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Amazon, big and evil
    1. Amazon destroys more jobs than it creates.
      Brick-and-mortar retailers employ 47 people for every $10 million in sales, according to the U.S. Economic Census. (If you exclude chains and look just at independent retailers, the figure is even higher — 52 jobs.) But Amazon employs only 14 people per $10 million in revenue. As Amazon grows and takes market share from other retailers, the result is a decline in jobs, not a gain.

    2. Most Amazon jobs are awful.
      How does Amazon manage to sell so much stuff with so few workers? The online giant is technologically efficient, but it also excels at squeezing a back-breaking amount of labor out of its employees. Amazon’s workplace abuses, including life-threatening temperatures inside its warehouses, injury-inducing workloads, and [abusive] guards, have been well-documented by investigative journalists.

    3. Amazon pilfers value created elsewhere in the economy.
      Another way Amazon gets by with such a small workforce is by leaning on the services provided by brick-and-mortar stores. Through its mobile app, Amazon actively encourages consumers to try-out merchandise in stores and then buy online. This allows Amazon to free-ride on the value created by other businesses. Take books, for example. Amazon now accounts for more than half of book sales. But, if you ask Amazon book shoppers where they learned about a book, only rarely is the answer Amazon. Far more often, according to research by Codex Group, they discovered the book while browsing in an actual bookstore.
      A similar dynamic is at play across a wide variety of products, from toys to cameras. The threat Amazon’s free-riding poses to the U.S. economy is that, over time, brick-and-mortar stores will no longer be around to showcase new products, depriving both consumers and manufacturers of a valuable service that stimulates demand and innovation.

    4. Amazon drains dollars from local economies.
      Amazon provides virtually no jobs or economic benefits to the vast majority of communities from which it derives its revenue. This stands in stark contrast to local retailers. Several case studies have found that about $45 of every $100 you spend at locally owned stores stays in your community, supporting other businesses and jobs. (Local retailers buy many goods and services, like printing and accounting, from other local businesses; their employees spend most of their earnings locally; and so on.)
      While the figure for national chain stores is considerably smaller, it’s almost zero for Amazon. In most cities and towns, save for a small amount paid to delivery drivers and perhaps a few third-party sellers using Amazon’s platform, all of the money residents spend at Amazon leaves their local economy, never to return.

    5. Amazon costs taxpayers. Amazon’s growth has come at a significant cost to taxpayers. The company has been demanding special tax rebates and subsidies as it expands. It recently received an $8.5 million subsidy to build a warehouse in Delaware, a $2 million grant to expand in Indiana, and more than $10 million worth of tax incentives to open the Chattanooga facilities President Obama was visiting.
      These deals are on top of the enormous financial advantage Amazon has enjoyed by virtue of not having to collect sales taxes in most of the country for the better part of two decades. That advantage is slowly coming to an end, but, over the years, it cost states and cities billions of dollars in lost revenue, while forcing local retailers to compete with one hand tied behind their backs.
      The future Amazon has in mind for our country is a far cry from the middle class prosperity President Obama has been seeking. A better place to look would be along Main Street, among the new generation of independent businesses, small-scale manufacturers, local food producers, and others that are beginning to chart a much more viable path from here to there.

    Via: Research by the Institute for Local Self Reliance

  • 20 Replies sorted by
  • My Romanian neice works for Amazon in IT. She likes the job itself but no doubt her wages are lower in comparison to similar work outside of Romania.

  • @Mimirsan

    Problem is not if she likes it. Problem is that happens. As not only their retail things sucks in general (but looks initially very good for customer). Also their cloud services make pressure and making waves of support staff reductions at hosting companies.

  • Amazon destroys more jobs than it creates. How is this really their fault? every business tries to cut overhead. amazon discovered a very good model to do this. With internet, this was inevitable, whether it's amazon or not.

    Most Amazon jobs are awful. It also excels at squeezing a back-breaking amount of labor out of its employees. :) delete 'amazon' and replace with your choice of company you want to criticize

    Amazon pilfers value created elsewhere in the economy. This is a shame, but a fairly natural evolution. Not amazon's fault. People rarely take responsibility for their actions. instead blame a corporation. If i look at a book in a bookstore, i'll generally buy it there. i value having discovered it in a store and invest in that store so that i can in the future. Take responsibility for where you put your money. If I want to buy the new Malcolm Gladwell book, i don't need to discover it, i'll pop on amazon and buy it. I buy FAR more books because of amazon. i just wouldn't get to a store to buy otherwise. I use amazon for convenience not for price, i am lucky. But those who do use for price, well, good for amazon. maybe they are allowing more people to read because their books are a little cheaper.

