Amazon

Space Bezos

Cjones06122021

The richest man in the planet now wants to be the richest man in the galaxy.

Jeff Bezos owns Amazon, Whole Foods, Metro Goldwyn Mayor, and The Washington Post. He also owns a space company, Blue Origin, and will be part of the crew for its first manned space flight. He’s going to beat fellow billionaires Elon Musk and Richard Branson to be the first rich asshole in space.

Bezos’ billions being spent to shoot him off the third rock from the sun is helped by the fact his tax rate is basically 0.98 percent. ProPublica exposed IRS files showing that the 25 richest jerks in this country have a tax rate of nearly zero. Warren Buffett is buying newspapers left and right, tearing them down to almost nothing, reselling them for a profit, claiming he has a passion for newspapers, all while paying as little in taxes as possible. Maybe he should have bought ProPublica.

In this nation, we tax income but not wealth. That means billionaire jagoffs like Bezos all the way down to the poorest billionaires such as Donald Trump, pay a lower rate than you do. It’s estimated that 11.8 percent of Amazon’s workers in Ohio are receiving welfare benefits. That’s just in one state, but all of Bezo’s employees, even those who collect food stamps to survive, pay higher tax rates than their space-bound billionaire boss.

You may think that’s just Bezos and his fellow billionaires paying very little in taxes. But what about their companies? In 2018, Amazon paid zero in federal taxes. Amazon now accounts for over 50% of all online shopping, forcing small and even large corporations to declare bankruptcy. Amazon’s profits increased to nearly 200 percent during the pandemic (I know I helped). On top of that, The National Labor Relations Board this year claims that Amazon retaliated against staffers who raised concerns about warehouse safety by firing them.

I don’t want to hate rich people just because they’re rich, but when a billionaire like Bezos is lavishly spending $25 million on a new Los Angeles mansion, $23 million on a Washington mansion, $17 million on a Manhattan apartment, $500 million on a new yacht, $65 million on a private jet, $42 million on a clock (dude, there’s a clock on your cell phone), and a billion to send his happy rich ass to space, getting a huge tax cut from the Trump administration while not paying taxes, the rich are making it hard not to hate them.

But hey, when you’re such a rich jerk that dogs won’t play with you, do what Bezos does…and buy a robot dog. You can program it to lick your face.

We need to raise taxes on the rich. We need to tax wealth. We need to eliminate tax loopholes. Republicans are fighting for the rich rather than for you because they’re bought and paid for by the rich. We can fix that. From a post I recently saw somewhere on social media: All we have to do is eat one billionaire and the rest will fall in line. It’s not like any of them are a Bruce Wayne or a Tony Stark.

Tony Stark went to space to fight Thanos. I suspect Bezos wants to go to space to become Thanos. I expect his trip to be like Ivanka Trump at Buckingham Palace, a photo-op for a creepy smile peering from a window reminding us just how much better humans they are than the rest of us.

Quite frankly, I think they can be better than the rest of us but they have to go to space to prove it. So, let’s shoot them all into space. We can even save money by not bothering to bring them back.

Spending billions to send yourself to space, when you know you don’t have the right stuff, while your employees are living off of generic Ramen noodles, and you’re not paying taxes, takes some serious space balls.

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Notes on my book, Tales From The Trumpster Fire: I have two copies of my book in stock, which I’m selling for $45.00 each, signed. Also, I have copies of my first book from 1997, Knee-Deep in Mississippi available for $20.00.

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Bezos And Buzzards

cjones05042020

A few weeks ago, I was keeping my eyes open for Dial liquid hand soap. Usually, for me, soap is soap as long as it doesn’t smell weird or feel like liquid sandpaper, I’m good. But a friend swore that Dial was the best at killing viruses and was one of the cheapest. So, while not being that worried about it and already having plenty of hand soap on stock, I thought I’d buy some if I ran across it. For a while, I didn’t.

I couldn’t find it at my local grocery store or my local CVS. Then, I stumbled across one bottle at my local convenience store where I walked into recently while wearing a bandana and telling the guy who runs the place it was a stickup…and told me to stop messing around and that he just got an order in of that Arizona green tea I like. He knows me.

