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Comment by antwerpz | Hacker News Reader

GDP measures income, not spending. If someone outside the US spends money on Amazon, and a portion of that money becomes part of Bezos' income, that portion is counted in the US GDP, not the foreign country's GDP.

His income last year was around $60 billion, or $200 per person (of any age) in the United States. While last year was exceptional, all of his wealth ($600 per capita) was income in the last 20 or so years, most of it in the last 10. And his ex-wife Mackenzie Scott kept 25% of their combined wealth when they separated.

So it's simply not true that his contribution to GDP looks completely trivial even when compared to total US GDP.

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Every source that I can find says that US calculates its GDP based on the "expenditure" approach, meaning that it measures spending, not income. Eg: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gdp.asp

Secondarily, capital gains is not really the same thing as income (at least, not in the tax code, and also not in GDP calculations), and most of his $60B "income" is increases in Amazon stock price. And even if it were actual cash income, the GDP difference between the US and Europe is still fifty times larger than that.

Look: I was an American by birth, but I moved to Europe as an adult. I get the attraction, and I'm not trying to bag on Europe. But it's simply false to suggest that America is not overall richer than Europe, or to say that America's extra riches are all concentrated at the top.

You're confused about how GDP is calculated.

The GDP difference between the US and Europe is fifty times larger than one rich person's own income? This isn't actually a great argument dismissing the suggestion that US wealth is extremely concentrated.

> His income last year was around $60 billion

Are you really counting the increase of Amazon stock price as his personal income? This is totally inaccurate. Most of that worth is extremely volatile and can quickly dissipate if the stock price falls for whatever reason. Would you count a falling stock price as spending?

I don't think you read the whole of my comment.

Amazon aggressively reinvests its extremely large and stable earnings into the business which Bezos owns a large part of and controls actively. Both he and his ex-wife have realized extremely important liquid wealth by selling a significant part of their stakes. How would you measure his wealth?

I read your whole comment and am very interested in seeing a source for how Bezos earned $60 billion last year as private taxable income. The fact that amazon (not even Bezos) re-invests a large part of the corporate income has nothing to do with distorting the US GDP per capita, as you claim. I would like to see a more solid argument.

One way might be measure his total net worth last year vs this year. You'd be subject to the vagaries of the stock market that way, but given that most of his wealth is paper wealth, that seems fair.

Certainly Amazon revenue is not the best way.

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