Slashdot Mirror
President Trump Slams Amazon For 'Causing Tremendous Loss To the United States' (cnet.com)
President Trump escalated his attack on Amazon on Thursday, saying that the e-commerce giant does not pay enough taxes, and strongly suggested that he may try to rein in the e-commerce business. From a report: The president took aim at Amazon's tax contributions, its use of the US Postal Service and practices that put "many thousands of retailers out of business!" The accusations aren't new. The tweet was likely prompted by an Axios story on Wednesday that claimed Trump was weighing "going after" Amazon over alleged antitrust activities or violations of competition laws. The Axios story appeared to contribute to a selloff of Amazon stock Wednesday, with Amazon shares dropping 4.4 percent, even though Trump's disdain for Amazon and its CEO, Jeff Bezos, was already well-known. Bezos owns The Washington Post, whose coverage has been less than glowing about the new president, which may be a factor in Trump's attacks. Trump's tweet, in full: I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election. Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!
Isn't that, literally, why they exist?
Deliberately falsely badmouthing a company in order to drive it's stock price down is legally called "tortious interference", and is VERY actionable. I'm also pretty sure Jeff Bezos can afford some pretty could lawyers. Trump will be tied up in court until well after his death.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Probably the only thing keeping the postal service afloat right now is Amazon. And pretty sure I pay sales tax on purchases through amazon if purchased from amazon.
He uses his government position to go after personal grudges.
Putting retailers out of business? I thought we like the free market around here?
Not paying taxes? I thought not paying taxes was smart?
use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy
Isn't that, like, LITERALLY their entire job and purpose to exist?
Saying a conglomerate doesn't pay enough taxes is Republican Sacrilege. GOP needs to get the message to Fox so they can tell him to STFU on TV, like they did on gun control when he wandered off script.
Table-ized A.I.
I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election. Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!
So, using the company intended to deliver parcels to do Amazon deliveries is somehow destroying America.
Hot take: Trump might not be very business-savvy after all.
Hasn't Trump been the master of manipulating the tax code to his own benefit? Didn't he say during one of the debates that not paying taxes for multiple years, because of a bankruptcy filing, made him "smart"?
#DeleteChrome
Amazon has to pay for all the packages it ships; it's not as though FedEx, UPS and USPS do it for free.
The USPS is an independent agency of the US government, and receives minimal subsidies...
they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments
Blame late-stage capitalisms race to the bottom on the state level. Without tax reform states like georgia, indiana, and missouri are basically 25-50 year shelters where companies set up shop, import H1B stem labor, churn out private profit, and leave with a superfund site to be cleaned up by taxpayers. you might get a high-rise with a name on it, or a city park/mural dedicated to the companies $important_figure or two, but none of that does anything to patch roads or fund schools.
use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.)
Blame...your own party. Republicans have been trying to deliver the killing blow to the USPS for 40 years. unable to sink it with future debt and price control, and unable to privatize it because private industries dont want the job, they've incentivised public private partnerships where companies like UPS hand-off to local carriers for last mile delivery. since every system uses barcodes and tracking exclusive to their supply chain systems, the USPS doesnt have any real tracking data to begin with and must handle these packages in a largely manual fashion. The whole end result is a package that takes 20 days to reach its destination half crushed with 40 labels and no customer savings. but hey! we "privatized" the post office!
and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!
the 90s called and they want their destructive business practices back. Wal-Mart started this trend by bankrupting suppliers into offering products with no profit margin (vlasic pickle for example.) Fast forward and theres a wal-wart on every street corner offering cut-rate oil changes and flavourless apples the size of softballs for pennies. I mean, surely you didnt snore through the 20 years it took for a single american company to bankrupt every small business in the midwest just to show up and bitch about Amazon, did you?
Good people go to bed earlier.
Trump is not wrong on effects of Amazon and also its local tax-dodging, but his objections are tainted by his very clear political motivation. He is after Bezos as a revenge for The Washington Post coverage.
This isn't about Amazon's business practices. This is about Donald Trump attacking the Washington Post, a news outlet that reports true but unflattering things about the President.
