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Make Amazon Pay … for What?
A Yahoo! finance article brought to my attention a recent open letter sent to Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. The letter has been signed by “401 parliamentarians” from around the world including some of the usual suspects from the US, among them Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Talib.
In the article, Talib is quoted as saying “This pandemic has exposed just how broken and wrong it was to allow a man with this amount of wealth to get away with not paying his fair share.” Everybody knows what someone’s fair share is and it’s obvious when they’re not paying it. Right?
The letter’s intent is to put Amazon on notice that these “leaders” are committed to “Make Amazon Pay.” They claim the “world knows that Amazon can afford to pay its workers, its environmental cost, and its taxes” but “time and again” they don’t pay their debts. Does Amazon not pay what they’re legally required? If not, these leaders need to get their governments in order (you have to admit that complaining about somebody not paying their debts is pretty rich coming from US Congresspeople).
Further in the letter, they charge Amazon with “monopolistic practices” that have “squeezed small businesses.” Do they not understand how Amazon works? Yes, Amazon has large fulfillment centers (with well-paying jobs) across the US that supplies all kinds of products, but Amazon is also a massive marketplace for small businesses too. According to their site, “more than half of the units sold in our stores are from independent sellers.” I’d say Amazon is a major resource for small businesses as well as consumers. Take for example my wife: she runs a small online (and now in-store) women’s clothing boutique. Most of her packaging and other resources come from Amazon because it’s cheaper and more convenient. This allows her to sell products at a cheaper price or make more profit. Everybody wins. We’d be poorer without Amazon.
They reference Bezos’ increase in personal wealth since the start of the pandemic, not understanding how a founder’s or CEO’s wealth is oftentimes tied to the company’s evaluation. By the way, why is Amazon doing so well during the pandemic? Would it happen to have anything to do with draconian small business shutdown orders most of the “leaders” vehemently support? Where would we be without Amazon when all our physical stores are shutdown?
They reference Amazon’s $0 corporate tax bill from 2017 and 2018 without acknowledging why or how it was $0. Instead, they just call it “tax dodging.”
The article states that Amazon pays a $15 minimum wage to all employees as well as medical insurance. Is that not what we’re told will cure our economic ails?
Curiously, the author tries to throw in Amazon’s COVID numbers as evidence of Amazon’s poor treatment of its workers. By my math, their case numbers are at best less than that of the US as a whole and at worst right in line. By just throwing out numbers, most people will believe they must be bad because this is an article about Amazon being bad. Of course, any semi-positive info and Amazon’s response to the letter is buried at the bottom of the letter. Par for the course in these types of pieces.
I guarantee you that Bezos and Co. don’t always operate in good faith, but neither do these “leaders.” Ask yourself this: Which ones are in charge of the true “immoral” monopolies?
This letter is another reminder to teach your children basic economics, as if we needed one.
Published in General
You aren’t expecting logic from political “leaders,” are you?
What’s the definition of insanity again?
Amazon is not a monopoly by any definition of that word. And, as you’ve written, they create a lot of opportunities for small local businesses to take advantage of far-flung markets.
I have a great deal of concern about one of their divisions: Amazon Web Services (AWS). They have the largest cloud storage capability and use in the world. They store the data for entire countries. But the world’s governments haven’t noticed. And, thank goodness, Microsoft and IBM are becoming close competitors. So my concerns may be moot in a year or two. (There is no universe in which I think it is a good idea for people’s personal data to be sitting in a data warehouse indefinitely somewhere waiting for some evil entity to access it.)
But Amazon’s Marketplace is frankly an achievement, as is Amazon Prime.
What’s interesting is that the signers of the letter are missing the first part of a product’s journey from manufacturer to an individual’s home or business. The signers understand very little about the global manufacturing and transportation networks that enable Amazon to function.
This is such typical behavior of Democrats (I say “Democrats,” but this is truly a shortcoming on the Left all over the world, as can be seen in the constant drumbeat of lawsuits against the Big Tech companies): they never look deeply into any issues.
It is a sure thing that if your company is noticeable in any way, particularly if it appears to have money or its delivery trucks are visibly numerous, the Left will seek to destroy or harm your company if they can, just because they can see it. What they don’t see is safe from them.
This is also typical behavior of tyrants. It’s why smart people avoid ostentatiousness. They do not want to attract attention–from the press or the government.
Consumer-products businesses are at a disadvantage in this game because they need to advertise in order to reach individual consumers. Their advertising attracts a lot of destructive attention from the Left.
I am getting a lot more for my money out of Amazon than from politicians like Talib.
Gee, Congresswoman. What legislative body gets to define “fair share” and write the tax laws? I’m tired of this eternal leftist push to covet our neighbors’ wealth . . .
They don’t mind being accused of envy. They do, however, dislike being accused of greed. So call it what it is: leftwing corporate greed.
How else can you show true empathy and compassion without your neighbor’s wealth?
I know the Left hates Amazon for all the reasons Preston ably summarized. And I know the Right hates Amazon because Lord Bezos is a huge lefty or whatever.
But Amazon has made my life better. I love the retail and video services and use them almost daily.
If Amazon is following laws as they are written, then these “parliamentarians” might consider spending a little less time crafting tedious “open letters” to successful businessmen and a little more time urging their respective parliaments to create laws that result in outcomes they approve of.
But high taxes are not government greed . . .
That, and Kindle Direct Publishing is my publisher . . .
Big thanks to the editors for cleaning up my poor grammar and punctuation!
I’m working to get better!
They aren’t?
Here is one way Amazon has been accused of harming small business:
1. You register with them as a vendor, and start selling a product that turns out to be a success.
2. Amazon notices this and contracts with (almost certainly) a Chinese company to undercut your prices with a similar product.
3. That new product gets to the top of every Amazon search, and you lose sales. (I do not know for a fact, but I have been told that many of the “Amazon Basics” products come from this process.)
Amazon also sells many products that are knockoffs of branded products fraudulently sold as the branded product, which hurts businesses of all types. https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/10/12/amazon-has-a-notorious-counterfeit-problem.aspx
I think if you had to rank the tech billionaires on where they are on the left’s “Eat the Rich” s-list, Bezos would probably be No. 2 behind Jeff Zuckerberg, who ended up as the main guy in the barrel because they blamed him for the Cambridge Analytica situation in 2016 which is one of the things they were sure caused Trump to win election. After Bezos, it’s probably Tim Cook at Apple and Bill Gates at Microsoft, with Jack Dorsey over at Twitter lower down the list, with Sergei Brin and Larry Page from Google not even on the radar, because the left considers Google their most reliable ally among the tech giants.
Outcomes they approve of will almost certainly be outcomes I disapprove of.
What I dislike most about these people is their sour, smug, self-righteous, hectoring tone. They Demand Things! They will Fight! They see themselves as Lenin giving a speech from the platform of the Finland Station, ready to move us to the new utopia that grants Prime to all as a human right.
Let’s see if I have this right: Amazon, which doesn’t send goons around with guns to say “Pay up or I’ll shoot,” is evil, but government, which does, isn’t?
Just the videos. In case it doesn’t go past the paywall, the WSJ Editorial’s teaser is “Maine’s Senator wants free entertainment streaming for all”. Because COVID.
It was sarcasm . . .