Amazon, by all definitions is the poster child for crony-capitalism, corporatism, and corruption, but because Trump picked a fight with Jeff Bezos, the mainstream left has embraced their antithesis.
The post The Left’s Embrace of Amazon’s Corporatism Proves Haunting Power of Two-Party Paradigm appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
Amazon will use the bracelet to monitor workers’ movement in its storage facilities.
Amazon, bracelet and control are three words that when used in the same sentence can give goosbumps to any of its workers.
The company of Jeff Bezos has reaped a little grateful fame for its policy of personnel management and recent news about Amazon’s initiative to control its workers via a mandatory bracelet unleashed the alert to a possible hardening of that treatment.
Amazon has obtained the authorization of two patents with which it wants to develop a wireless wristband to monitor the movements of its workers in the logistics warehouses of the company.
Technically, it would be a device that, through ultrasound and radio broadcasts, would be able to identify the exact place of the hands of the workers inside the huge shelves that contain all its products.
The purpose for which this device is conceived is, according to the published information, to facilitate to the employees the location of the products.
“Simplify time-consuming tasks, such as responding to orders and packaging them for quick delivery. With the guidance of a bracelet, the workers could complete the orders faster”, ewpoera a The New York Times.
The explanation is very similar to the concept of Amazon Go, the technology on which pivots its newly opened store in Seattle, in which customers access through a code on their smartphone. The code identifies and monitors their location and all the items they buy.
But what can be a great idea for a client client, may not be so great for employees.
At least that is what the New York Times concluded after conducting some tests. After learning about the details, the newspaper consulted employees and former employees of the company about their impressions.
Without a doubt, the first answer is fear.
According to the New York newspaper, warehouse employees of Carteret, located in New Jersey, are aware that any technological advance that Amazon develops does not come to light without first having been tested by its employees.
They have witnessed previous innovations and do not rule out being one of this future bracelet.
Without disregarding the possible benefit that this tool can bring to the efficiency of its activity, employees consulted by the New York Times fear that it will serve to exacerbate the extreme pressure that the company exerts on its employees.
In some countries, companies are allowed to use technologies that facilitate the organization of work and even the control, by the employer, of the correct fulfillment of the tasks included in the work contract.
But, as has it happened in the US, doubts arise in the limits. Where does the management of work end and where does the control of privacy begin when it comes to controlling the movements of a worker?
Former employees of Amazon, cited by the New York Times, fear that this will end up requiring workers to act as robots, at the same speed and without being able to modify the programmed guidelines in any case.
The employer can exercise control of workers as long as it is compatible with the dignity of the worker, so the question is, when does technology violate that dignity?
If employees feel excessive control over their work or their personal activity, they would have no choice but to transfer this complaint to the courts, as it is the case until now, and it would be up to the judges to assess whether the company exceeds the limits of personal dignity.
The use of this technology would mean that all the activity of the workers would be registered electronically and thus the labor inspection would have more facilities to verify if extra hours are done and if those are paid properly, a lawyer consulted by this publication says.
There are benefits and risks that, without a doubt, Bezos and his team will have to evaluate before deciding whether to continue with the development of his control bracelet or keep the patents in a drawer.
The post Amazon Patents Bracelet to Control its Workers appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
Time Magazine has released its list of finalists for 2017"s "Person of the Year" issue - and what a list it is.
After Trump criticized Time for informing him that he was in the running to win "Person of the Year" for the second year in a row - an honor last achieved by former President Richard Nixon, who was named man of the year in 1972 and 1973 - it appears Trump was right once again: He is one of 10 contenders for the honor released to MSNBC - even though editors at Time claimed the phone call never happened (though how else would Trump have known he was in the running, other than a lucky guess?).
The other names on the list are: Amazon CEO and world"s richest man Jeff Bezos, the #MeToo movement, Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, Colin Kaepernick, the dreamers, Robert Mueller and Patty Jenkins (Jenkins directed the Hollywood blockbuster "Wonder Woman").
Of the names on this year"s list, only Trump and Bezos have won the honor before (Bezos won it in 1999 at the height of the tech bubble.
The competition this year is pretty intense. If the criteria for winning was solely number of headlines in US media, Trump would easily have a lock. His first year in office was marked by the president"s constant feuding with Democrats, Republicans, professional athletes, gold star families...the list goes on.