I mean, come on. There is literally no question why Trump has chosen Amazon as one of his favorite bugbears. Trump's well-known "disdain" for Jeff Bezos and WaPo is the lede, not an aside buried under the fold.
Trump is going after an entire corporation simply because a part of it has the sheer temerity to say things about him that he doesn't like.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
You're a fucking idiot then.
As if it wasn't obvious even at the time that Trump was vastly more corrupt and much more of a liar than Clinton.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
The USPS is already rolling their vehicles so the extra wear and tear is going to be minimal, in fact it's been proven that Amazon reduces fuel used to deliver goods to consumers in almost all cases so it should be going down.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I thought Republicans don't believe in the government picking winners and losers?
There is so much wrong with this tweet, and the entire line of thought. There are thousands of mom and pop places that consider Amazon a priceless tool in keeping their own costs down. Also, they are one of USPS biggest customers, and package delivery revenues are up. The reason USPS is losing billions has nothing to do with Amazon, and everything to do with first class mail and pension legal requirements. Most (all?) people pay sales tax on Amazon purchases these days, too, so a notion of an additional Internet tax is just stupid.
It's almost like everything Trump tweets is exactly wrong. SAD!
1. Since when is it the personal job of a sitting POTUS to 'rein in' any legitimate U.S. based business, regardless of size?
2. Considering Donald Trump's personality, as he demonstrates it to be, I find it much more credible an idea that what he's really all upset about is the fact that Amazon/Jeff Bezos is orders of magnitude more successful a businessman than he is, and Trump is throwing one of his typical temper-tantrums over that fact.
3. Trump claims to want to 'make America great again', and bring back jobs for American citizens from overseas. However intentionally damaging Amazon, who employs at least 341,000 people, will likely cause some of those people to lose their jobs; how is that going to make us 'great again'? (It won't)
4. Meanwhile, the guy who allegedly knows 'The Art of the Deal', and claims to be such a successful businessman, can't even keep things coherent in his own Cabinet, hiring and firing people left and right at a furious pace, and appointing cronies and yes-(wo)men to top positions instead of the people who would be best for the Country as a whole; how the actual fuck can you run the government of ostensibly the most powerful Country in the free world when there is no consistency whatsoever to the people who are making it run?
Seriously, folks, all poking the Trump supporters with a stick aside: this clown has got to go, before he completely wrecks this country.
Of course even if he left office today, it'll still likely take a full decade to repair the damage done to everything -- and we'd be stuck with Mike Pence, which in significant ways would be orders of magnitude worse. Can we just all wish real hard that a meteor falls from the sky and kills them all at the same time?
because they keep getting bought up in Bain Capital style leveraged buy-outs and then saddled with debt that prevents them from adequately competing with Amazon. To cut costs they turn their stores into dirty little warehouses. This is what happened to Toys R Us. And they were one of the lucky ones. They survived 13 years before the debt crushed them.
If Trump doesn't like the post office subsidizing Amazon there's a really, really easy solution: raise the rates. Problem solved. And if he doesn't like how they treat their workers he could raise federal minimum wage and drop the work week to 30/week before overtime kicked in. The latter might require congress to act but it's popular enough that if he'd stop attacking them on Twitter and take congress to task for not doing anything for the working man he'd have it done in a week. Especially if he did it right before mid-terms.
But this is all just a distraction. And an political attack on a company run by people that don't particularly like him. It'd be funny watching to rich and powerful guys in a pissing match if their actions didn't effect me so drastically.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Trump has been silent about other CEOs who he agrees with more than Bezos. Take for example Eddie Lampert who has been running Sears / KMart into the ground. They have been losing money constantly while doing nothing to reward employees or even maintain their stores. Nearly every month they announce more store closures. But Lampert's golden parachute just keeps getting better and better - he's first in line to cash out from Sears when he finally pulls the plug due to the special loans he's issued to them from his own funds.
When Sears finally goes kaput the job losses will vastly outnumber the largest number of coal miners we've had in this country in the past 100 years, and they are distributed across the country. These aren't just high school and college kids working retail until they can find a steady job either; retail at Sears used to be a steady job with a career path. Now every town has lost a Sears, a KMart, or both in the past 5-10 years. All that's left of it is a real estate firm now.
