The latest speculation is that Amazon will
split its second headquarters between northern Virginia and Long Island City, in Queens, New York City. The following story assumes that Amazon will choose northern Virginia, but wherever the giant corporation locates its second headquarters, this is a fascinating article about Amazon and Jeff Bezos.

This is a fascinating article that appeared in The New Yorker about Amazon, the financial behemoth of our age. It is based on the guess that Jeff Bezos will choose to locate in northern Virginia, for reasons explained in the article. Cities have been offering Amazon all sorts of tax breaks and incentives to choose them. But the smart money is betting on the proximity to DC.

Amazon has made Bezos the richest man in the world, with an estimated wealth of $150 billion.

This will be his new home:

“On October 21, 2016, an entity called the Cherry Revocable Trust purchased two adjacent buildings in the Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, D.C., for twenty-three million dollars. The buildings, which previously had housed the Textile Museum, were to be converted into a private residence—at twenty-seven thousand square feet, the largest in the city. In January, it was revealed that the anonymous purchaser represented by the Cherry Revocable Trust was Jeff Bezos, the founder and C.E.O. of Amazon. The finished property will have eleven bedrooms, twenty-five bathrooms, five staircases, and a large ballroom suitable for gatherings of Washington’s notables. It will be, in the words of the journalist Ben Wofford, “a veritable Death Star of Washington entertaining.”

Americans have long been fascinated with the lifestyles of the rich and famous. But there is something obscene about the accumulation of $150 billion—and growing.

Will any party have the guts to raise taxes for the wealthy now that the 1% of the 1% has amassed so much wealth?

Growing inequality endangers the well-being of our society, as do concentrations of vast wealth in the hands of a small number of people. Their wealth is weaponized when they use it to undermine and control public institutions.