Jeff Bezos Causes Economic Outrage Amongst Americans

The world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, with a net worth of $116 billion and one of the world’s largest companies, has just gone under significant fire on Twitter and mass media. As instructed by the federal government, social distancing is extremely recommended in order to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Bezos, however, hasn’t followed that guideline to any extent through company policy. Tuesday marked a significant event in their company history, as many Whole Foods’ workers caught the virus. They all blame the company for the same thing: doing absolutely nothing to protect them from the deadly strain. In another event, Amazon’s JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island walked out against it making similar claims: their no-leniency breaks don’t allow enough time to wash hands.

The response given by Amazon was extremely appalling too: they fired Chris Smalls, an assistant manager who led the JFK8 strike. In an interview with Vice News, he stated “It’s a shame on them… This is a proven fact… they don’t care about their employees. To fire someone after five years for sticking up for people and trying to give them a voice.” Amazon only reported back that Smalls was not following an order to self-quarantine: a load of baloney that no one bought.

Jeff Bezos only fueled the flame more. In a rush to get richer, he sold all of his stock for Amazon, adding $3.4 billion to his own net worth. He continued, also to pull out of deals and investments that would only continue to give him more money. Overall, this move has put him with other profiteers looking to protect their money in the midst of a global apocalypse, including Bill Ackman and Carl Icahn. Not to mention, the only attempt he did to help improve worker’s conditions in Amazon warehouses and Whole Foods stores was to raise their wages by an incredible $2 per hour. hOw HeLpFuL mR bEzOs!!1!

All in all, this is extremely appalling. In a time where families struggle to live on savings to afford basic foods, billionaires like Bezos are hoarding money to protect themselves in the apocalypse. If anything, Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, is a much better example. In recent news, Cook donated 10 million masks to US medical workers in the midst of the crisis. Rather than stockpiling money, Cook took a step forward and decided to use his company’s power to aid others in a time of need. Thank you, Mr. Cook; we are grateful that we have leaders like you.