Yeah, I know I'll be down-modded into oblivion on this. Go ahead. If you are too cowardly to reply to ahead and hit me with "offtopic" and "overrated".
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Is the Republican stable genius proposing to raise taxes and tighten tax laws on corporations? Is he going to reign in tax avoidance practices? I wonder what his party think of this?
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
You are right. After the tax bill passed, Bernie Sanders appeared on CNN and when the interviewer said the tax bill looked like a good thing, his response was: That's why the cuts should be permanent.
The reason they weren't permanent is because Senate rules require more votes to pass permanent cuts and since no Democrats voted for it, they didn't reach that threshold.
You're a fucking idiot then.
As if it wasn't obvious even at the time that Trump was vastly more corrupt and much more of a liar than Clinton.
How do you qualify that? Your shit doesn't smell as bad as my shit? They're both shit, they both stink, and whether one stinks more than the other is a matter of perception.
This is in reference to the post office subsidizing Amazon deliveries.
Short summary: Amazon pays $1.46 per package less than it actually costs to deliver. That is absolutely Amazon's gain at the expense of the post office.
If you doubt the post office is in a special relationship, what other company gets Sunday delivery for the post office? How is that fair to the workers, it's not like the post office charges Amazon more for that. They deliver the most mundane things on a Sunday, it's not even special orders...
This is why I like Trump's tweets quite a bit, as he seems to have a habit of making public things people seem to want to hide or ignore.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I usually hate corporations and everything they do, but one thing Slashdot has taught me is that corporations operate to make the most money at the least cost, period. Trumps problem is really with the way capitalism works today, and I certainly hope he decides to make wise changes in that regard.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
You're positing that the post office knowingly defrauds itself for some reason? Your own link says they make a profit delivering Amazon's stuff. The Sunday delivery guys aren't the same ones that run the route the other days, and they get to dress casual. They seem pretty happy about it, actually, when I've spoken to them.
A couple of months back:
Reducing taxes on corporates => Good for jobs
Now:
Companies paying less tax => Bad for jobs
Well, which is it?
So president he is smart when he avoids paying taxes and declares bankruptcy to get out of obligations, but when corporation does it - it is so very bad !?
A trickle-downer who signed a huge tax giveaway to corporations is complaining that a corporation doesn’t pay enough taxes? Haha what?
Don’t the trickle-downers always tell us that companies like Amazon, etc. paying more in taxes mean less jobs? So other than being butthurt over the Washington Post, shouldn’t Trump be glad that this “job creator” is only paying the bare minimum taxes to maximize hiring and shareholder return?
Hypocrisy. Thy name is Trump.
> Amazon has profited at our expense. They should be paying for the burden
Wrong:
https://www.vox.com/2017/12/29/16830128/amazon-trump-twitter-postal-service-feud
"But break down the losses, and the situation is a bit more nuanced. Delivering packages, it turns out, is a growth business, and it actually makes the Postal Service money: The revenue from package increased $2.1 billion, and was up 11.8 percent for fiscal year 2017. "
Furthermore, the financial crisis the USPS is currently in is entirely manufactured by the Republican congress of 2006:
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-usps-trump-20180102-story.html
"What the Postal Service's critics (including Trump) almost never mention is that the real drag on its earnings is another congressional directive. I wrote in 2012 that the USPS' fiscal crisis was "as artificial as they come" — it was the product of a 2006 congressional mandate that the service must prepay over the next 10 years all its future expected retiree healthcare benefits."
"Those payments totaled $38 billion through 2011, with further installments of between $5.6 billion and $11.1 billion a year due through 2016. At least $34 billion is still owed, according to the annual report."
***"Conservatives who maintain that the USPS should be operated profitably, like a private business, fail to explain why the service should be burdened with a prepayment mandate that its competitors don't face." ***
The Republicans have had the knives out for the USPS for decades and this is straight up right wing ops 101 as seen worldwide. Take public service, cut funding, burden it financially until it can't function, loudly scream about how public services just don't work, and then privatize it and sell the scraps off to your donors for pennies on the dollar. Move on to the next one.
