Amazon is a Destroyer of Jobs and the Merchant Economy
If this is progress, just how much more can our economy afford? The myth of cheap prices, conveniently
seldom factors in the structural costs to society. Building an all inclusive monopoly based upon minimal employees and predatory
prices ignores the long anti-trust history that helped create the middle class. The last fifty years has demonstrated the
systemic retreat from family prosperity, which has produced a vast disproportionate of wealth among the fewer haves and the
growing have-nots. The enormous accumulation of market share that Amazon has steamrolled under the hypnosis of ease in selection
of products, placing orders, timely deliveries, and most of all; cheapest pricing has caused the demise of much of traditional
retail commerce.
This is not a replacement of horse buggies with a model T car.
Henry Ford introduced a dramatic increase in pay for his workers, so they could earn their way to prosperity. No, Amazon is
applying the Chinese model of coolie labor practices to stamp out the competition with advanced technology that is based upon
eliminating jobs from the work force.
Even that ultimate monopolist John D.
Rockefeller, fueled the industrial revolution with Standard Oil. The economy flourished, run on cheap energy. However, with
Amazon, the consolidation of online purchases is mostly a discretionary choice. Sadly, by selecting to buy from Amazon, the
consumer is putting a dagger in the backs of the main street economy.
Yes, this is the
same result that for decades has seen Wal-Mart close down the mom and pop retailer. Now Amazon is bent on fracturing the sales
from your friendly greeter in the blue vest. Some may say, it is about time that the Benton Supercenter gets it come-uppins,
but the big difference is that all those retail jobs will become just one more statistic in the unemployed reports.
Now some will say that the Seattle behemoth is becoming a major employer. Amazon soars to more than 341K employees
— adding more than 110K people in a single year. Wal-Mart employs 2.3 million associates
around the world, of which 1.5 million in the U.S. alone.
Market Watch reported on some most disturbing news, Amazon is going to kill more American
jobs than China did.
"But for retail workers, Amazon is a grave threat. Just ask the 10,100 workers who are losing their
jobs at Macy’s. Or the 4,000 at The Limited. Or the thousands of workers at Sears and Kmart, which just announced 150
stores will be closing. Or the 125,000 retail workers who’ve been laid off over the past two years."
A sample of some of the List of Amazon.com products and services does not fully account for the cloud-based products including compute, storage, databases, analytics, networking, mobile, developer tools, management tools, IoT, security
and enterprise applications. Jeff Bezos is hardly a job creator when he can find a technocratic method to data mine the remains
of the shrinking and often part time work force. His fascination with a Blue Origin Rocket Space Program, while his personal political propaganda and Fake News, Washington Compost publication seeks to explore the final frontier
for the uber rich and keepers of the Transhumanist elites.
Why would you become a Prime subscriber using the Echo surveillance system? Millennials may be oblivious
to destructive economic consequences from a culture, who values personal immediacy satisfaction over a rational profit floor
on business transactions. If the retail game is to see just how low one can sell, only a guarantee price war will result.
The fallout from the deliberate assault of Amazon
on the American supply chain is undeniable. Amazon and Walmart are in an all-out price war that is terrifying America’s biggest brands foretells an ominous and intentional destruction of a valid profit centered consumer based retail commerce.
"In some instances,
Amazon is willing to lose money for some period of time on a product it feels it has to have. Jeff Bezos’s company knows,
after all, that it has to continue to increase its selection in non-perishable grocery goods if it is going to really challenge
Walmart in the $800 billion category.
But, more so than in the past, Amazon is ratcheting up the pressure on manufacturers of goods that the
online retailer is unable to sell for a profit, executives say. Separate from the algorithm, brands are also facing the realization
that their products that are sold profitably in stores may become unprofitable online when shipping costs are factored in."
When such a street fight drains the life blood from
the chain of supply relationships, the risk is that the merchants and providers will not be able to cut their margins and
remain in business. Allowing an egomaniac like Bezos to, in effect blackmail, the product mass-producers; highlights the absurd
reliance on destroying thousands of companies for the fleeting gratification of pumping the Amazon stock price.
The merchant economy is grounded on hundreds of thousands
of product/supplier/retail outlet relationships and billions of consumer selection choices. At each level, a viable margin
markup is needed to afford a final profit to remain in operation. Just how long will all those dedicated Amazon consumers
be happy when the Bezos crew of greedy buyers are no long able to deliver their favorite items, because the makers or producers
have stopped supplying?
There is an old
saying in the consumer mass marketing, "selling at a loss is made up by volume". Amazon is a pillaging
predator and should be prosecuted under anti-trust laws. If Standard Oil could be broken up (for the good of the country)
Amazon needs to be broken up into hundreds of independent ventures that will dissipate the corporatist power to fix prices
and eliminate competition.
Consumers need
to buy local and protect the jobs of their regional economies. Globalists like Bezos are not innovators as he wants others
to believe. He is a robber baron using cyber algorithms and below-cost pricing to control and corner markets that will only result in ruining the economy.
James Hall - April 4, 2017
Subscription sign-up for the BATR RealPolitik Newsletter
Discuss or comment about this essay on the BATR Forum
