Although SDG Goal 1 is about no poverty, I want to look Jeff Bezos who is really, really, really, rich. So rich, he is the richest man on earth. According to Forbes.com, as of April 28th, 2021, Bezos’ net worth has reached $201 000 000 000 (billion!), and this is an ever-growing number, with a particular increase during the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2020 alone, Bezos’ net worth grew by $75 billion. According to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Bezos’ set a record on Monday 20th July 2020, when his net worth increased by $13 billion in a single day, because of a surge in Amazon stock during the day.
Bezos first became a millionaire in 1997, and by 1999 grew his net worth to over $10 million. At one point, once he made it to 5th richest person in the world, he gained $7 billion in one hour!
In February 2020, Bezos used $10 billion of his fortune to start up Bezos Earth Fund, which supports scientists, activists and non-governmental organisations, with their research and fight against climate change. This money could be a huge step into fighting climate change. This is quite an ironic move, considering that Bezos owns Amazon, an international company that ships over 2.5 billion packages a year, which obviously have a negative impact on our planet. Amazon was considered one of the biggest carbon emitters in 2019. As of April 2021, Amazon has a market cap of $1.68 trillion.
Anyway, enough about Amazon, and back to how Jeff Bezos could change the world with his unnecessarily large fortune.
- If he could turn his entire net worth into cash, he could give the entire global population roughly $25 each, which doesn’t seem like a lot to me and you right now, but when you realize that he could give this amount to everyone in the entire world, it begins to become clear how quickly this adds up for the entire global population.
- Due to Covid-19, Canada was in danger of running a budget deficit, back in July 2020, of $180 billion, which Bezos could afford to pay off and still have billions of dollars left over (which no one needs anyway!).
-As of October 2020, 689 million people live in extreme poverty, earning $1.90 or less a day. The pandemic is expected to cause this number to rise by nearly 150 million people. Bezos could currently afford to give every single person in extreme poverty, world-wide, roughly $1 340, which could be 1000 dollars more in an entire year than what some of them already earn, allowing them to have food and water security, the possibility of securing a stable home for the future, which will aid people in finding other, better paying jobs.
-According to World Economic Forum, it would cost $267 billion to end world poverty for an entire year. So, although Jeff may not be able to wipe out world poverty like we all think he could, he could wipe out homelessness in the US for just $20 billion of his net worth. For $10 billion per year, he could make a huge impact on decreasing world hunger. With $7.5 billion, he could provide education to 10 million children, and with $50 billion, he could change all the lead pipes in Flint, Michigan (go read our blog about that!)
-Bezos himself cannot solve these problems, he isn’t qualified, but he can help loads of global organisations already in place to help those suffering from these problems.
Bezos actually signed the Giving Pledge, which means that those who sign it pledge to donate the bulk of their wealth either in their lifetime, or at death.
Blue Origin
Who needs to pass NASA’s hard astronaut selection regime, when you are rich enough to build your own rocket and fly yourself to space? Bezos has a rocket company called Blue Origin, that he plans on exploring space with. 2 out of the seven seats are saved for him and his brother, hopefully a qualified astronaut to fly it and look after them, and one seat was sold at an auction for $36 million.
Click here to sign the petition to leave Jeff Bezos in space, because we don’t need billionaires on Earth anymore!
Tell the Environment Group here about how you would spend Jeff Bezos’ money.
REFERENCES:
Jeff Stonks : https://www.boredpanda.com/jeff-bezos-stonks-man-meme/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic
Distribution of poverty chart : https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty
I really enjoyed reading this article as it really puts into perspective the size of Bezos's fortune. However, I think it also would have been crucial to note in this article that as most of Jeff's money is invested in amazon, so he could never really pull all those shares out, and if he did, the company would collapse, as well as getting rid of many jobs. Jeff has been exposed many times for unsafe working conditions, so I completely agree that there are so many more things Jeff could do to help better things on earth, but donating his entire fortune right now is not feasable.