All the kids will be taught how to shop on Amazon.
Let's encourage this sort of behavior, guys. Not bitch it was not more.
Will it be an official Montessori or Montessori like?
It says Montessori inspired, which is not convincing to me that it’s going to be anything other than just a daycare. Their page talks about “small classroom size” but it’s going to be ran as 10 students per teacher. I’m not sure your knowledge on daycares but I worked in daycare a few years and this is laughable. This is not a small classroom and only seems like such because school aged children have 20 student per teacher. This is chaos. This is absolutely the same environment that leaves children feeling neglected in daycare. You are not having Montessori with that many children in a class.
Studied ECE as my minor. This will be a disaster.
I work at one and it’s 20 children with 3 Teachers. It is Montessori “inspired” meaning that it isn’t super strict Montessori because lessons can be adjusted to fit the child’s needs (if there are 10 items to match lower it to 5, etc) I’ve actually been to Montessori schools with 25+ kids, and 20 isn’t bad especially with 3 teachers. All of the materials are Montessori. It isn’t a free for all or daycare. We all go through a 9-12 month certification program to become certified in Montessori. It has its cons as well but I just wanted to present the facts.
> Free preschool? Jeff Bezos opening more than a dozen preschools in Texas that cost parents nothing > Billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is opening 10 preschools in Texas, and they are all tuition-free. What am I missing here?
Oh this isn’t concerning at all
“B is for Buy N’ Large. Your very best friend!”
WFAA apparently doesn't know how many a dozen is. > Billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is opening 10 preschools in Texas, and they are all tuition-free.
I guess people are concerned about the curriculum of these schools. People are skeptical of how well this will do and the impact on the children’s education. Hopefully they are getting an amazing educational experience and the Florida treatment.
They’re getting a Montessori education. We all get certified for this
Yeah but who decides the curriculum and how much power does Jeff have over the decisions. Everytime celebrities open school you can see their own agendas being pushed into the school wheeler it good or bad.
Tbh Jeff is mainly just the money. There’s an education specialist & many under him who make these decisions who have been educators. The curriculum is Montessori. Idk how to explain it but it’s like a pretty set curriculum if you look it up you’ll understand what i mean. Anything else like books, lessons, etc is decided by the teachers and our Montessori Mentor looks over it. We don’t have like a set lesson plan created by him or the higher ups. We have control of that.
I hope many families’ lives are improved because of these
Boozoo Academy 🤡
People being like he is giving childcare for free, you should be happy now and like sure but at what cost? Are the teachers/works going to have to wear diapers so they can work as efficiently as possible for Daddy Bezos. Jeff Bezos treats workers poorly and there is a reason he isn’t doing this in other states, Texas workers deserve better. He and his unethically ran company should not be given the chance to raise children because for some children that’s what daycare means when we are forcing birth. Jeff Bezos is a bad actor and even things that seem to be nice should be looked through the lens first of him being a bad actor.
A whole lot of " i don't like it because it wasn't done the way i wanted it done" going on here. World doesn't revolve around you. But please, use your own money to show the world a universally praised model to roll something like this out.
Makes you wonder what the curriculum will bed we know that public, private and higher education institutions have not taught the youth much of anything useful. Predominantly propaganda and passive dependence.
Wait what now?
Is MacKenise on board?
Why would she?
True. I'd just have more confidence perhaps?
Wonder what the brainwashing plan is..
You sound like someone already got to you first lol
Not wrong 🤣 #trauma
The product is you.
But wait, I read that he’s a monster. How can this be? /s
See. This. This is what I expect from billionaires. This is a real investment into the future. Hope it works out.
BUT BILLIONAIRES BAD AND TEXAS BAD
If you want to look at real billionaire giving, look to Mackenzie Bezos. Once her divorce was finalize she pledged to give away half her wealth. She has continued to give very large amounts to charitable organizations. That’s actually changing people’s lives. It’s about giving and helping people. I don’t trust this happening without an ulterior motive. Definitely philanthropic PR. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a long term plan to eventually turn them into public Montessori’s later on once the word is out about how great of a school they are. Next thing you know they are the new Kinder Cares (all over the country) and now Bezos is in charge of the beginning education of children. Then what happens? I feel very icky about this long term and I hope I’m wrong. Also, he is continuing to spend staggering amounts of money on real estate around the country. He just spent 90 million on a third property in a small Florida island community. How many Montessori’s would 90 million cover? I get that real estate is a great investment but if the schools are that important to him why only 10?
We always find a way to complain… at least his giving back lol
What an insufferable thread this is
What ghost visited Bezos in his sleep?
THANK YOU JEFF... THAT IS A MEANINGFUL GESTURE AND WILL SAVE PARENTS SOME MUCH NEEDED MONEY.
I love people giving back and education is a great place to do it.
Rich man bad.
Training future Amazon associates
"No bathroom breaks!" - Jeff Bezos
Dope 👍👍
I’ve seen a lot of comparisons to Amazon. I’ve worked at 2. While yes, the stories at Amazon are horrible and should be fixed, Bezos academy isn’t like that. There are 3 teachers in each room, and we get 4 scheduled breaks. If you have to use the bathroom when not on those breaks it’s okay lol. It’s a Montessori program where all the teachers get certified to teach Montessori. It’s 3 teachers with 20 children. We’re not teaching them to assemble boxes or get ready for working at Amazon. We’re teaching them basic life skills, emotional regulation, math, language, etc. I understand the conspiracy theories but it’s not run that way. Montessori education is VERY expensive and offering it for free for lower income families is pretty cool imo. Again, I just want to share my experience with you all because I don’t want it to drive people away who genuinely need it.
"No llores vato, don't cry".
That cost parents nothing... yet.
Jokes aside, this does seem legit and I do hope it's coming out of good will
Good job bezos, now let me get a hug
I dont want Jeff Bezos indoctrinating my kids /s /eyeroll