Just watched a bit of the video – wt actual f is that thing.

Jeff to designer – ‘we need something cutting edge and cool. Beardy Branson has a nifty looking launch plane thing, Musk’s ships look like they’ve actually been designed this century so what can you do?’

Designer – ‘just pass me that Ann Summers catalogue – the one from the late 70’s – bound to be some inspiration in there…’

Still… we spend our disposable income on push bikes, Jeff has got a bit more so he can spend it on space ships.

exactly, “man spends disposable income on hobby” – not exactly shocking or unusual.

Shall we all stop paying tax then, so we can spend more money on shiney blingy bits for our push bikes?

Let’s see what happens if we all start doing what Jeff does. Well… actually, let’s not. We all know exactly what will happen

It reminded me of this…….

Shall we all stop paying tax then, so we can spend more money on shiney blingy bits for our push bikes?

that sounds a bit hysterical, so I googled it, and yes obviously he does pay tax… on average quite a bit more than you or me I’d imagine! Should he pay more tax? Maybe. He pays what he legally owes though. Do you voluntarily contribute more to HMRC than you have to? If the government(s) actually wanted these people and/or companies to pay more tax, they’d change the system.

As above, none of us will volunteer to pay more tax. Governments need to sort out the global tax system if they want to tax global businesses.

Most of us would spend some of our money on toys if we were billionaires. At least this is helping turn space travel into something private businesses can do instead of governments who only did it as a race against another government.

I also wonder how the first bicycle was viewed by the local poor peasants. I can imagine some heavy wooden contraption propelled by foot like a grownups balance bike, operated by the rich landowner. It would not have gone very far on the dirt track and everyone would have thought what a daft pointless expensive waste of materials.

Most of us would spend some of our money on toys if we were billionaires.

I’ve seen figures suggesting his net worth is around 200 billion and he’s spent about a billion on the space program. So 0.5% of his net worth. In percentage terms that’s about what my best bike is worth. So, I’d extrapolate to say that pro-rata, many folk on here have spent a bigger proportion of their net worth on toys than Bezos has on his space willy.

Just been watching it and one of them is called “Wally Funk” – what a name.

I’m absolutely fine with the billionaire space program thing, they’ve achieved things that national programs almost certainly wouldn’t have and that’s good for human progress overall.

But it does basically highlight how ridiculously broken our system is. It’s not “Bezos spends a load of his money on a spaceship”, it’s “Bezos can spend all this money on spaceships and not even notice, meanwhile his employees are pissing into bottles, and the tax structures he uses make entire countries poorer”. It’s legal, but legal is no gauge of morality or rightness.

Bezos is at a point where he could pay a good living wage, give his employees good working conditions, pay the tax he should be, and still afford a spaceship.

Frankly I don’t give a stuff what Bezos spends his money on.

What annoys me about this is all the publicity for something that the Soviet Union first did, and much better, in 1961.

It’s not exactly a step forward in anything

I don’t think the Soviet Union, or NASA, have ever re-used any part of their rockets, so a huge step forward.

I don’t think the Soviet Union, or NASA, have ever re-used any part of their rockets

The space shuttle boosters were recovered and re used plus the main shuttle engines were re used too along with the rest of the shuttle (how much of them actually got re-used and not replaced during prep for the next flight though I don’t know.)

As above, none of us will volunteer to pay more tax

Wrong. I would and so would many others, Indeed we elected a scots government on a tax raising platform

I don’t think the Soviet Union, or NASA, have ever re-used any part of their rockets, so a huge step forward

Ok – it was more the “going to space” part of it. The tech is obviously better but it’s 60 years later and we’ve had an material science and IT revolutions during that period. But c’mon, 10 minutes up and down – meh. People are regularly shuttled to the ISS with no fuss.

I’ll be impressed if someone gets back to the moon. I’ll be really impressed if man gets to Mars.

One of the things that really annoys is the illiteracy about space science. It seems most journos seem to jump between Bezos dipping his toe, to moon shots, to Mars, to interstellar travel with seemingly no understanding of scale or challenge

Here’s Jeff & crew before the flight…..

L-R Wally Funk, Dutch kid, No 2, Mark Bezos, Jeff Bezos

It’s a little like watching an Austin Powers movie. Worlds best Dr Evil cosplay goes to space in massive penis.

Beautifully summed up.

But c’mon, 10 minutes up and down – meh

Pretty similar to the mercury shots? spam in a can!

It’s not exactly a step forward in anything

I think quite a few of us would pay to watch him and Branson fired into the sun. That would definitely be a step forward

Anyway, hasn’t what he’s done today was done earlier today just this…?

Pretty similar to the mercury shots?

Erm……. No. Actually getting into orbit, staying there for more than a day, as only a prelude to more advanced missions is a totally different kettle of fish.

Pretty similar to the mercury shots?

Well done Jeff, managed to replicate what happened over 50 years ago…In fact going back a bit further, replicating the achievement of an animal that licks it’s own arse.

Slow hand for Jeff please….

