Before You Click

What choice do companies have but to use Amazon?  Afterall, it's where the world is going. Everybody’s doing it.  Amazon takes large cuts up to 30% to sell on their platform. We haven’t seen those margins in tech since the nineties. The stock has increased by 80%.  Sales have gone up 40% and Jeff Bezos personal wealth has clocked staggering growth of $58 Billion last year and so far, the money ‘ain’t trickling down.’  

Did you know that Amazon avoids paying their share of property and payroll tax? Through aggressive bargaining tactics, they erode the local tax base in communities where extra resources are necessary to support a large warehouse fulfillment centre such as wear and tear on the roads, emergency assistance, police, fire, ems and schools.

Before you click you may want to think about what life is going to be look like for the working class in years to come if the vast majority are forced into Amazon warehouses in non-union environments. These are physically strenuous and high demanding jobs and we all know what happens when power and control are left unchecked. Unions built the middle class. They’ve put food on our table for 4 generations. If you’re against unions you’re against the middle class.  My vote would be for the workers and their families. Am I the only one?

How big is too big before the government steps in? Up until this point Amazon has been able to dodge anti-competitive and anti-trust laws.  In Alec MacGillis new book,  “Fulfillment, Winning and losing in one-click America” He says that the biggest threat to Amazon won’t be whether consumers choose to use its platform, but whether the government can crack down on their monopoly.  It should come as no surprise that the 2^nd headquarters of Amazon so happens to be in Washington DC, where 25,000 high paying jobs are.  Apparently, it is good to hobnob with celebrities and the power elite when you’re trying to take over the world.