Kim Jong Un, one might argue, deserves the nod for the outsize impact he"s had on the national psyche in the US, given that he"s the leader of an impoverished nation of 25 million people.
However, in terms of sheer political influence, Xi Jinping would probably deserve the honor. By having his name written into the Chinese constitution and appointing a Politburo with no obvious successor, he has guaranteed himself another five year term after his current term ends. He has also consolidated power over a nation of 1.3 billion people - the largest country on the planet.
Bezos led Amazon through several high-profile acquisitions that saw the company enter the grocery business. The massive appreciation in Amazon"s share price has also helped push Bezos"s net worth north of $100 billion, making him the first American to reach that threshold since Bill Gates back in the late 1990s.
The #MeToo movement has led to unprecedented upheaval in industries - particularly in entertainment and media - as women have come forward to share their stories of sexual harassment they experienced at the hands of powerful men. Time has selected classes or groups of people for the honor before - back in 2014, "person of the year" went to the Ebola fighters.
MbS has orchestrated a "corruption crackdown" purge that brought his most powerful rivals to their knees. It is rumored that his father, King Salman, will soon step down, relinquishing power to the 32-year-old crown prince.
And finally, what list of anything is 2017 would be complete without Colin Kaepernick.
Should Trump win, he would become the eighth US president to win the honor twice. Time has been running the feature since 1927.
The winner will be named later this month, when the special "Person of the Year" edition of the magazine is released.
The problem is not that we have a few people that are rich – the problem is that we have so many that are poor. As you will see below, three extremely wealthy individuals have as much money as the poorest half of the nation combined. In a free market capitalist society, there are always going to be some that do better than others, and there is nothing wrong with that. But in our society today, there are so few that are doing well. At this point a majority of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and “one in five households have zero or negative net worth”…
In the United States, the 400 richest individuals now own more wealth than the bottom 64 percent of the population and the three richest own more wealth than the bottom 50 percent, while pervasive poverty means one in five households have zero or negative net worth.
Those are just several of the striking findings of Billionaire Bonanza 2017, a new report (pdf) published Wednesday by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) that explores in detail the speed with which the U.S. is becoming “a hereditary aristocracy of wealth and power.”
That means that if you have no debt and a single dime in your pockets, you have more wealth than one-fifth of the entire country.
Okay, so let’s talk about the three men that have more wealth than the poorest 50 percent of the U.S. population combined. Those three men are Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, and Warren Buffett. I don’t want to take anything away from what those three have accomplished, because we need more risk takers and entrepreneurs.
Sadly, the level of small business creation has fallen in every presidential administration going all the way back to George H.W. Bush, and the percentage of Americans that are self-employed is hovering near all-time record lows.
As a nation, we desperately need to return to a culture that encourages free market capitalist thinking. We want young men and women to create, invent, innovate and start new ventures. But instead, today our culture encourages young people to become dependent on the government and on the big corporations, and as a result the middle class is evaporating.
As I discussed above, at this point 20 percent of all U.S. households have “either zero or negative wealth”…
The rise at the wealthiest end of society comes as one in five US households live in what the report’s authors call the “underwater nation”, with either zero or negative wealth. Inequality is even more stark among minorities. Three in 10 black households and 27% of Latino ones have zero or negative wealth, compared with 14% of white families.
In recent years, unprecedented intervention by global central banks has created an absolutely enormous stock market bubble, but the real economy has continued to struggle.
Just look at what is happening to Sears. This week they announced that they lost between $525 million and $595 million during the 3rd quarter of 2017.
How in the world do you do that?
If they had their employees doing nothing all day but flushing one dollar bills down the toilet, I still don’t think that they could lose that much money in three months.
Sears is going to sell 140 stores in a desperate attempt to stay afloat, but many believe that this is simply delaying the inevitable. In fact, one prominent analyst named Bill Dreher believes that Sears will never be profitable again…
One Wall Street analyst is beginning to doubt whether Sears Holdings will ever be profitable again, as the 124-year-old retailer struggles for liquidity and same-store sales evaporate.