Oh… hang on a minute… those two are the actual bond villains

Coincidentally, it was Richard Branson who had a cameo role in Casino Royal.

markwsf

the first US space missions were cobbled together after the USSR put Gagarin in orbit. the basically put a man in a capsule on top of a ICBM which was a development of the german V2 and fired them into a sub orbital flight with very few controls and no real control over the flight and they even had no windows hence the astronauts referred to themselves as “spam in a can”. Very similar to Bezos flight.

Later flights reached orbit but the first US flights did not

It all looked a bit low rent compared to SpaceX.

TJ

The very first Mercury flights yes – but they quickly developed, and the first Mercury’s were just a small stepping stone to actual orbital flight and then to Gemini, Apollo etc.

…they even had no windows hence the astronauts referred to themselves as “spam in a can”. Very similar to Bezos flight.

Alan Shepard also spent the flight bathing in his own piss. Not because he was in to this new fangled urine therapy that is taking Facebook et al by storm (seriously) but because he needed to go and they hadn’t plumbed in any kind of urine collection device. I bet Bezos didn’t recreate the joys of early space flight quite that accurately 🙂

Bezos rocket, liquid fuelled by byhydrogen and oxygen, waste product = water. Branson rocket, solid fuel (rubber) burnt in nitrous oxide, waste product, dirty stinking black carbon injected directly into the upper atmosphere where it can do most harm. Virgin Galactic can fk off with it’s vanity tourist bullshit. Dead end technology adding even more shite to the air to give rich parasites something else to waste their ridiculous wealth on.

tjagain
Full Member

wrong. I would and so would many others, Indeed we elected a scots government on a tax raising platform
Posted 16 hours ago

Fill your boots then. Voluntary payments to govt are here.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/voluntary-payments-donations-to-government

Not very busy by all accounts.

The Guardian investigates the shape of New Shepard: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/20/jeff-bezos-rocket-design-an-inquiry

“New Shepard consists of a mushroom-like crew capsule that flares out over a long shaft… The rounded top appears more bulbous than that of many other rockets”

Or see what JK Rowlings had to say about taxation?

Or see what JK Rowlings had to say about taxation?

unless you are referring to a specific article (in which case a link would be helpful) a quick google suggests she merely recommends staying resident and paying full UK income tax (which I 100% agree with)- which is exactly what Bezos does (US tax obviously). He isn’t a tax exile, and certainly doesn’t pay no tax… another quick google reveals he paid almost a billion dollars of personal income tax between 2014-2018.

he needed to go and they hadn’t plumbed in any kind of urine collection device.

Not sure if this is an urban myth but I’ve heard the tale that when Nasa did incorporate such a device the sizing range was something like Large, Extra Large, XXL, XXXL rather than starting at small (or extra small!)

certainly doesn’t pay no tax

Except years like 2007, when he paid no tax.
Even better, in 2011 he paid no tax and even got $4k in payments from taxpayers for his children. He pays about 1% of his true increase in assets in tax, because of the way he his able to structure his income.

He also located amazon in a low tax state, tried to run independents out of business by selling from places that had no sales tax and extracts massive payments and tax breaks from anyplace dumb enough time think that an amazon campus will bring wealth and jobs.

in 2011 he paid no tax and even got $4k in payments from taxpayers for his children.

no. He got credits, which contributed him towards him paying no income tax. He didn’t get handed a cheque for $4k from the government. Not saying it’s a classy move, but does he do his own taxes? Did he even realise it had happened? Plus it’s only in recent years Amazon has become hugely profitable… back in 2011 they probably still had billions in turnover but it seems he didn’t personally derive any income from it. If you’ve got loads in the bank you can probably afford to skip a year if your company has a lean one 🤣. He is at least (now) quite philanthropic, a lot more so than Elon Musk, say!

He pays about 1% of his true increase in assets in tax, because of the way he his able to structure his income.

that’s how income tax works though, you pay it on your income. Wealth taxes have been mooted, but it’s not the system they (or we) have currently. Would you want to be taxed because your house, or your stocks & shares, have gone up in value (without you selling them to realise the gain?)

back in 2011 they probably still had billions in turnover but it seems he didn’t personally derive any income from it. If you’ve got loads in the bank you can probably afford to skip a year if your company has a lean one 🤣

Not sure if you are a Bezos fan boy or just genuinely don’t understand how it works. First he chooses not to pay dividends on Amazon stock. Good for big investors, bad for small. So no tax. Second gets about 80k in salary, which seems a lot but is easy to get rid of when you can write off interest (on a mortgage too) and investment ‘losses’ 3 rd instead if selling off stock to fund your lifestyle, which you’d pay capital gains tax on, and dilute your ownership interest, you use it to secure loans. You live off the loan, write off the interest. Hence you accumulate wealth but have no income.

If you are referring to the charitable foundation he started, it’s not clear that it does anything, other than provide him convenient cover.

And yes, I think Bezos knows exactly what is going on with his taxes. He is a micromanager, like a lot of rich sociopaths.
You can believe what you like about his taxes but like most he pays basically nothing in any kind of tax, not just income tax.

a pissing competition between two perma-tanned megalomaniacal bell-ends with more money than sense

So very much like a lot of threads on here. Except perhaps for the perma-tan part.