I have said many times that Trump is not a real conservative and this is more proof of that. Folks, I'm sorry if you lost your job to someone doing something a better way than you. Really. But either find a way to beat them or get a new fucking job! Do not run to government to save you from your out of date and not cost effective practices. Add more value SOMEHOW! I'm sorry if that means you have to re-think where and how you do business but that's what progress is all about. Or did you just think that progress was for everyone else to scramble after and that retail should be able to continue to do things the same inefficient way they have been done for hundreds of years?
On one count I will sympathize with you: Amazon certainly benefits from our use of fiat currency. They can afford to take on debt as needed in order to expand and that would not be nearly so easy if real money were in play because they would have to contend with much higher interest rates. So there's that. But asking government to come save you from someone who is working the system better than you are is unAmerican. At least it used to be and in fact it will be again someday as the pendulum swings conservative again.
As Trump attacks Amazon he is really attacking the consumer. I love the price, choice and service I get from Amazon and if the USPS makes dumb money losing deals with them then fire USPS losers and get someone in there who can negotiate a fair deal. But don't demonize Amazon for being good at the same Art of the Deal that Trump claims to be good at. You see, Amazon is doing exactly what Trump would do if he could. This again points to Trump being very liberal since it is liberal to promote do as I say and not as I do.
If Trump begins to attack Amazon with sanctions then who do you think wins? Retailers???? NO!! Maybe it allows retailers to raise prices but consumers are already stretched. They can't just keep digging deeper and deeper to pay the higher prices of the less efficient retailers. And if government forces this than it is nothing more than socialism: robbing Peter to pay Paul and in the course of this, picking winners and losers. Government needs to stay out of the economy! The free market knows what it wants and the free market wants low prices. Anyone who cannot compete in the current retail market should not beg government to be their bodyguard. They should get better or get out.
Hi Cap’n
ReplyDeleteAnother opinion having merit regarding the long term. I’m as laissez faire as anyone, but the future of capitalism could be a bleak one if left completely unfettered and naked to potential retail monopolies like what Bezos is driving for...
“As Bill Simon, former CEO of Walmart US, said Congress should look into splitting up Amazon.
"They're not making money in retail, and they're putting retailers out of business," Simon told CNBC.
Simon said Amazon has operated its retail segment at a loss while relying on more profitable business segments - like Amazon Web Services - to offset these losses. The company's explicit goal is to drive its competitors out of business before seizing their market share.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-30/its-destroying-jobs-and-destroying-value-former-walmart-us-ceo-explains-why-trump
Everyone thinks it's OK to do something stupid in order to "solve" some kind of perceived issue. Hey, people were suffering in Iraq under Saddam so let's go in and start a war that killed hundreds of thousands of innocents including women and children. A lot of people said that the end justified the means. I say that corrupt is corrupt regardless.
ReplyDeleteDid wal mart not have a chance to branch off into web services? Did they not understand basic rules of business diversification so that they could not be beaten up in their sector by profits from another?? They knew all these tricks and tactics but they didn't do anything about it. So I don't care what they say, AMZN did what it took to get in their position and asking government to redistribute the profits that have resulted from their better strategy is socialism. Soon we will be hearing politicians say we have to embrace socialism in order to save capitalism!
And one more thing. We don't have capitalism. Capitalism requires that there be capital in the system. We don't have any because all of our "money" is debt notes. This is why things are not working like people expect they should under capitalism. But with that said, all these people play on the same field. Its a bit late in the game for retailers to cry foul simply because they sat on their asses when Amazon was eating their lunches.