They do not. That link refers to a WaPo op-ed by a guy who *gasp* is heavily invested in FedEx stock.
Amazon pays exactly what the Postal Regulatory Commission told them to, which in turn has year after year deemed Amazon's contract with the USPS to be profitable.
Wait, wut?
Trump Brags About Not Paying Taxes: "That Makes Me Smart"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBZR1-onmAo
Trump is good at misdirection and baiting the media and the public-at-large. When he says "look over here at this naughty Amazon", he's not serious; he's really trying to divert attention from some fjnork-up someplace else.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Average cost != incremental cost.
As long as they are charging more than incremental cost, they _are_ making money. The delivery guy on the route is a sunk cost.
You should know this...it's not like your a kid.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
This is in reference to the post office subsidizing Amazon deliveries.
Short summary: Amazon pays $1.46 per package less than it actually costs to deliver. That is absolutely Amazon's gain at the expense of the post office.
If you doubt the post office is in a special relationship, what other company gets Sunday delivery for the post office? How is that fair to the workers, it's not like the post office charges Amazon more for that. They deliver the most mundane things on a Sunday, it's not even special orders...
This is why I like Trump's tweets quite a bit, as he seems to have a habit of making public things people seem to want to hide or ignore.
You are apparently under the illusion that USPS is forced to give Amazon a special deal. WTF, you are a dumbass.
Oh I see POTUS along with the director of HHS calling out an entire industry for price-gouging everyone is the same as a narcissistic 5-year-old having a temper-tantrum on Twitter against a single company? Bullshit, and your red underwear is showing, pull up your pants.
This is why I like Trump's tweets quite a bit, as he seems to have a habit of making public things people seem to want to hide or ignore.
*sigh*...
I voted for Vermin Supreme. But I haven't laughed as hard as on election night in a long time. The butthurt is still putting a smile on my face. Keep it up.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Then why is Amazon now evil for following the law?
Is that all you've got? Several members of Trump's inner circle (including his son-in-law) have already be caught using personal email accounts for classified information. Trump hasn't done that himself, but that's only because he doesn't use email (140 characters is the limit of his attention span).
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
These giant companies are trying to virtue signal by banning right-wing things in recent months, no doubt in response to Trump. Many of them (facebook, Google, esp. YouTube) rely heavily on the First Amendment. To achieve market dominance covering everything, and then restricting it, is unsettling but not illegal (nor should, nor could it be. In the US.)
I wonder if this and their recent problems, amplified by the media, are related. At least the amplification volume and threat of regulation.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
They took on debts that were unneeded and unwanted because they were forced to by a political party trying to prove that Government can never do anything right by intentionally causing them to fail.
If the USPS weren't required by law to fund the worlds most outrageously stupid pension fund, they would be perfectly profitable. But instead, idiots like you now get to use this intentional sabotage to pretend that government always fails. Turns out, government just fails when Republicans force it to fail to win over tards.
You should know this...it's not like your a kid.
That's pretty much the entire reason everything is so screwed up and people on both sides scream incredibly stupid shit.
The average person in the US operates at the intellectual, emotional, educational, and maturity level of an 8-year-old child.
On a good day.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
That's not an accurate summation.
This isn't like a typical business that takes on too much debt and winds up going out of business. This is debt that was imposed by a 3rd party and where the same 3rd party is ultimately guaranteeing the debt. The USPS is ultimately run by a federal appointee for the purpose of ensuring that mail gets delivered to every resident of the country no matter where they live.
What's more, that money that they're being forced to sock away isn't even debt, it's money just sitting there. Eventually, they'll hit the point where the fund is completely funded and the profit won't be obscured by phony obligations. This is kind of like if I over-allocate my paycheck earnings to a stack of bills in my sock drawer. I'm still profitable even if that results in me having to borrow money to pay my rent. It would be a foolish decision on my part to do that, but I'd still be making money as long as I'm making enough to cover the interest payments.
