Uh, why not just have Bezos and/or the yacht builders pay to dismantle then rebuild the bridge? Resulting in more work for skilled union workers, more tax revenue for the municipality, and then Rotterdam gets a brand spanking new bridge.
Ah, yes, the sweet, sweet taste of trickle-down.
Oh, wait, that’s just a leaking blackwater tank on the mega-yacht…
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The bridge is a historic landmark. They don’t want a new one, they want their city’s heritage to be respected. Imagine the brouhaha if New York City had to temporarily move the Statue of Liberty aside to make way for some rich asshole’s pleasure craft. Even if the rich guy paid for everything it would still feel like a slap in the face.
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I’m curious: is that you attitude for all obscene displays of wealth as long as the people who are getting put to work making the “stuff” aren’t exploited too badly? (And let’s not forget that the Amazon workers who earned him that money were most definitely exploited.)
We’re talking half a billion dollars for this yacht, plus somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million just for the huge 45-crew “shadow vessel” that’s going to follow this thing around to carry the helicopters, speedboats and shit. There’s a lot of good other than buying stuff that kind of money could do for the world, such as providing free college tuition to thousands of deserving people, or providing desperately needed medical care that could save many lives. Hell, he could do that and still have money left over to have a ridiculously fancy sailing yacht if he’d just settle for something short of the world’s largest.
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First, I think we can safely assume that Dutch shipworkers are likely making a very solid living in a nice welfare state. Nobody working on that ship is an exploited worker (caveat: I cannot speak to the supply chains for, you know, mahogany or leather or something - but the folks there are the docks are living a solid life)
Second, if you trimmed his wealth from $200B to $50B tomorrow and put it [WORTHY CAUSE] I wouldn’t change my answer – I’d still be 100% for him building whatever the hell he wants. Provided it’s otherwise complying with environmental and navigation rules in its operation, it doesn’t bother me at all. Rocket ships, mansions, private ski resorts. Nothing about this keeps me up at night. Sorry.
Replace the lifting section with a large blade.
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I wonder if it keeps Bezos up at night, though…
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Jeff Bezos has a personal carbon footprint that is easily tens of thousands of times higher than almost anyone else on the planet. His actions, both as a business mogul and as an obscenely wealthy private individual, have real-world consequences for the rest of humanity.
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Right? I’m always a little confused by people being unable to connect these dots, that the extreme wealth inequality impacts the entire fucking planet. All of us.
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I guess he’ll just have to change the design to a helicarrier.
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There’s just something about Bezos that switches off my good European socialist and turns on my anarchist switch.
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They’re usually the same people who assume that any person who criticizes a billionaire for dumping a metric fuckton on carbon into the atmosphere so he can spend 11 minutes looking down at the rest of us from space is just “jealous” and ought to hustle harder.
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Nice. Rich dudes can just do what they want because “legal” is all that matters.
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And they get to buy whatever law they want. Don’t like the law that protects historic edifices? Spread a little cash around.
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You read between my lines, so many folk miss that itty bitty detail!!
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The bridge was rebuilt already at least once.
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Yeah, because it was bombed by the Nazis. Similarly, the torch for the Statue of Liberty was replaced in the 80’s because the original was damaged from a bomb decades earlier. Doesn’t change the fact that people would be rightfully pissed if the torch were to be temporary removed just to make room for a billionaire’s plaything.
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