    Amazon drains dollars from local economies. Again, personal responsibility. Who says the money people SAVE on amazon doesn't go back into the local community? a coffee here, a meal out there. extra swimming pool sessions for the kids etc. Maybe local sellers should give more incentive to people to shop at their stores.

    Amazon costs taxpayers. They also saved taxpayers by not charging tax :)

    The future Amazon has in mind for our country is a far cry from the middle class prosperity President Obama has been seeking. A better place to look would be along Main Street, among the new generation of independent businesses, small-scale manufacturers, local food producers, and others that are beginning to chart a much more viable path from here to there.

    welcome to the world we live in. things don't stay the same.

  • The future Amazon has in mind for our country is a far cry from the middle class prosperity President Obama has been seeking.

    I don't think I can take any of this research by these people seriously now. It's downright delusional to still believe Obama is "seeking" anything that resembles middle class prosperity. Obamacare is the nail in the coffin on the US middle-class unless it's repealed immediately in 2016. If it wasn't obvious already, they're not trying to do anything bedsides collapse the world's economies' and issue a global currency with the centralized elite-Statism that fallows.

    As far as the Amazon stuff goes, well, they're basically a-moral. Their is no hidden "evil agenda", as this information makes it seem. It's absurd to believe that companies and businesses can profit from destruction. This is not how trade works... It's just propaganda again. Business and (most) corporations will lose their wealth as the wealth of the people drop, it's not in their interest to "oppress" people, as much as many people believe it is. Only government and the state actually benefits from taking away wealth and keeping people poor and dependent.

    What were actually seeing here is a problem... but not really anyone's fault. Again, it's just natural progress as our technological level moves forward. Amazon's services are better for consumers to acquiring goods. That's it. Brick-and-Morter retail has much higher resource consumption and takes too much unnecessary man-hours that can simply be done by computers (like most jobs now). I don't like that people are losing their jobs... but it's still not in the best interest of society to just "keep" unnecessary labor for the sake of it. Energy for the buildings cost more, maintenance costs more, theft is higher, higher carbon footprint, more pollution, more stress on city infrastructure... ect. If we don't adapt every once in a while, the cost of keeping old labor and inefficient production around will become too high to bear... economically and environmentally.

  • Business and (most) corporations will lose their wealth as the wealth of the people drop, it's not in their interest to "oppress" people, as much as many people believe it is. Only government and the state actually benefits from taking away wealth and keeping people poor and dependent.

    Here we go again. Statistics published do not support your POV. I also suggest to work in one of them to understand that is in their interests :-)

    Again, personal responsibility. Who says the money people SAVE on amazon doesn't go back into the local community? a coffee here, a meal out there. extra swimming pool sessions for the kids etc. Maybe local sellers should give more incentive to people to shop at their stores

    I think you never ran actual shop . And it'll be surprise that Amazon actually pays much smaller amount in taxes using optimizations, special agreements, and offshore schemes. Btw, it is also true for many companies who sell via Amazon site.

    Again, it's just natural progress as our technological level moves forward. Amazon's services are better for consumers to acquiring goods. That's it. Brick-and-Morter retail has much higher resource consumption and takes too much unnecessary man-hours that can simply be done by computers (like most jobs now).

    And this is ultra liberal stuff. This people do not disappear, some now live on government money and do not work, most use food stamps and work on bad work that absolutely do not use their skills. So, it is corporations that force you and government to support this people and it is corporations that turns healthy neighborhood into crack dealers paradise.

    Issue is - it is wrong view to think that peoples goal is to cut and optimize everything.

  • Survival of the fittest. The brick and mortar man can close down his shop and turn virtual. There are lots of online scams. But there are also many legit businesses that give clients good value for money. A more pertinent question would be, who is responsible for job creation and losses? Is it the govt, or the economy? If investors are pulling out of your country, whose fault is it? And if people are losing their power to consume, whose fault is it?

