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Break up Amazon before it does any more damage to America
NY POST ^ | 10/9/18 | Maureen Callahan

Posted on 10/10/2018 9:54:11 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper

....Author, entrepreneur and NYU business professor Scott Galloway has emerged as one of Amazon’s fiercest critics. At last month’s Recode Code Commerce, Galloway gave a 45-minute talk on the future of retail that savaged Amazon and warned of the threats the company poses not just economically but philosophically and morally.

“I believe our society is effectively going through this very uncomfortable transition that is bad for our youth, bad for America and bad for the planet where we no longer worship at the altar of character and kindness,” he said. “We worship at the altar of innovators and billionaires.”

In his best-selling book “The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google,” Galloway cites some arresting statistics: Far fewer U.S. households have a gun than Amazon Prime, by 30 to 64 percent. More Americans have Prime than voted in 2016 (55 percent), or earn $50,000 or more a year (55 percent), or go to church (51 percent). He calls Amazon’s ability to woo Prime subscribers at a $119 yearly cost the equivalent of “entering into a monogamous relationship” with its consumers, who as of 2016 spent, on average, $193 per month. (Non-Prime members average $138 per month.)

From 2006 to 2016 Amazon’s stock price growth surged by 1,910 percent, destroying Sears, J.C. Penney, Kmart, Best Buy, Macy’s, Nordstrom, Target and Walmart.

Perhaps most importantly: Since the Great Recession, Amazon has paid just $1.4 billion in corporate taxes compared to Walmart’s $64 billion.

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: amazon; antitrust; apple; ecommerce; economy; facebook; google; jobs
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I am not a genius, but I would like to hear arguments on both sides.
1 posted on 10/10/2018 9:54:11 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper
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To: SoFloFreeper

I am in agreement with Professor Galloway.

I’ve always been an advocate of multitudes of small, ‘Mom and Pop’ stores vs. a few mega large corporations. For reasons of increased competition and nobody has much control over the market.

But today these corporations are facilitating the destruction of the United States as intended to be by our Founders. The anti-American drums beat constantly in schools, media, movies, in the human resources department and corporate board rooms.

Power without virtue; influence without wisdom will end in disaster for us.

Bust the Trust!


2 posted on 10/10/2018 10:03:53 AM PDT by MichaelCorleone (Jesus Christ is not a religion. He's the Truth.)
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To: SoFloFreeper

Modern Day Robber Barons.....


3 posted on 10/10/2018 10:05:07 AM PDT by Paladin2
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To: SoFloFreeper

If we have moral problems related to an officially neutral agent like Amazon, we need to get our God game back on. Now Amazon can be addressed in a godly manner. Worldliness will kill us if we don’t let God kill it first. Temptations to do what we don’t want to do will fail.


4 posted on 10/10/2018 10:05:14 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Tryin' hard to win the No-Bull Prize.)
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To: SoFloFreeper

I agree. And we need to confiscate as much of their wealth as possible do to anti competitive and discriminatory practices. Enough letting other side dictate the terms. Its total war time


5 posted on 10/10/2018 10:06:02 AM PDT by cdpap
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To: SoFloFreeper

I agree. And we need to confiscate as much of their wealth as possible do to anti competitive and discriminatory practices. Enough letting other side dictate the terms. Its total war time


6 posted on 10/10/2018 10:06:28 AM PDT by cdpap
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To: MichaelCorleone

Big World can only fail in the face of a big God.


7 posted on 10/10/2018 10:06:46 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Tryin' hard to win the No-Bull Prize.)
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To: cdpap

Boy that sure sounds like pulling a page or 12 from the secular liberal book!

How about turning our show back over to the good Lord?


8 posted on 10/10/2018 10:08:22 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Tryin' hard to win the No-Bull Prize.)
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To: SoFloFreeper

No argument here if they decided to break his monopoly up. Standard Oil, ATT-Bell, Microsoft, International Harvester, all of these made for a better country when the anti-trust laws were implemented.

(More households have Amazon prime than firearms in America now? Wow...)


9 posted on 10/10/2018 10:08:58 AM PDT by Abathar (Proudly posting without reading the article carefully since 2004)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

I don’t follow.


