Amazon Eats Up Whole Foods as the New Masters of the Universe Plunder America

Daily Beast ^ | June 19, 2017 | Joel Kotkin

[C19fan]

With his $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has made clear his determination to dominate every facet of mass retailing, likely at the cost of massive layoffs in the $800 billion supermarket sector. But this, if anything, understates the ambitions of America’s new ruling class, almost entirely based in San Francisco and Seattle, as it moves to take over industries from entertainment and transportation to energy and space exploration that once thrived and competed outside the reach of the oligarchy.

[discostu]

Amazon has been moving into the last mile a lot lately. With their own delivery drivers, drones. I see this as that, also they’ve been dabbling in groceries. And they make tons of money, they just reinvest it. At this point Amazon is an acquisition company, according to Crunchbase this is their 76th acquisition.

[boycott]

THe lack of inventory is a tax issue as inventory is a taxable asset.

—

Good observation.

In many cases, Amazon doesn’t own their inventory. Manufacturer puts cosigned products in Amazon warehouses so Amazon isn’t picking up the tab for the taxes on inventory.

[Jane Long]

In NYC, and much of the surrounding area, FreshDirect has the lion’s share of the grocery delivery business. Their delivery trucks line up for MANY city blocks, each morning.

I see this WF purchase as a way for Bezos to (attempt to) dominate THAT market, as well. He started with AmazonFresh and will now perhaps attempt to incorporate the ‘whole food’ reputation of WF, into his grocery delivery program.

The FreshDirect delivery people are friendly and professional looking, AFAI have seen. AmazonFresh....not so much :(

[oh8eleven]

They don’t have a monopoly on any commodity.
Actually, they won't need one - all they have to do is have a monopoly in a service area, say all the red states, then decide they won't sell a given food product.
Look at what the cable companies have done - agreed amongst themselves not to "invade" a competitor's area ... and they can gouge their customers all they want.

[discostu]

They won’t get that either. Whole Foods has a minuscule percentage of any market. And their stores are too small to seriously compete.

Cable companies are a utility, they CAN’T invade competitors area, not unless the local government decides they can.

[aquila48]

Obviously I am nowhere near as smart as Bezos, but I just don’t get what exactly he’s going to do with Whole Foods or how it will grow Amazon’s business. Is he going to undercut Costco, Kroger, Walmart? Is he going to use drones to deliver groceries?

Or could it be that this is a dumb move on his part - like going into the cell phone business?

[oh8eleven]

They won’t get ... they CAN’T invade ...
Yeah, famous last words.

[discostu]

Truth is truth, sorry you find it to inconvenient to bother to understand. But out here in reality Whole Foods is a small grocer that only lives in large metro areas with lots of competition. And cable is governed as a utility and their region is decided by the local government.

[Captain Peter Blood]

Amazon does not cash on hand for any acquisitions so it is borrowing to do so. If they wanted a better nexus in states and distribution system in place I wonder why they didn't buy Dollar General with 12,000 stores?

[minnesota_bound]

Whole Foods employees are worried about losing their jobs to robots.
Lower prices will mean lower pay for those still left.

[Steamburg]

The same titles that were used to break up Ma Bell and several other conglomerates are still on the books. The only problem is the pigs are sucking at the tits and they know that this conglomerate owns the media.

[CincyRichieRich]

Not sure what Bezos has in mind for Whole Foods, but it’s a sure bet the next generation of those stores will include some kind of delivery outlet for Amazon. He’d be better served finding a way to significantly cut prices at Whole Foods; the “whole paycheck” joke is pretty accurate and gimmicks like offering discounts to Amazon Prime customers won’t work very well with customers who need grab a few items for their evening meal. And most of them don’t want to pay the Prime subscription fee to save a little bit on “upscale” groceries.

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I’m looking to buy Kroger stock at a lower price...also, I’ve seen liberals are angry at Amazon on this...my sister included...funny they are angry at liberal Bezos for their liberal company buying Whole Foods, a liberal company...makes one’s head spin at the volume of hypocrisy.