Posted on 06/20/2017 6:59:59 AM PDT by Callahan
“Amazon just bought Whole Foods,” my friend texted me seconds after the announcement of the proposed acquisition. “It’s over. The world.”
This unease is widespread, and has raised new calls for breaking up Jeff Bezos’s impending monopoly by force. Surely the company, which now generates 30% of all online and offline retail sales growth in the United States, and already controls 40% of internet cloud services, has reached too far. The 3% hike in Amazon’s share price since the announcement—which would alone more than pay for the acquisition—may attest less to the deal’s appropriateness than to investors’ growing fear that missing out on Amazon means missing out on the future of the economy.
Whatever you may think of Jeff Bezos, and whether or not antitrust regulations can justifiably be applied to a company whose expansion doesn’t raise but actually lowers costs for end consumers, may be beside the point. Many of us get that something is amiss, but are ourselves so deeply enmeshed in the logic of last century’s version of free-market industrial capitalism that we can’t quite bring ourselves to call this out for the threat it poses to our markets, our economy, and even our planet.
(Excerpt) Read more at fastcompany.com ...
If that’s Kroger’s cap they’re seriously undervalued. They had $115 billion in revenue last year, no way they’re selling for less than a year’s revenue. I suppose you could go hostile, but that drives up the stock price.
No one is going to be able to match their economies of scale. That is entirely a function of how much product they move, and once a threshold is achieved, it will then become impossible to offer prices lower than the behemoth who currently has most of the market.
They can reduce their profit margin lower than your cost of doing business.
As I said before I’ve moved over to Walmart online.
Ping.
That is the situation now, although not so much with Jeff Bezos.
Were you not paying attention when Google manipulated the election in 2012 by using their massive data base for microtargeting of potential voters?
The corporate army is the government army. Especially under corrupt fools like Barack Obama. It is simply loaned out as necessary to do whatever the influential people feel need to be done.
I don't think you comprehend the threat posed by wealth and power rivaling that of governments.
They won’t expand for delivery. That’s why they’re going Uber style for a lot of deliveries, no expansion necessary, it’s just for hire piece work. Then you add drones. And of course a lot of the country they just won’t bother with on that, it’ll just be in the major metro areas where they have warehouses, and Uber.
On some items, I wonder how they are making any money.
Which they may not be.
While I agee with you, it largely doesn’t matter as their corporate masters probably wouldn’t allow it. Like with most ideas limiting government it’s a non starter as the corporate/billionaire side of the opinion gets what they want.
No no. Comcast should be broken up with artillery.
I’ll bite. Bezos bought the Brand. Think about the typical Whole Foods shopper.
Of course that Whole Foods moniker will be nothing more than just a name after 6 months.
"We"? Who's that?
It's not government, which is also a single entity which has already aggregated too much power. The idea that "we" are the government is a candy coating that totalitarian wannabes use to feed the rest of us their poison pill of dictatorship.
And it does matter very much how somebody gets power. If he does it by providing a better service than everybody else, then so be it. Such is the reward of success.
It's a temporary thing, though. What one does well, some other will eventually do better, and a new player may replace the old.
But, you may say, they don't, or can't, because the existing monopoly will squeeze it out. Well, again, it depends on "how". If the old dog answers the challenge by improving service yet more, then no problem. That is what drives the quality of goods and services in a free market.
It's when a monopoly maintains its position by illegitimate means (and history provides plenty of examples) that there is a problem. The focus changes from the service or goods provided to the customers, to making sure that no other source is available. In the old days, robber barons used goon squads and labor strikes against their competitors, boycotts against upstream vendors, many such underhanded tactics "in restraint of trade", as they are categorized.
Those tactics are illegal, and since those days, law has been spelled out to allow government to sanction such practices. There was a time when it did just that.
Nowadays, the myrmidons of DC have decided that it's too much like work to fight illegal restraint of trade, and more profitable to come to terms with monopolists. Not that they ignore the possible uses of the law when some upstart entrepreneur threatens to crash the party. Remember how they turned the hounds loose on Microsoft (for good cause), and also remember how quickly that all just "went away" with a few "burnt offerings" at the proper altars?
"We" just need to break up the monopolistic government ("drain the swamp") and the existing monopolistic businesses that depend on it to maintain their positions will have to sink or swim.
Ain't no sech thang as "too big to fail!"
The media, judges, lawyers loyal to one party and a leftist ideology.
That, my friends, is how America goes nazi germany. Watch sophie scholls on youtube for how that turns out for the people.
Yes. We are going Nazi, and some of us are too naive to see it happening. I am trying to wake people up to the fact that the conditions which created Nazi Germany are currently working now to create Nazi America. (Without the Nationalism.)
The whole system is slowly being taken over by Socialists. The Amoral version of Capitalism is slowly selling them the rope with which to hang them.
And this is a point I think I need to emphasize. Adam Smith recognized that an immoral capitalism would do evil things. This is why he and Edmund Burke believed that people must restrain their baser instincts or they must be forceably restrained by outside forces.
Fair enough.
Just ordered a chicken and an egg from Amazon. Well we shall soon see
I agree 100%!!!! Also the writer would be best served to understanding that because a company corners a market through growth and innovation does not make said company a Monopoly. A Monopoly is perfectly legal up to the point they use that monopolistic power to illegally take advantage of its customers.
While I don’t agree with his politics he offers an excellent and convenient product! If there is something better out there then stop whaling, crying, moping and flat out b!!!ch!ng. Go out and creat better.
Like I need the Governemnt to break up a perfectly run outfit so it can bring in its hammer of justice and pick winners and losers
I see trouble ahead with some of this. I work with clients all the time who run into problems when they try to work outside their core business and take on tasks that others have spent decades refining and perfecting.
You win for the day! I could tell by your comment that you have a college business background. This is the first thing you learn in business school! Also that monopolies are not illegal if not abused. I see many defending break up do so with no knowledge of business or business law.
They chant break it up out of emotion with no understanding of the economics behind their screed
As I see it, Amazon's biggest challenge is that it is operating in an industry that is nearly 100% "commoditized" -- meaning it is nothing more than a cheap service where customers expect it to be almost free, and where there is no distinction among brands for customer loyalty.
That would make sense, except that Amazon is operating in a business built on mass-market appeal, not a high-end customer base.
The Free Market can take care of itself.
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