10 posted on 10/10/2018 10:11:39 AM PDT by MichaelCorleone (Jesus Christ is not a religion. He's the Truth.)
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To: Abathar

I’d differ in part about AT&T. Whatever else it brought us as monopoly, quality was high among those things. I watched proud American telecom decay over decades into yet another made-in-China commodity whose agents can’t even help a guy pay his phone bill without bringing in a copy of it. For shame. Genericizing Amazon will do the same.


11 posted on 10/10/2018 10:18:38 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Tryin' hard to win the No-Bull Prize.)
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To: MichaelCorleone

Study your own tag well.


12 posted on 10/10/2018 10:19:07 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Tryin' hard to win the No-Bull Prize.)
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To: cdpap

“I agree. And we need to confiscate as much of their wealth as possible...”

Um, you must have made a wrong turn at Mother Jones, comrade.

Also looking into seizing the means of production too?


13 posted on 10/10/2018 10:19:54 AM PDT by VanDeKoik
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To: HiTech RedNeck

Not interested in playing cat and mouse games. If you want to clarify what you mean, please do so.

If not, then have a nice day.


14 posted on 10/10/2018 10:22:06 AM PDT by MichaelCorleone (Jesus Christ is not a religion. He's the Truth.)
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To: SoFloFreeper

This is ridiculous. Amazon has prevented people from going to church and restrained their salaries? No. This guy is all over the map.

And I’ll assume, when he says “destroyed” those companies, that he means in terms of stock price performance. That would be true, but clearly that’s not been caused entirely (or at all) by Amazon.

Sears, JC Penny and Kmart were killed by Walmart and Sam’s Club and to a lesser extent Costco. Walmart’s stock is at a 52 week high and coming off one of their best quarters in recent memory.

There’s still plenty of competition for Amazon including the aforementioned Walmart, Target, Costco, Best Buy, Sam’s, Wayfair, etc... all billion dollar entities. So Amazon isn’t a monopoly. (yet) But I hate government interference in business. Don’t like Amazon, do what they do only better? Why punish them for being successful and developing a novel business model that no one else thought of or implemented as well? Which brings me to my next point.

Taxes. Walmart is incredibly profitable and has been for decades. Amazon only recently became profitable. They’re a young company with (I’ll imagine) a boatload of NOL’s to carryforward and use. This isn’t Amazon’s fault. It’s like the crap they leveled at Trump during the election. Don’t like the tax laws? Elect people that will change them. But don’t bitch when taxpayers take advantage of the laws as written. I do taxes for a living and would be fired if I suggested a course of action for the company to my boss that didn’t result in the least amount of taxes the company would pay. What company would do that? What idiot would recommend it?

Amazon is big because they are good. Not because they are evil. Sometimes we’re a bit too paranoid.


15 posted on 10/10/2018 10:23:06 AM PDT by TangledUpInBlue
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To: VanDeKoik

Socialism is an attempt to solve a godlessness problem without God. It flees devil A by rushing to devil B.


16 posted on 10/10/2018 10:23:33 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Tryin' hard to win the No-Bull Prize.)
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To: MichaelCorleone

Then stop fleeing God. Now THAT is the stupid “cat and mouse” game you are embroiled in.


17 posted on 10/10/2018 10:24:36 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Tryin' hard to win the No-Bull Prize.)
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To: SoFloFreeper

Amazon built their success.

Let them keep what they built.


18 posted on 10/10/2018 10:26:51 AM PDT by Blue House Sue
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To: HiTech RedNeck

“Fleeing God”?

You must be thinking of someone else. And even if you’re not, you have no way of knowing what my relationship is with Jesus Christ.

But thanks anyway.


19 posted on 10/10/2018 10:27:42 AM PDT by MichaelCorleone (Jesus Christ is not a religion. He's the Truth.)
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To: SoFloFreeper

NOT YET, PLEASE...

I’ve got like 5 Amazon packages coming tomorrow.


20 posted on 10/10/2018 10:27:48 AM PDT by moovova ( I hope Associate Justice Kavanaugh is one vindictive SOB.)
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