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 ...
What would Maxine Waters do about Amazon?
Believe it or not, I have no business school background at all. But I've been in the management side of the engineering business for more than two decades, and everything new I need to learn about business I can usually get from other smart people right here on FreeRepublic. :-)
True, but you have to remember what Amazon’s core business is. And it ain’t the website. Their core business is acquisition, largely of technology, but also of efficiency, and whatever seems interesting. Basically it’s a two fold thing: think of anything that could make the internet “better”, and think of anything that could be made “better” via the internet. That’s Amazon’s business. This is their 76th acquisition, for a 24 year old company that kind of insane. And remember they’re acquiring not just expanding, in that acquisition they’re getting people that know this business. That could be another reason for this acquisition, their expansion into grocery wasn’t going as well as they wanted, so they bought some experts.
Yep. I agree. Some people want to use government to punish companies they don’t like.
“Were you not paying attention when Google manipulated the election in 2012 by using their massive data base for microtargeting of potential voters?”
Lol.
“The corporate army is the government army.”
Lol.
Tighten up the tinfoil hat dude.
The rumor floating around today is that Amazon may be interested in acquiring GrubHub. For a company engaged in innovation and efficiency, that actually seems like a better fit than a mid-sized grocery chain that caters to a high-end clientele.
They can make that in the big metro areas but I am not sure about the rest of the country.
Really really really?
What a great idea! Let’s punish success! Punish hard work! Why should anyone have more than his neighbor?
I’ve heard it was one of the grocery delivery places like HomeChef. GrubHub’s really a natural fit into what they’ve already been doing, especially with self delivery, give those Amazon drivers something else to do. Problem for GrubHub is they’re so dependent on the restaurants, it’s not a bad business. HomeChef (or one of their kind) though, when coupled with a grocery store, and your own drivers is powerful. Then of course for both those remember Amazon is one of the big players in self driving cars, and now you see why, all this self delivery stuff gets even more interesting then.
Google, facebook, twitter, microsoft, etc. pulled out the stops to get that treasonous harpy elected.
Including censoring posts, searches, ‘news’, etc.
Pull your head out of your puckered sphincter, dude.
“Not yet, but...” “will eventually come...” “will control...” “will march...”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything is “will”, “will”, “will” because you’re just fantasizing based on your fears, rather than the actual current reality.
“You are really stuck on that “free market” theology.”
You’re calling capitalism a “theology”, derisively, on FR? Wrong website, man.
“You are speaking in the manner of someone that does not comprehend the threat that monopolies constitute.”
I’ve never said they don’t pose a threat, but people like you use the specter of monopolies simply to bash any successful business they don’t like, even when they are far from approaching the definition of a monopoly. I guess you think it makes you sound less like a leftist.
“Google, facebook, twitter, microsoft, etc. pulled out the stops to get that treasonous harpy elected.”
Hmm, we all cheered the Citizens United decision as a victory for free speech, but when some corporations use their speech to support a leftie we should cry foul? Nope, not doing it.
I’ll vote with my wallet against those corporations, but I’m not going to be a damned hypocrite and start condemning the system just because it doesn’t always favor our side.
“Amazon deliveries will soon be done within hours by its own trucks, drones and drivers. “
I’ve already received 2 ot the Amazon deliveries——but there is a problem
I live in a secure apartment building and UPS,FedEX,and USPS have a code to get inside to the mailroom.
We won’t give it to Amazon because they use part-time drivers who work as independent contractors and they change constantly. They sometimes leave packages in the outer lobby,which anyone can enter.
.
“However, if Amazon conducts online business better than anyone else and grows and grows and makes customers and investors happy, this is not a monopoly. There is nothing to “fix” here.”
That in and of itself isn’t the problem. The problem is the massive amounts of money these companies amass and what they end up using it for in the political arena. There is no reason Bezos should “own” the Washington Post. And that “entertainment companies” should own media outlets. Fine for Amazon to provide you with internet shopping. Not fine that Amazon should be able to use it’s profits to tell you how to think.
I can't tell if you're complaining about Free Markets or Free Speech.
Either way, I'm prepared to accept people doing stuff I don't like -- just so long as what they are doing involves voluntary action and not government coercion.
“I can’t tell if you’re complaining about Free Markets or Free Speech.”
I’m not complaining about either. All I am saying is that these people use the money that they make to inordinately influence people. Taken to the extreme, we will have a few dozen uber rich, who end up owning virtually everything and in so doing, end up being our masters. Is that o.k. with you? Unfortunately, the Founding Fathers could not have envisioned what has happened with “free enterprise,” and as a consequence, “free speech.” Do you really think men like Tom Steyer, should be “free” to use their $25 billion to subvert the country? We need to shed our oligarchs if we plan on keeping our individual freedoms.
“What would Maxine Waters do about Amazon?”
Demand that Bezos turn the company over to some black a$$hole like Obola.
Money is power.
You have repeatedly suggested that the "power" of a company that has (in your opinion) gotten "too big" needs to be "reallocated" among the people. This belief is at the heart of the communist ideal. Those who "have not" covet those who "have" so they band together to steal it while disguising their theft as a "return of the power to the people."
Monopolies *only* exist with the authority to use force - not against the public, but against their competition. Any company that becomes a monopoly does so not because they get too big and then begin wielding force, they do so because the guns of government are already standing behind them in the form of corporate tax loopholes, government contracts, research grants, licensing restrictions, wage laws, union contracts, labor laws, and oceans of other laws, rules, and regulations that fence off the ability of smaller competitors to enter the market.
You can't fix a problem with more of the problem any more than you an fix cancer with more cancer. You have to excise it.
You want to end monopolies? Get the government out of the business of doing business.
I’d rather break up the media, who is doing a job of damaging America than Amazon. If DeplorableAmerican Inc discovered a new fuel source called Deploraum and I found out that my 8 MPG Ferrari could go 1000 MPG on it and I decided that only ConservaTeen can sell it, that is a monopoly. If I decided that Amazon, Ford, Haas Stewart and ConservaTeen can sell it through franchises that is not a monopoly.
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