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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.
Or is Amazon's disruption of the general retail business a destroyer of jobs, moving previously productively employed workers into the unemployment line?
Yup. Same as xerox copying machines moved previously employed secretaries (see the massive secretarial pools in older movies) to the unemployment lines. ...
And how cranes and bulldozers put laborers out of business.
And how container ships put dockworkers out of business.
And
The real concern is not Amazon being more efficient and more fun to use than a mom-and-pop bookstore, music store, etc... but what happens when automation in Amazon's warehouses replace 90% of their employees.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
then MS increased campaign contributions.
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?
He's going to get killed. Probably only shorted 100 shares.
Amazon is good for America and the other countries they operate in. Amazon is forcing retail to become more efficient. And when things become more efficient everyone wins. The smart move here is to figure out how to compete or partner with Amazon, not to try and hobble it. In the long run I suspect Alibaba is going to be Amazon's top competitor but I'm not ruling Walmart out. The really big competition arena is just getting started -- the build out of planetary logistic networks. My prediction is that one of these three will acquire a large logistics company like FedEx, DHL or UPS.
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.
John Galt is a fictitious character of a children's book. In the world created by the author, Ayn Rand, there are these worthwhile people who create by hard work, creativity, and just grit that they created for themselves by hard work and superior character - no help from ANYONE!!
In the Ayn Rand World, the genes and abilities that you inherited from your parents do not exist nor does their nurturing - the books, pre-school, music lessons, just being sober, not being impoverished, etc...
Nor does your race. Nor does our sex.
In her world, character matters most. In her World, Donald Trump is better than the guy who grew up in Louisiana as a poor kid and eventually busted his ass and became rich - and the Louisiana guy is the first person to admit he got some real LUCKY breaks.
Ayn Rand never understood the human condition. Her "love" life is testament to it. She was an abusive slut.
I wish I were in her circle so I could have fucked her every which way, gave her herpes, and said, "I'm following your rules. You never asked if I had Herpes."
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 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.
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.
Creative output follows a Pareto Distribution. Whether it's papers published, points scored in professional sports, distribution of bestsellers among authors, or successful CEO founders, a tiny percentage of the people working at it are so far beyond the others in talent that they produce most of the output.
The pool of people able to both innovate and run a company is quite small. Sure, it's larger than the number of people currently doing it, but it's not that much larger.
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.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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.
You are also looking at the pond when the real fight is happening in the ocean. Over the next twenty to thirty years these companies are going to have global logistic networks that work in both directions. Companies in the US will be able to make their wares appear in Chinese websites similar to how Aliexpress works today. Now repeat that model in every country in the world.
So we need to feed our two sharks Amazon/Walmart and then let them loose into the ocean. Remember what Microsoft did to the software industry in the rest of the world during the 80's and 90's?
Over the next few decades the national boundaries of retail are going to disappear. Everyone will be able to sell to anyone via these global store fronts and the big logistics platforms will deliver anything anywhere in two days. You don't really think those fleets of planes Amazon and Alibaba are buying will stay in just one country, right? Alibaba just bought an entire airport in Spain.
Logistics is the key to making a global market place. These companies are going to build massive, world-wide distribution and warehousing systems and wring every last efficiency out of them. At most there will be five competitors at this scale. Two unknowns plus Amazon, Walmart and Alibaba.
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'