They had exactly one bottle. Dial, 7.5 FL OZ (221 mL), original gold. Kills 99.9% of bacteria. Sounds good and since it’s the last one, I’ll buy it. It was $3.59. I thought that was a little high but I was in a convenience store and I wasn’t sure what the regular price of liquid soap was. I bought it anyway (and it’s nearly empty now. Dries out your hands).

But, I was still curious about the price. I did a little research and it seems the regular price is $1.00 to $2.50 if you can find it.

By the way, I wanted some Ore-Ida frozen potatoes and they were nearly wiped out at my local grocery store. What the hell, people? Are we wiping with frozen potatoes now?

But I digress. The soap is cheap. Why? Because it’s just regular soap. While you might pay $2.00 at your gGiant, it’s understandable it would be $3.59 at 7/11. How about $11 at Amazon?

Yeah, I found the exact same soap, size, design on bottle, everything, on Amazon for $10.99 I saw a deal where you can get four bottles for $30.00. Woo-hoo go to Hell, Jeff Bezos and take your $30 hand soap with you.

Back in late March, Amazon announced it removed 500,000 listings and 3,900 third-party sellers from its site for suspected price gouging. Hey, good for Amazon. I’m sorry I told you to go to Hell, Jeff Bezos. I appreciate what you’ve done with The Washington Post and when I grow up, I want to be just like you….rich but without looking like a human prick with ears. I really didn’t mean to insult…what? Amazon also substantially raised its own prices on products like hand sanitizer, protective masks, and toilet paper. I retract my retraction, Jeff Bezos. Go back to Hell.

The Florida Attorney General found that Amazon’s third-party sellers raised prices on things like hand sanitizer, cleaning supplies, and protective masks by up to 1,600%. That’s a lot of percents. But Amazon was found to have listed one 4-pack of toilet paper at $72.

Amazon says it’s now cooperating with law enforcement on cracking down on gouging third-party sellers, like the schmuck in Tennessee who bought 17,000 bottles of hand sanitizer and attempted to sell it on Amazon at $70 bucks a pop. I didn’t know Donald Trump moved to Tennesee.

Amazon might be working with law enforcement AFTER it reduced its own prices after eliminating the gouging competition for their gouging prices…but there’s still a lot of gouging on their site they don’t seem that much in a hurry to remove.

That Dial hand soap selling for $10.99, it’s still there. But the good news is, it includes free shipping.

Tip Jar: This pandemic is hitting everyone, including your favorite goofy cartoonist. I have lost clients and I’m afraid I might lose more. The PayPal button has always been included here for those who can and want to voluntarily support what I do. I understand this time is hard on everyone. If you can’t, don’t contribute. Take care of yourself and your family first.

But, all and any help is greatly appreciated and it helps keep me going. Think of me like a street performing busking out tunes on a corner (I won’t play “Wonderwall.” I promise). If you like the tune, or in this case, toon, throw a buck into the tip jar. It’ll help me play another song, draw another toon, write another blog, make another video, and post another snarky post on social media. It’ll help keep me alive. You can also order a signed print for $40. And if you don’t like the PayPal option, you can snail mail it to my P.O. Box. 

You can purchase a signed print of this cartoon.

New Book: Tales From the Trumpster Fire

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Jeff Bezos’ Jungle

cjones08202015

Occasionally the Washington Post will run a cartoon of mine in their Saturday edition. The last time was a couple weeks ago. I’m not going to hold my breath for them to publish this one.

I’ll be interested if their staff cartoonist, the always excellent Tom Toles, does a cartoon on the issue.

This cartoon took a while to color. I drew the cartoon super early Wednesday morning and finished it around 6:00 AM. It took forever to color.My giant Venus Flytraps are influenced a tad by Little Shop Of Horrors. Feed me, Seymour! Feed me!

I waited several hours to post this as I wanted my Trump/Stork cartoon to have the limelight to itself for a while.