Amazon

Amazon is a good current example of how the free market system works. The company started 20 years ago and never made a profit in the first 14 years and even today the profit margin is one percent. Amazon employs 566,000 people and is an example of how skills can affect salaries. Many employees who work in the distribution centers make only $13 per hour but engineers and computer specialist make upwards of $100,000 per year. All full time employees have benefits mostly paid by Amazon. Jeff Bezos the CEO earns a salary of $1.7 million while the average CEO earns $15 million. He is the worlds richest person but his wealth is in Amazon stock. He owns 81 million shares and today's price is $2,040 per share so he is worth $165 billion. If you calculate his earnings against his assets it comes to .001% He is not interested in making a lot of money for himself but rather the challenges of developing new business. Amazon has 471 million shares and those people have seen their investment go from $300 in 2015 to $2,000 today. Many of these shares are owned by pension companies and this helps all income brackets.