Even if you and your dear leader were right, it's irrelevant. There's only one question that needs to be asked: "How does the USPS set their rates, bulk-shipping or otherwise?".
If the rates are pre-set (by statute, fixed USPS policy, to be competitive with UPS/FedEx, etc.), then the onus is on those who set those rates to assure that the USPS is profitable. And if Amazon is simply purchasing a service at the price that it is offered to anyone. Nothing to see here. It's not Amazon's responsibility to see that anyone else is profitable.
If the USPS cut a deal with Amazon for lower rates, then it's still on the USPS for signing an agreement on which they wouldn't make money. They have accountants, MBAs, and the like, just like everyone else. And they went into any negotiations knowing their fixed and variable costs, and the price at which they could offer their service profitably. If they signed a deal to sell their service at a price that would lose them money, the again, that's not on Amazon. They need to suck it up, wait for the deal to expire, and raise their rates when the contract comes up for renewal. And as before, it's not Amazon's responsibility to see that anyone else is profitable.
Imagine all the people...
Just like every other large company they evade taxes (by using the loopholes that YOU POLITICIANS create) and abuse our system to save money (which YOU POLITICIANS allow them to).
Hey, Trump. In case you didn't notice it yet: You can change the rules of the game. Shit or get off the pot.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If he tried to protect anything, he would change the fucking laws that allow Amazon et al to avoid paying taxes. It's not like they're breaking the laws or anything. They are using the laws that exist.
What you're looking at here is the PRESIDENT complaining about a company following the law. I applaud him for identifying the law to be a bad one. Now, let's ponder for a moment: What could maybe be the next step the PRESIDENT OF THE USA could take if he wanted to change this?
Hint: It's not lamenting about it on Twitter.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Trump's talking about AliExpress as the competitor right? So stab your own domestic industry in favour of the competitor (AliExpress)? Right?
There are much better examples of those who are causing the U.S. tremendous loss, starting with the loud mouth who's simply causing controversy to divert attention from his own unlawful activities (READ: PLURAL).
Fucking rodeo clown, that guy. His presidency will be remembered as the rest of his life will be - a fat, cheap, narcissistic scam artist completely out of line with the vast majority of the people he "represents".
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Not all of us can steer federal and other nations business to our properties like he does.
And then underperform the market.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Short summary: Imaginary numbers from a study of imaginary numbers.
Alternate truth lives!
mnem
"I'm sorry; we can only pay for actual losses, not imaginary ones."
"Fixed costs" and "lower fixed rate" are two completely different and completely unrelated things. That you think they are the same show how little understanding you have of all of this.
As many, many people point out here - and has been pointed out to you specifically in the past (I have a long memory on this) - the government does not subsidize the USPS at all. Zero dollars in subsidy. No charity.
You aren't misinformed, as you have been corrected on this befire. You are intentionally lying. Why is that?
The USPS was cut loose from government funding during the Nixon administration exactly for to meet those "run it like a business" conservative demands. The only problem is that Congress gets to pass rules about how the USPS runs - what days it delivers on, how often, how much it can charge, and especially the monumentally stupid pension pre-funding mandate, for postal workers yet unborn, that no private business - or government entity - anywhere else in the world does.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
You're missing some of the point. The US Congress has mandated the USPS to completely pre-pay into its retirement fund at (a) an accelerated rate for (b) all their employees, even ones who aren't even close to retirement. The USPS would be fine financially if they could pay into the fund more reasonably, like every other corporation does (that still have pensions). This was done by Congress partly to hinder the USPS and foster a case to privatize it -- 'cause "it's losing money". Seemingly, you've drunk their Kool-Aid.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
You mean he has a habit of making UP things that his people want to hide or ignore his IGNORANCE of.
Resident Chump is an imbecile, and if you voted for him, knowing what we all knew about him before the election, you are too.
And I can state that with statistical certainty; the few for whom that voting for him was actually in their best interest are so few, they are statistically insignificant.
Everybody else is getting raped, whether they voted for him or not.
mnem
History will mark these years as the beginning of "The Dark Ages" of the American Empire.
