Attacks On (Dystopian) Amazon Are Un-American?
Of course, when it comes down to monopolies, we must look first at our premises that allow them to exist in the first place, and they do exist because the premise is unethical. Indeed it is somehow puzzling that the libertarian guest-speaker, in the video, does not even seem to be bothered with that. Instead she keeps the focus on the "innovation factor" and that Amazon is not responsible for the government's food stamp program. This dishonest diversion illustrates the prevailing moral bankruptcy of the markets. Many are falling for this "money making mantra", and this is pretty sad.
Amazon’s goal is a takeover of retail itself, both physical and digital... If Amazon now controls the pricing in the book industry, just imagine what it can do in the broader world of retail....“This is horrible for competition,” the director of the New America Foundation’s Open Markets program Barry Lynn told the New Republic. “This is the crushing of competition. Amazon is monopolizing commerce in the United States https://newrepublic.com/article/143376/amazon-changing-whole-concept-monopoly
Yes, it is horrible but the concentration of private interests IS the main drive behind it, because monetarism cannot prevent collusion, it even encourages the latter because shareholders want to see their quarterly profits in their portfolios growing steadily and they do not care about the means. So the goal of competition is to eliminate all competition. And the fact that Amazon bought Whole Foods speaks volume about Amazon's intent. It is realistic to assume that it will become a threat to Walmart in 5 years or so. What will happen then is that both will likely merge. But right now, Walmart generates around 3.5 times Amazon's profits. Nevertheless, monopoly apologists, call it "competitive capitalism" and "efficiency of the markets". That's right, and while we are at it: the housing bubble (which has not gone away) and the 1.5 trillion student loan debacle are too competitive capitalism.
The Simple Reasons Why Amazon is Not a Monopoly..... It’s competitive capitalism, and it’s the reason we live in a wealthy country today. That said, the retail economy does have major problem. It’s not Amazon; it’s demographics. Americans tend to hit their peak spending years in their late 40s and very early 50s, when their kids are still eating them out of house and home.At the same time, the next big generation – the Millennials – is getting a late start. Between the setback of the 2008 crisis and its aftermath, higher student loans balances, and lower starting salaries, they’re not able to pick up the slack left by their parents… and they won’t be capable for several more years..... https://economyandmarkets.com/markets/reasons-amazon-not-monopoly/
Additionally, Amazon is just another Chinese Gatekeeper as China' sweet dream is to become the 1st world absolute power. China is already infiltrating many African countries as you read this, looking for a much more "competitive labor" as the growing Chinese middle class is losing its appetite for working for peanuts. Amazon helps China achieve this . Since capitalism teaches people to expect products to become ever "cheaper", Amazon (among others) help obsolescence take over the markets.
JULY 2016 | For China alone, sales volume increased 207% between 2013 and 2014, then increased another 230% on top of that from 2014 to 2015..... China’s cross border sales were five times that of Japan's and 60 times greater than South Korea’s. This year, it is expected to be 10 times Japan’s and 35 times that of South Korea shipments, according to Payoneer.... https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2016/07/08/how-china-and-amazon-are-changing-the-future-of-retail/#12b881cb2710
What is very costly environmentally. The disaster of cheap electronics caused by big retailers like Amazon is another outrageous and appalling situation, as the West dumps its e-waste onto Ghana and India, to name a few, creating more health hazards and pollution in those poor countries. According to the guardian.uk, in 2014 alone, 41 million metric tonnes of electronic waste were exported to Africa. No to mention contributing to the spread of microplastics and fibers released by the fast fashion industry, 2nd world polluter (see previous blog). So thanks to Amazon -- and the like!
And then lastly, Amazon employees on food stamps is not a concern for the giant retailer which is very used to slave labor already, so why should it care? The guest speaker in video also argues that nobody forces these people to work for Amazon, which is not entirely true as the monetarism itself creates a poor class, which keeps the top of the pyramid afloat.
Luckily, there is a solution and at this stage the odds for a paradigm shift are slowly making more and more sense: to end this catch 22, society has to admit first that it is dealing with a "monster" of its own making. There is no way money can ever fix this, but empathy and the drive to remodel the purpose of society very differently. Life is not for sale!
Critic to Tucker: Why your attacks on Amazon are Un-American
FURTHER READINGS
Amazon is 20,000 vans closer to replacing the post office
https://q13fox.com/2018/09/06/amazon-is-20000-vans-closer-to-replacing-the-post-office/amp/
Trump, Amazon and the Post Office
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-amazon-and-the-post-office-1522708506
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-amazon-post-office-deal-2018-4
The Horrific New Marriage Between Your Post Office and Amazon Sunday
https://www.alternet.org/labor/horrific-new-marriage-between-your-post-office-and-amazon-sunday
Amazon charged with 4,000 counts of selling illegal pesticides
https://www.naturalnews.com/2018-02-17-amazon-charged-with-4000-counts-of-selling-illegal-pesticides.html
AMAZON profits from “slave wage” labor in China’s sweat shop factories
https://www.naturalnews.com/2018-06-14-evil-amazon-profits-from-slave-wage-labor-in-chinas-sweat-shop-factories.html
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Really glad you've got a bigger audience and are making some payouts, the article is hitting a really good point that libertarians ignore like a religious person ignores reason when they quote the Bible as god's word, the problem I have though is that it posits monopoly and wealth collusion as a consequence of consumerism or our culture. If you go to my blog you can dissect the article I reposted from Judge Anna which I called The Class War, it details how Wage Slavery began and then you can piece together how Bernays only gave the oligarchs the last handful of nails which allowed them to bury the inconvenience of making valuable products and services.
hey there, tnx for dropping by. I will look at it tomorrow when I wake up with my cup of tea.
