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Amazon Is Getting Too Big and the Government Is Talking About It (marketwatch.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MarketWatch: Fresh off its biggest Prime Day yet, the Whole Foods Market bid, and a slew of announcements including Amazon Wardrobe, Amazon.com Inc. was the subject of two investor calls Thursday that raised concerns that it is getting too big. In one case, hedge-fund manager Douglas Kass said government intervention could be imminent. "I am shorting Amazon today because I have learned that there are currently early discussions and due diligence being considered in the legislative chambers in Washington DC with regard to possible antitrust opposition to Amazon's business practices, pricing strategy and expansion announcements already made (as well as being aimed at expansion strategies being considered in the future," wrote Kass, head of Seabreeze Partners Management. "My understanding is that certain Democrats in the Senate have instituted the very recent and preliminary investigation of Amazon's possible adverse impact on competition," he said. "But, in the Trump administration we also have a foe against Jeff Bezos, who not only runs Amazon but happens to own an editorially unfriendly (to President Trump) newspaper, The Washington Post."
Kass said he thinks the government "discussions may have just begun and may never result in any serious effort to limit Amazon's growth plans." But he has been writing a series of columns about whether we've reached "peak Amazon," and said in an earlier column that the Whole Foods deal puts "Amazon's vast power under the microscope." "Is Amazon a productive change agent and force for the good of the consumer by virtue of a reduction in product prices? Or is Amazon's disruption of the general retail business a destroyer of jobs, moving previously productively employed workers into the unemployment line?" he asked.
Kass said he thinks the government "discussions may have just begun and may never result in any serious effort to limit Amazon's growth plans." But he has been writing a series of columns about whether we've reached "peak Amazon," and said in an earlier column that the Whole Foods deal puts "Amazon's vast power under the microscope." "Is Amazon a productive change agent and force for the good of the consumer by virtue of a reduction in product prices? Or is Amazon's disruption of the general retail business a destroyer of jobs, moving previously productively employed workers into the unemployment line?" he asked.
then MS increased campaign contributions.
Doug Kass is a fearmonger. One of those people who focuses on the one in a hundred times he is right, and ignores all the times he is just trying to cause panic. I'm not saying this couldnt happen, not in the slightest. But Doug Kass is far from a reliable source.
If there are some early talks that aren't public knowledge, wouldn't shorting be insider trading.
If there are and it is public, shouldn't we have a corroborating source?
If there aren't talks, and he knows it, isn't that some sort of illegal market manipulation as well?
If there aren't talks, but he thinks there is, then wouldn't anyone following his advice be the picture of foolishness?
Something is off here.
"Hi there. Oh I'm just your friendly local congressman. I notice you haven't been doing a lot of lobbying lately. You know, campaign funding, that sort of thing. Say, that's a really nice business model you got going on there. Boy it looks really successful. I'm really happy for you. But, I'm worried about this legislation that's knocking around in congress that might affect it..."
There's a This American Life episode where a congresswoman left, pretty much, that message on someone's answering machine. "I notice your in the construction business and I'm on the panel for construction spending so..."
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
but how come nobody wants to trim it?
This.
You don't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
The myth of Galt's Gulch is a fallacy based in the Great Man theory. The only thing that happens when inventors sit on their hands and refuse to invent is someone else comes along and produces the same invention anyway. All that are required are circumstance and motivation.
Same as xerox copying machines moved previously employed secretaries (see the massive secretarial pools in older movies) to the unemployment lines.
But employed massive amounts of people at Xerox, opened up an entire new market.
How many people does Amazon employ? How many people does Amazon indirectly employ (think Ontrac, UPS, Fedex etc)?
I'm sure that thanks to Google, a lot of Encyclopedia salesmen are out of a job too. Would you like to ban Google?
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
Antitrust laws forbid monopolistic behavior. A very large corporation by itself does not represent monopolistic behavior.
You don't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
But if you have a shark in your fish pond you control the shark otherwise,in the future, the only thing in the pond will be the shark. Then any new minnow that gets dropped into the pond will not be able to have a chance to live long enough to grow and become a fish.
In other words: to keep things competitive you need to ensure that there is enough business left for competitors. Even if Amazon kept good prices and service, would you like it if Amazon was the only retail outlet left ? We have seen many times that monopolies, like dictators, do not lead to good outcomes - no matter how much you welcome them to begin with.
The pond is not small (and economics is not a zero sum game). Amazon is just reaching the size of Walmart. Two companies that size fighting each other is vastly better than one alone.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Ah, the evil post-modernist idea that "competence is a myth". That anything could really be done by anyone, that there are no experts except by accident of work history, that no one really has more talent than anyone else. Total crock of shit, of course.
There's a difference between "someone else comes along" and "anyone else comes along". Of course competence matters.
Anyway, Rand's premise for the book was that all the top talent, all that limited pool conspired to go on strike. Not just the current CEOs, but the few smart people who actually mattered in the big companies too, wherever they were in the hierarchy. It would be a pretty lame labor action if only a few of the workers stopped working, wouldn't it? Not a very realistic premise, but the rest made sense if you granted that set-up.
See, that's a crock of shit. There's more talent in the pool which doesn't reach the top because the top is already filled. Top talent going on strike creates a talent vacuum and someone else steps up to fill the vacuum. If Linus Torvalds had decided to be lazy and never created Linux, we would still have something like Linux today. Either BSD or Hurd would have filled the void or someone else would have made something very much like Linux. Of course other competent experts who could have filled the role now held by Linus Torvalds didn't fill the role because Linus Torvalds didn't go on strike. But the man is not unique and if he never existed something like Linux would still exist without him.
I had a damn tech writer smugly inform me that their was 'now a creative person on the team'. I said: 'Fuck off, your job is writing an goddamn instruction manual for a system _created_ by the rest of the people in this room.'
Most 'creatives', aren't.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
So Amazon increases prices to compensate for the taxes, and then the UBI becomes ineffective because prices have risen and negated the UBI. You can't eat your arm to keep yourself from starving.