President Trump escalated his attack on Amazon on Thursday, saying that the e-commerce giant does not pay enough taxes, and strongly suggested that he may try to rein in the e-commerce business.
In the words of Trump himself "That makes them smart".
Let's put it that way: He's got enough influence that it would be trivial to get it changed if he wanted to.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Depends on how you look at it. Visiting every mailbox in the US is sort of a fixed cost. Yes, it varies by a small percentage. But a 50 cent letter does not even come close to paying for a mailbox visit.
Delivering just a letter vs. a letter and a package adds up to a *smaller* loss on fixed costs even if the two together are not profitable.
The tax brackets are adjusted under Chained CPI in the TCJA, which means they get lower in comparison with inflation. You stay middle-class but we slowly start to tax you like you're rich.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
I call on all my fellow Trump supporters to show solidarity with our president to smash our computers and show Fake News Jeff Bezos what real Americans think of him.
I'm sure if you do enough research you would find evidence that both Bushes and Reagan did the same.
So glad I live in California and could vote my conscience. The state was going to go for The Harpy no matter what I did so I could vote for a third party guilt free.
I'd really love to change how California runs it's presidential elections and Electoral College elector allocation. Ranked voting, proportional elector allocation, instant runoffs, approval voting, pretty much anything would produce more representative results than what we do. I despair of overcoming the benefits of the entrenched interests to get to that point.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Have gnu, will travel.
The main problem is that government employees have "defined benefit" retirements, whereas nearly all private sector employees have "defined contribution" retirements. The math just doesn't work when somebody can work for 25 or 30 years and then draw a large pension for 25 or 30 or 40 more years. States have learned this the hard way and some are switching to "defined contribution" retirement plans. We had state workers here retiring after a 25 year "career" and expecting large retirement checks for the rest of their life. It just does not work and I hate paying taxes so the state can write those checks.
The Post Office doesn't even have the fucking power to negotiate rates like you think they do. Hell, they can't even stop themselves from getting screwed by the presort bundles. That packet of ads and junk you get every week? The fact that there's an outer sheet now means that it's considered 1 piece of mail. It used to be each publication inside that single, thin sheet had to pay to be delivered to your house. Now they dump shit off at a proxy who slaps it all within a single outer sheet (which does absolutely nothing to contain the junk inside), then the post office has to take and deliver all that bulk for a fraction of the price (and a fraction of the actual cost they incur to deliver it).
And at the current rates they are losing money per Amazon delivery. Multiple sources have given actual numbers for this.
Stop being wrong.
Another factor is USPS needs the approval of Congress in order to make any financial decisions. They've asked to suspend Saturday delivery to save money, Congress did not approve. They asked for postage rate hikes, Congress did not approve. They asked to close some post offices to save money, again Congress refused. Is it any wonder they are struggling?
So companies using legal tricks to not pay taxes hurts America? So how about those tax returns, buddy?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
That would be a reason for the president to flame USPS, not one of their customers.
I think he's flaming Amazon for some other reason. The fact that Washington Post sometimes reports on what he gets caught doing or saying, would be the least-far-fetched hypothesis.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
IANAL, but isn't deliberately publicly attacking and lying about a company in a deliberate attempt to drive down the stock price actionable in court as "tortious interference"? I.e., can't Trump be sued for as much as he has driven the market cap down, which is far more money than he has?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
As if that money will actually be there when it's needed in 25 years.
So is Trump.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
When do we get to evaluate Trump's fair share?
Hillary is not only far more corrupt, she (like Obama) is an enemy of the United States.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Anything other than "winner takes all" greatly reduces the state's clout.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
That's the point. You buy a business that is worth a lot so you can get huge loans on their name. Then you pay yourself huge consultancy fees and salaries from those loans. They couldn't get the loans if the businesses were on the way to failure.