“Sears’ operational performance is clearly NOT improving, and we grow increasingly concerned whether the company will ever return to profitability,” wrote Susquehanna analyst Bill Dreher in a note to clients Wednesday. “Further highlighting the company’s weakened position is the reality that manufacturers are increasingly demanding tighter payment and/or withholding products.”
Once upon a time, Sears was the number one shopping destination for the middle class.
But like the middle class in America, the best days for Sears are now long gone.
If we want to restore our economy to greatness, we need a vibrant middle class.
And in order to have a vibrant middle class, we need to have a system that encourages entrepreneurs and small businesses. Free markets work if you allow them to, but unfortunately today we are strangling our entrepreneurs and small businesses with rules, regulations, red tape and oppressive levels of taxation, and until we change our ways we are going to continue to get the same very poor results.
The post Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos And Warren Buffett Have More Money Than The Poorest 50% Of The U.S. Population Combined appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
Is the world"s richest man starting to get a little concerned that his $90 billion fortune in Amazon stock might just be fully valued? Well, judging by his SEC disclosures from last Friday, Bezos provided investors with roughly 1.1 billion reasons why the answer to that question may be a resounding "yes".
As Bloomberg points out, Bezos sold a total of 1 million Amazon shares over the course of three days last week netting roughly $1.1 billion in proceeds. The sale represented just 1.3% of Bezos" total stake in Amazon and leaves him with 16.4% of the company"s shares outstanding.
Of course, the stock sales came after Amazon beat earnings estimates the week prior (see: Amazon Soars Above $1,000 After Smashing Expectations) and pushed the stock to new all-time highs. As an added benefit, the move also once again thrust Bezos ahead of Bill Gates on the Billionaire leader board.
Of course, Bezos previously reported that he would sell $1 billion a year in Amazon stock to fund his Blue Origin LLC, the rocket company fueling his dream of sending people into space. That said, this was Bezos" second $1 billion sale in a matter of 6 months so perhaps Blue Origin just needed a little extra cash this year?
Then again, maybe this is just "tax planning" or "diversification" or any of the many other excuses executives give for selling their own stock...certainly it has nothing to do with Amazon"s 282x P/E ratio...
With a stock price surge of 13% after Amazon’s most recent quarterly filing, Wall Street analysts were reportedly “shocked” by the company’s rapid growth. The e-commerce juggernaut beat both quarterly revenue and earnings forecasts, and continues to trailblaze with a 34% revenue growth rate.
This boded well for the net worth of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, which fluctuates wildly based on Amazon stock price movements. In fact, as Visual Capitalist"s Jeff Desjardins notes, the recent jump in price on October 27 helped catapult him past Bill Gates (again) to become the richest person in North America, as well as the entire world.
As of publication time, according to Forbes’ real-time wealth tracker, his wealth stands at $92.6 billion.
Today’s graphic comes to us from HowMuch.net and it shows the richest person on each continent.
Here is the full breakdown:
Net worth figures from HowMuch.net as of November 3, 2017
To be thorough, HowMuch.net also “nominated” a person to represent the continent of Antarctica, even though it has no permanent residents.
Chosen for this title? It’s none other than Arnold W. Donald, the CEO of Carnival, the world’s largest cruise company, which monetizes the icy continent for its Antarctic cruises on a regular basis.
* * *
This graphic has been amended since initial publication. Just yesterday, Mukesh Ambani climbed up the list to become the richest person in Asia, and it now reflects that. Thanks to everyone who pointed this out.
Embattled Amazon Studios head Roy Price – who was suspended by the company last week after a producer claimed Price had repeatedly sexually harassed her – has finally made it official.
Variety reports Price officially resigned from Amazon on Tuesday, a decision that was expected by many in the industry. In Price’s absence, Amazon Studios COO Albert Cheng was named interim president.
Isa Hackett, a producer on "The Man in the High Castle," said she was harassed by Price during a late-night cab ride on the evening of July 10, 2015, after a long day of promoting the series at Comic-Con in San Diego. Hackett attended a dinner with the show"s cast and Amazon staff at the US Grant Hotel. At the dinner, Price asked Hackett to attend an Amazon staff party later that night at the former W Hotel. She ended up in a taxi with Price and Michael Paull, then another top Amazon executive and now CEO of the digital media company BAMTech, where Price repeatedly propositioned her, Variety reported.