What allows monopolies to exist is government. Don't like monopolies? Downsize governments.
How much money are you going to make, posting this crap? Such a fucking hypocrite.
The biggest idiocy is balling up governments as one uniform thing, such that "it allows monopolies" to exist, and to logic from that that downsizing government will make monopolies go away, somehow, even though there's no way in hell to demonstrate any of the stupid insinuations such thoughts brought up. You've been harassing this account for over a year now, commenting nothing but hostile remarks and sentiments, trolling them religiously and each time I've confronted you about it there wasn't any remorse let alone hint of sensibility for your actions. I don't agree with everything they say but I will match your dedication and use all my SP to bury your account, no hard feelings K.
Agree... they wont go away even if the gov is downsized because they control the government regardless of the size the latter. This is a 2 headed hydra. Corporations have always had their political straw men. High level politicians aware of the issue do not last long if they refuse to play the puppets.
ps It is easy to harass people when one does not have any website with an email address. On top of that he does not bring up any arguments since he always defends corporations, from pesticides to unlimited nuclear waste and slave labor. I gave him 2 months to explain himself and now i am done. He is a troll
Monopolies that are not outright government controlled, such as utilities, are usually granted to certain corporations as political favors.
There are no other type of monopolies.
https://www.investopedia.com/insights/history-of-us-monopolies/
Your own words betray your conclusion, because if there aren't any other type of monopolies then you wouldn't say "are usually " which leaves open the "unusual", which you leave no room for when you concluded with your usual idiotic nonsense. (FYI, idiotic nonsense is Bullshit squared)
The conclusion is sound. I mentioned two types of monopolies. They fall into one or the other category. I said "usually granted as political favors" because the government may grant them for other reasons. Derpaderp, my name is Baah...let me try to lie about what was written in the previous post
Why can't you woo woo promoters read?
The woo woo police claims I lied, how cute. Tell me again how Amazon isn't a monopoly, or that
LeSs GoVeRnAmEnT iS hOw YoU sToP mOnOpOlIes.
That's cute, so tell me what category MS falls in or Standard Oil, or in this case Amazon. Obviously monopoly outside government can't exist to you and the natural formation of a monopoly doesn't factor into your absurd conclusion, nor the fact that antitrust laws and governments have been the most direct form of breaking up monopolies.
Microsoft is a monopoly of special grants of government called copyrights. And amazon, how is that a monopoly? In retail sales? They make up only maybe 2-3% of non big ticket items. Walmart sales is like 3 times as big.
Standard oil was an interesting story. It makes me consider that there is indeed a third kind of monopoly, a free market efficiency monopoly. It efficiently brought good to market, so that its declining prices compared to competitors gained it its market share. At the peak of this monopoly, kerosene prices were at their lowest. Consumers were helped, not harmed by this action. Soon afterwards, Standard's market share steadily dropped from competition and changing market conditions, and then finally was carved up. I always considered Rockefeller's deals with the government subsidized railroads as a government favor. And for this reason I considered it a government aided monopoly. But is seemed all oil refiners made deals with railroads. It was just that Rockefeller was more shrewd.
Yes, I can see there being a third type of efficient free market monopoly, not made by coercion, but by bringing better products efficiently to market. This is pretty much true of every large successful business not leaning on government subsidies. They never seem to last long as competitors overtake them, or government subsidized businesses can out-spend them.
Thanks for expanding my thought process.
Microsoft is a state aided monopoly because of copyright and patents? As if there's not more efficient, secure and FREE alternative, yet who will develop software for Linux or let alone video games, despite that their monopoly has absofuckinlutely nothing to do with copyrights or patents.
Who controls the pricing of books?
aMaZoN. Check mate
Standard Oil was broken up by government, the point wasn't that they undercut the competition or that it was beneficial to consumers.
As for other examples of natural monopoly look into The Vend.
The deluded ideology of "free market always prospers" has been expanded to substantiate itself in the denial that a monopoly by bringing better products to the market more efficiently lends itself to be destroyed by healthy competition, as if competition drops out of the sky and jackboots the monopoly with.. an even more efficient way.. because less government is how you stop monopolies..
Woo woo is the magic of your "monopolies exist because of government and downsizing government makes monopolies go away". Because somehow people haven't cornered the market without the help of government and have bludgeoned the competition simply as @earthcustodians have mentioned, or naturally to secure shareholders quarterly profits.
No, woo woo is the term I use for all the metaphysical nonsense that gets touted as fact. For example, earthcustodian's "Laws of the Universe" or whatever she calls them. Just a bunch of conjectures which are supposed to make you feel good about the universe. And that by getting "in sync" with these nonexistent laws are supposed to get rid of all the problems of the world because ... reasons.
Reasons such as how healthy competition means cornering the market in one sector and that only happens because government, despite that the earliest reference to monopolies had nothing to do with subsidies, the woo woo of "less government means no monopolies". Wrong, monopolies can form from plain greed or first mover advantage and had the same characteristics of controlling an entire sector of the economy.
You can lololol all day at "nonexistent" laws of the universe, after all to you women's intuition is probably coincidental and you can reason away how Bill Meier has made hundreds of predictions.
Here a legal Maxim to give you a leg to stand on.
The Law Of Vibration... every atom vibrates, emits a frequency... and THUS SOUND.... WORDS RESONATE... and INFLUENCE LIFE...
there is even SOUND THERAPY today... and sonograms...
try to disprove that... atheism is woo woo...
THE LAW OF VIBRATION IS REAL AND PROVEN SCIENTIFICALLY... AND SO ARE ALL THE OTHER 6 LAWS... NATURAL LAWS MEANS LAWS THAT MAN DIDNT CREATE BUT CAN UNDERSTAND AS HOW THEY AFFECT LIFE