Tag Archives: Occam’s razor

(At wealth’s end …)/II

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Math:

(At wealth’s end … ) / II = 2 Rich Bezos

Well, although I blogged about Jeff Bezos wealth in May, (At wealth’s end ...) and posited ideas for ways to put his wealth to use, I did not see Occam’s razor edge coming for half of it with a divorce, but there you have it. Occam’s razor. The simplest explanation is probably the most correct.

On January 9, 2019, Jeff & MacKenzie Bezos issued a joint statement on Twitter that they will divorce.

And silly me. Occam’s razor again. I assumed the simple reason for the split would be money. Not how much, but how the money is used.

  • The company Jeff Bezos founded, Amazon, has grown to be a trillion dollar company. While we watched in 2018 as cities manufactured elaborate tax structures and infrastructure plans with the hope of being crowned the next location for Amazon headquarters, it was reported that Amazon employees augment their low pay with Food Stamps, taxpayer-funded programs.
  • Amazon builds and tests literal rockets.
  • And there is the 500′ clock keeping time in a geologic basement in Texas.

The optics are bad. Communities prostrate themselves for the blessing of a wealthy man who spends lavish amounts of money wasting 500′ on time while his employees live in scarcity.

Yeah MacKenzie, I’d divorce myself from all that too.

As a couple out at wealth’s end, I was heartened to read that pre-divorce announcement the Bezos’ seem truly devoted to each other. MacKenzie was a partner in the formative days and the eventual success of Amazon. She is a published author (HarperCollins) and Jeff was her first reader. Aw, shucks! And there’s more … if you’re interested, “Strange things about Jeff Bezos’ marriage”, by Stassi Reid at Nikki Swift is well-documented reading. Other sources: Business Insider & The New York Times.

And in this day of conscious uncoupling and as stated in their announcement, I hope they remain friends after the divorce.

But this time I was wrong about Occam’s razor and it’s not about the money! It’s Occam’s dick.

Jeff has a new companion, Lauren Sanchez. And throughout history, men have thrown in for other loves, fortune be damned. Or halved. This is not new and Ms. Sanchez appears to be all that — gorgeous, glamorous, TV personality, helicopter pilot. Set aside all the salacious details – not interested – and the participants in this break-up are all grown-ups — Bezos & Bezos, Sanchez & Whitesell (her husband).

Often when lots of zeroes are involved, stereotypical men in mid-life crisis couple up with women half their age. But not this time. Ms. Sanchez is a year older than Ms. Bezos.

If the Bezos’ do not have a prenuptial agreement, MacKenzie gets half or $69B (USD) more or less to which we say, “Go get it girl!”

This will double the number of Bezos on the list of billionaires. Two separate economic whales that can move markets.

And so I’m looking forward to following what MacKenzie Bezos does free and away from the economic wake left by Jeff. Calendar time and wristwatch time will tell.

Jump. Make a difference. Make a splash. We’re watching.

Coda

Projects one could fund with a big lottery win:

  • scoop up one of the big 5 publishers
  • start a new publishing imprint
  • start a Life-type hardcopy magazine focused on photographs that contain a thousand words and writing that captures this era beyond the 24-hour news cycle, (see also Laurene Jobs)
  • fix up Puerto Rico and flip it as the 51st state!

Occam’s Boo*straps.

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On the way to and then on the way from Texas to see incarcerated brown children separated from their parents, the current moneyed-yet-somehow-classless FLOTUS wore a $39 drab olive jacket with the bold statement “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?” printed on the back. Pictures abound.

Classless, not clueless. She knew what she was doing. A bone thrown to the pack of press from the throne of Gaslighting Incorporated, and from my bleacher seat, the media pack cleared the bench to run out on the field and break the same photo, the same story.¹ Theories offered, explanations grow and abound, that gaslight is lit!

And the Trump Administration Regime tweeted:

“I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?” written on the back of  Melania’s jacket, refers to the Fake News Media. Melania has learned how dishonest they are, and she truly no longer cares!”

21 June 2018 4:51 PM. Tweet. @realDonaldTrump

Really? Hmmm … I don’t think so.

My theory? Occam’s boo*straps (TM).²

Occam’s razor is “the problem-solving principle that, when presented with competing hypothetical answers to a problem, one should select the answer that makes the fewest assumptions.” (Source: Wikipedia)

And the theories put forth — she’s trolling Trump, she’s trolling Zara and exploitation of children with child labor, she’s trolling the media — all these theories rely on the assumption that she’s silent and sends us brainy messages and maybe down deep she has a heart. Afterall, she doesn’t talk much and when she does, it doesn’t seem to be her own words.

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.“

Or maybe when she speaks, she doesn’t use her own words² and speaks English phonetically like Bela Lugosi in his early days? Ah! But I digress with another crazy theory.

“Pull yourself up by your bootstraps” is a colloquialism³ that can be used to justify an individual’s success or failure. Bold American individualism. You really need to help yourself.

And so, Melania, First Lady OTUS, hoisted herself up from Slovenian roots by Occam’s boo*straps. (Note, although photographic evidence suggests she flung aside the boo*straps on occasion to hoist herself even further, the phrase still stands.) She is symmetric and attractive, she modeled, she had magnetic qualities which attracted a wealthy man, she had his child, she is beyond comfortable in the tacky lap of orange luxury. The cost of her Occam’s boo*straps is that luxury, her comfort is paramount.

And Occam’s razor? Melania Trump wore that jacket coming and going in comfort because Melania Trump is a racist. Whether she was racist before, we don’t know. Let’s stick to now. Let’s stick to simple. Assume there is no there, there. Melania Trump has doubled-down on all things Trump.

And that includes white supremacy.

FOOTNOTES:

If Melania leaves Donald and becomes a strong voice for something other than her continued comfort in silence, I will be quite happy to be proven wrong. Until then …

¹ Packs of dogs, clear the bench baseball, gaslighting. Love me mixed metaphor writ large.

² Occam’s boo*straps. * == b. Occam’s boobstraps, irreverant and derogatory fer sure. Bra straps would have definitely been more appropriate, but I would have lost the poetry suggested by the ‘oo‘ in boot and boob.

Also, Occam’s boo*straps is a phrase mash used for the purpose of making a point in this blog post. It is not a commentary or judgment on paid sex work and paid sex workers.

³ “not her own words” — Melania Trump has “borrowed” Michelle Obama’s words liberally and unabashedly. And more than once.