Price reportedly told Hackett "You"ll Love My Dick" and whispered references to anal sex in her ear while she was trying to have a conversation with another person.
Hackett said she immediately reported the incident to Amazon, but little was done until the Harvey Weinstein scandal erupted and renewed the focus on sexual predation and exploitation in the entertainment industry.
Price joined Amazon in 2004 as the company set out to launch its video-on-demand service. That business has since grown into an original-series and feature-film studio, with Price at the helm. Under Price, Amazon launched series such as “Catastrophe,” “Bosch,” and Golden Globe winners “Mozart in the Jungle” and “Transparent.”
Still, the type of popular appeal that company founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has been elusive. Earlier this year, Bezos mandated a shift in programming strategy away from the niche, naturalistic dramas favored by Price and toward large-scale genre projects with the potential to capture large international audiences.
As Amazon Studios began executing on Bezos’ mandate this summer, Price became the subject of sexual harassment allegations first reported on business website The Information in August, which stoked rumors that Price might soon be headed for the exit. His fate was sealed when Hackett went public with her claims on Oct. 12.
Just hours after actress Rose McGowan destroyed Amazon and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos in a series of highly publicized Tweets condemning the left-wing billionaires supposed support for rapists and other sexual deviants, his company was rocked with scandal once again after television producer Isa Hackett accused one the companies top executives of sexual misconduct.
The head of Amazon Studios, Roy Price, was subsequently suspended from the company after Hackett’s accusations and amid the fury over McGowan’s claims that directly targeted one of the most powerful men in the country.
“Roy Price is on leave of absence effective immediately,” a spokesperson told the website TheWrap.
The accusations became public after an article by The Hollywood Reporter was released, mid-day Thursday, that came at literally the worst possible time for the now embattled company.
The reports reads:
On the evening of July 10, 2015, after a long day of promoting Man in the High Castle at Comic-Con in San Diego, Hackett attended a dinner with the show’s cast and Amazon staff at the U.S. Grant Hotel. There she says she met Price for the first time. He asked her to attend an Amazon staff party later that night at the W Hotel (now the Renaissance) and she ended up in a taxi with Price and Michael Paull, then another top Amazon executive and now CEO of the digital media company BAMTech.
Once in the cab, Hackett says Price repeatedly and insistently propositioned her. “You will love my dick,” he said, according to Hackett, who relayed her account to multiple individuals in the hours after the alleged episode. (The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed Hackett told at least two people about the alleged incident in the immediate aftermath.) Hackett says she made clear to Price she was not interested and told him that she is a lesbian with a wife and children.
Hackett says Price did not relent in the cab or once they arrived at the Amazon party. As she talked with other executives, she says that Price stepped close to her and loudly said, “Anal sex!” in her ear.
This comes on the heels of McGowan’s bombshell Twitter outburst which included claims that she told Amazon Studies that Harvey Weinstein had raped her and that was told back that it “hadn’t been proven.” Amazingly, Price, the man now accused of his own sexual misconduct, may have been the person who gave McGowan this response.
1) @jeffbezos I told the head of your studio that HW raped me. Over & over I said it. He said it hadn’t been proven. I said I was the proof.
— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 12, 2017
2) @jeffbezos I had already sold a script I wrote to your studio, it was in development. When I heard a Weinstein bailout was in the works
— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 12, 2017
3) @Jeffbezos I forcefully begged studio head to do the right thing. I was ignored. Deal was done. Amazon won a dirty Oscar.
— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 12, 2017
4) @jeffbezos I called my attorney & said I want to get my script back, but before I could, #2 @amazonstudios called to say my show was dead
— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 12, 2017
5) @jeffbezos Be the change you want to see in the world. Stand with truth. #ROSEARMY #Amazon
— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 12, 2017
The sick irony in this disgusting situation is that Bezos owns the Washington Post which has spent over a year attacking Donald Trump over the Access Hollywood tape while accusing his supporters of sexism on a daily basis.
As Breitbart noted, “Bezos, with a net worth of over $80 billion, briefly surpassed Bill Gates as the world’s richest person earlier this year. He is the founder and CEO of Amazon, now the world’s biggest online retailer. He is also the current owner of The Washington Post, whose columnists have slammed President Donald Trump over alleged sexism and locker room talk.”
