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Posted on 05/13/2016 8:02:59 AM PDT by Trumpinator
n Thursday night on Fox News’ “Hannity” show, Trump went after Jeff Bezos and Amazon following reports that the Washington Post (owned by Bezos) is deploying reporters to vet every aspect of Trump’s life.
“[The Washington Post] is owned as a toy by Jeff Bezos who controls Amazon. Amazon is getting away with murder tax wise. He’s using The Washington Post for power so that the politicians in Washington don’t tax Amazon like they should be taxed. … [H]e’s got a huge antitrust problem because he’s controlling so much … What they’ve done is he bought this paper for practically nothing and he’s using that as a tool for political power against me and against other people and I’ll tell you what, we can’t let him get away with it … .
“I just heard, they’re taking these really bad stories, I mean they’re wrong, I wouldn’t even say bad, they’re wrong and in many cases they have no proper information and they’re putting them together, they’re slopping them together and they’re going to do a book and the book is going to be all false stuff up because the stories are so wrong and the reporters, I mean one after another. So what they’re doing is — he’s using that as a political instrument to try and stop antitrust”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Trump should hire 40 reporters to dig up dirt on that phony, lying d*****-bag Woodward.
That miserable piece of $**** was responsible for taking down Nixon for NEXT TO NOTHING and IGNORED that bastard we have in the White House and Bill Clinton. Now that partisan lying phony is trying to screw another conservative.
Woodward should be tied to four horses and the remains boiled in oil. He is no journalist. He is an active promoter of a liberal left-wing agenda beyond any extreme of his contemporaries.
Don't blame Teddy Roosevelt. The first anti-trust law was passed in 1890, three presidents before Teddy Roosevelt and for very good reason. John D. Rockefeller, among others, were the George Soros of their era who were doing all sorts of nasty things to gain absolute control over the economy and the politicians which regulated it. I give a lot of credit to Grover Cleveland and Teddy Roosevelt for seeing through this ruse and cracking down as needed.
A favorite trick of crony capitalists has always been to hamstring the system, claim it doesn't work and then replace it with something which they can control to their advantage.
Free trade is another such example. It is a superb and true concept as preached by Adam Smith. Not so much as perverted by NAFTA and the TPP.
I’ve heard that 38% of United States online sales are now through Amazon - pretty close to becoming a de facto monopoly.
You must have failed reading class and economics class. Adam Smith's the Wealth Of Nations clearly warns against anti-trusts. Please don't spread that BS again.
Thanks.
Adam Smith in his own words:
The interest of the dealers [referring to stock owners, manufacturers, and merchants], however, in any particular branch of trade or manufacture, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, and absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens. (Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1991), pages 219-220)
That may be true, but the fact is that it is a valid law that has been enforced in other cases. If the behavior breaks the law, then it should be prosecuted. If the law is itself wrong, it should be repealed, but must still be enforced while on the books.
Second of all, it sounds like Trump is threatening to use government power to attack his political enemies — a la Bill Clinton and even Barack Obama.
I disagree with your second reason. By enforcing the law, he is not using government authority to threaten - he is applying the law as written. The abuse of power comes in the form of extra-legal activities, such as the FBI files (for Clinton) and the IRS targeting of conservative groups (for Obama).
Now, if the preponderance of the evidence precludes a valid charge under the existing law (that is, if the law is being stretched to cover a situation that it doesn't actually fit), then using the law becomes a political exercise.
Adam Smith warned against monopolies/trusts. It is completely pro capitalist and free market to regulate such things. I don’t know where this nonsense idea came from that monopolies are acceptable in a free market. It did not come from Adam Smith, that is for sure.
Adam Smith warned against monopolies. Any one who says regulating monopolies is against a free market is not espousing Adam Smith - I don’t know who they are espousing - maybe that whack job Ayn Rand - I don’t know.
Better than him falsely believing their friendship can be bought in any way.
In an ideal fantasy world Bezos would be a conservative supporting Trump. Bezos is a helluva salesman. I use Amazon a lot but I get so sick of these internet billionaires towing the progressive line.
I am not opposed to Bezos’ Amazon having a low tax rate. But I am opposed to Bezos using WAPO as a propaganda tool against Trump.
Trump has a knack for taking down his enemies. I will be at a loss if Amazon begins to disintegrate and they very well could. It would start by them jacking up their prices, removing services and features, laying off employees. It could happen similarly to what happened to eBay under Meg whatchamacallit.
I don’t know about Bezo’ antitrust problem. Perhaps a Freeper or two can summarize that.
Monopolies essentially become public companies because they are too big to fail and the taxpayer is ultimately on the hook for them, as we learned back in 2007-8.
I like that he is pointing out the WP purchase for ehat it is.
I like that he is pointing out the WP purchase for ehat it is.
Trump is amazing. He takes on any opponent, including those who are richer than him.
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Think that Conservatism allows for and sometimes requires reasonable and limited regulation of the free market to render it fair.
Trust busting came along because of robber barons in the early Twentieth Century. We have the same issue these days with huge corporations killing competition and screwing the middle class.
Woodward said Bezos told him to put 20 reporters to research background on Trump to make sure the voters are informed.
How about 20 reporters on the the masses of people coming across our borders?
How about 20 reporters to show the impact of trade policy on lost middle class jobs.
Yes. Anyone who buys office supplies can see that this merger is probably not in their interest. Besides millions of private citizens this also includes lots of companies and various levels of government.
And how about at least 1 reporter for that little sheeite HC? Guess not.
The interest of the dealers [referring to stock owners, manufacturers, and merchants], however, in any particular branch of trade or manufacture, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, and absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens. (Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1991), pages 219-220)
Notice he called monopolies an "absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens".
". . . If competition is viewed as a dynamic, rivalrous process of entrepreneurship, then the fact that a single producer happens to have the lowest costs at any one point in time is of little or no consequence. The enduring forces of competition — including potential competition — will render free-market monopoly an impossibility."
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