Toys R Us was doing quite well... through Baby's R Us. They were basically shifting over to a baby retailer with a small toy division until they had the rug pulled out from under them.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Maybe Trump should show his taxes before claiming some other person/entity is not paying their fair share.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Typical room temperature, measured in Fahrenheit, is around 72 degrees. Anyone with an IQ over 70 would have understood what I meant.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
By 'Republican', are you talking about the Congressional Republicans, or the base in flyover country? If it's the latter, then yeah, Trump did do impressively, even though Ted Cruz held his own in several red states. But if it's the former, Trump to this day has trouble w/ them when he tries to push his own brand of non-Republican policies, be it tariffs on steel/aluminum, easing up on Russia (before the Salisbury poisoning of the Skripals) that are at odds w/ traditional GOP policies. Heck, there is no way the GOP would have dared give him an omnibus bill that gives the Dems everything they want, but deny him things like funding for the wall. If Romney-McDaniels was serious about supporting him, she would have done what Steve Bannon tried, and organized a campaign to purge the senatorial candidates of RINOs. But the fact that nothing has been done against the likes of McCain, Graham, Sass, Murkowski, Flake or Collins demonstrates that the president, unlike his GOP predecessors, has little control over his party
And at the current rates they are losing money per Amazon delivery. Multiple sources have given actual numbers for this.
I'm missing the part where the "multiple sources" explain how this is Amazon's fault.
Is there perchance a source, or even multiple ones, for that?
Anything other than "winner takes all" greatly reduces the state's clout.
Does a state have clout? I'm not sure it does.
What does a presidential candidate care about? They need donations and that will give the donor some clout. However, I'm sure Trump was happy to get California cash even though he wasn't ever going to get any California electoral votes. So they care about the donor's opinions but not the opinions of non-donating voters.
A candidate cares about electoral votes and secondarily, actual individual votes. Once the state is all sewed up, the candidate can completely ignore the state. Thus, California has very little ability to influence the candidates from either party at all. A battleground state is different. Every undecided voter is really important, so the candidates pay a lot of attention to the opinions of undecideds (and their party base).
If a safe state like California allocated electors proportionately (like Nebraska and Maine), now each elector is up for grabs. Getting a few thousand more Californians might just get you an extra electoral vote. Suddenly the undecided Californians are much more important to the candidates. The state party apparatus suddenly is more important too.
Who inside California doesn't win from this? The party establishment, mostly. They'd be crucified by the national party if they supported this and seen as party traitors. That would end their party careers. this is a prime example of where a state proposition would be an appropriate way to address the situation.
> This is why I like Trump's tweets quite a bit, as he seems to have a habit of making public things people seem to want to hide or ignore.
ahem. the reason Trump often sounds original or insightful is because he doesn't usually say things other people say. the reason for this is that most people say sensible things and mostly he's just talking out of his ass.
Look above.
A tweet from Trump about Amazon was prompted by a story about Trump thinking about Amazon? That doesn't follow at all. Axios figured out he might say something, and when he did it's being attributed to Axios? Does it not make more sense that Trump was going to say something regardless and Axios just figured it out beforehand?
Is that post hoc ergo propter hoc?
"saying that the e-commerce giant does not pay enough taxes..."
How much tax do the Trump businesses pay?
Greed is the root of all evil.
Ah, the good ol' Dunning-Kruger hypothesis - every smug half-educated nomenklaturist niwit's favorite way to insult people who have temerity to disagree with the semi-official propaganda. Good times!
Got any evidence behind those claims? I thought not.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments
Likely because of deals w/ state and local govs previously made. Trump is jealous of this deal.
use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy
HEL-LO-O! The USPS is in the business of delivering packages! They pay them for these deliveries. It's what the USPS does!
How about we have Mr Trump pay HIS taxes?!
Man-up, Mr Trump; show us how YOU manipulated your way out of paying a fair share!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
Uh, OK. So every time I mail a letter, I'm supposed to feel guilty?
They are ALWAYS temporary, part-time employees. If they aren't, whoever's supervising that day is no doubt in deep do-do... Your Regular would be getting time and a half plus another 25% (IIRC) for it being a Sunday..... (From a retired Letter Carrier)
Who pays for the year over year losses totaling in the tens of billions?
https://www.thoughtco.com/post...
Someone is paying for those losses.
https://about.usps.com/news/na...
When businesses operate at losses such as these, they go out of business (ToyRUs)
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/n...
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.