  • If Amazon, Google, Apple and Microsoft could legally sell Heroin around the world at 50% profit margin without fear of litigation... wouldn't they?

    Also, might want to compare those stats on local economies to US Politicians salary, pensions, health benefits, etc the last 4 years as a baseline for amusement.

    No surprises here...

  • "Issue is - it is wrong view to think that peoples goal is to cut and optimize everything."

    LOLOLOL! That must have been hard to type with a straight face!

  • Friday's newspaper in my small city announced the closure of our last bookshop. That probably makes the closest one 1200 km away.

  • @goanna

    Such things are happening all around the globe, and not only with bookstores.

  • @Vitaliy_Kiselev

    What?? You mean camera shops too? And banks? ;-)

    -And, heaven forbid - Video rental shops?

  • This isn't some diabolical conspiracy, Amazon simply offers more value than its competitors and that is why the competitors are fading away. No way in hell am I going to drive to a book store to buy more book clutter, and loiter around in the aisles drinking overpriced coffee so I can feel good about keeping someone employed in a dead end job. I can spend half as much money and a fraction of the time downloading content to sync with all of my mobile devices simultaneously.

  • Amazon simply offers more value than its competitors and that is why the competitors are fading away.

    Topic is not about you getting more "value". Topic is about explaining that real value comprise of more than just price. Btw, it is also good to note that Amazon works in deep minus for years if you focus on physical goods, and they finance deficits by banks loans and other means. As I said, they also pay almost no taxes (btw, in EU also).

  • I have to agree with Vitaly, here. Cried of survival of the fittest or free markets don't really hold up with Amazon. This idea of operating without a profit until they kill off their competition and own everything strikes me as insidious.

  • I also suggest to read http://www.amazon.com/The-Everything-Store-Bezos-Amazon/dp/0316219266/

    While it is very polished and absolutely correct it is useful for understanding (I mean that it does not tell anything that can hurt amazon, does not show their tax evasion schemes and money sources).

  • There's nothing inevitable about the way Amazon operates. Government, and only government, makes its peculiar exploitative model possible, and government can take away that power. There's nothing Darwinian about it, except to the extent very rich interests capture government policy.

    Those prone to "free market" fantasies might actually want to read Adam Smith some time. He deplores the Amazon type of capitalism.

    As for Obamacare killing the middle-class -- the poster might want to ask himself why societies with universal health care like Germany are more competitive than the U.S. today, and why lower and middle income citizens in those societies live far better than they do in the U.S. Those preferring a more "laissez-faire" model can always go to places like Honduras or Nigeria -- low and easily evaded taxes, government interference in your business limited to the occasional bribe, no paying for social and public services, etc. Strangely though, free market devotees never try their luck in those places as permanent residences. They seem to want everything societies like ours offer, but just not to pay for it.

  • About Obamacare and Germany:

    Two guys are falling from the cliff to dump bin full of smelly shit.

    During flight one tells another:

    • I think it is pretty acceptable, smelly, but acceptable, I have Obamacare after all.

    Second answers:

    • Are you an idiot? We'll both end our days in this shit below in few seconds. Who cares about it.
  • I can't speak for the end of days, but for generations, northern Europeans have enjoyed a comfortable welfare state, while also maintaining national prosperity.

    Maybe it's all illusion or is crashing down tomorrow, but hundreds of millions have enjoyed it, from birth to grave, and are still enjoying it. Anyone who took those warnings seriously -- warnings of imminent collapse have been heard for generations -- would have wasted a life.

  • Anyone who took those warnings seriously -- warnings of imminent collapse have been heard for generations -- would have wasted a life.

    LOL. Thing is, medicine in WU is also not improving. In fact in Greece and Spain is being dismantled quite fast.

    As for collapse and all. Thing is, all elites and big corporations now think the same.

  • @vitaliy I think you'll like this study, if you hadn't already seen it already when it came out a couple of years ago. There was some computer modeling done on the biggest corporations in the world and it was determined that 147 Corporations are supersized behemoths, but most of the rest of the world's corporations and individuals were invested in them. And what that this is a common structure in nature, although it's unstable and prone to collapse, because everything is so interconnected. Collapse is pretty much inevitable given where things are now, it would seem. But what comes after that? http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.500-revealed--the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world.html#.UoFk6I1Jwq5