The entire Weinstein scandal is now seemingly moving forward against other high-profile players within Hollywood and the liberal machine, including Amazon and the Washington Post by extension.
One has to wonder how long until one of the establishment news papers does a hit piece on McGowan and begins to discredit her claims?
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Less than a week after it first hit, the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal fallout has spread across multiple Hollywood circles, and moments ago it appears to have dragged in none other than Amazon CEO, and the world"s 2nd richest man, Jeff Bezos.
In a series of tweets on Thursday afternoon, Rose McGowan, one of the at least 20 women who have accused Weinstein of sexual assault, and who was locked out of twitter overnight after attacking Ben Affleck, accused the Batman star of lying about his knowledge of Weinstein’s alleged sexual assaults of women, dragged Jeff Bezos into the Weinstein scandal.
McGowan claims that Amazon optioned a television series from her only to kill it soon after when she voiced concern about a possible move the company was making to bailout Weinstein. McGowan also accused Amazon of winning “a dirty Oscar” by working with accused rapist Harvey Weinstein, despite being warned of accusations against him.
"I told the head of your studio that HW raped me. Over & over I said it. He said it hadn’t been proven. I said I was the proof," said McGowan on Thursday in a tweet directed at company founder Jeff Bezos.
"I had already sold a script I wrote to your studio, it was in development. When I heard a Weinstein bailout was in the works."
Amazon executives, McGowan also claimed, did nothing when McGowan warned them about Weinstein. McGowan is one of several women to have settled with Weinstein. “I forcefully begged studio head to do the right thing. I was ignored,” she wrote. “Deal was done. Amazon won a dirty Oscar.”
Her full tweets:
Here are her tweets (and a snapshot) just in case @Jack decides to suspend her account again.
1) @jeffbezos I told the head of your studio that HW raped me. Over & over I said it. He said it hadn’t been proven. I said I was the proof.
— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 12, 2017
2) @jeffbezos I had already sold a script I wrote to your studio, it was in development. When I heard a Weinstein bailout was in the works
— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 12, 2017
3) @Jeffbezos I forcefully begged studio head to do the right thing. I was ignored. Deal was done. Amazon won a dirty Oscar.
— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 12, 2017
4) @jeffbezos I called my attorney & said I want to get my script back, but before I could, #2 @amazonstudios called to say my show was dead
— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 12, 2017
5) @jeffbezos Be the change you want to see in the world. Stand with truth. #ROSEARMY #Amazon
— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 12, 2017
According to the Mail, That "dirty Oscar" seems to be a reference to Casey Affleck"s Best Actor win for "Manchester by the Sea" earlier this year, an award that Ben"s younger brother took home despite two women accusing him of sexual harassment. McGowan did not identify Casey by name, but the only other Oscars that Amazon has won are the Best Original Screenplay award for Kenneth Lonergan and Best Foreign Language Film for the Iranian drama "The Salesman."
Amazon picked up "Manchester by the Sea" at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival for a near-record $10 million, and the film ultimately ended up netting the movie industry upstart seven Oscar nominations and two wins.
It is unclear what role Weinstein played in the funding or sale of Manchester, but he has worked frequently with the film"s two leads Casey and Michelle Williams as well as the executive producer of the picture Matt Damon.
Amazon said that the studio was "reviewing our options for the projects we have with The Weinstein Company" earlier this week. McGowan also did not name the executive she was referencing in her Twitter thread.
While the deal between herself and Amazon was never confirmed, but in June 2016 Amazon Studios head Roy Price did post a photo of himself with McGowan. "You come talking that trash we"ll pull your card. Tough face contest lost to @rosemcgowan #eazye #rosearmy," wrote Price.
He is now finding himself at the mercy of the #rosearmy himself after the actress" tweets. "I called my attorney & said I want to get my script back, but before I could, #2 @amazonstudios called to say my show was dead," claimed McGowan.
Rose McGowan (above with Amazon studio head Roy Price in June 2016)
Separately, earlier on Thursday, twitter provided an explanation for why it had suspended McGowan"s twitter account:
We have been in touch with Ms. McGowan"s team. We want to explain that her account was temporarily locked because one of her Tweets included a private phone number, which violates our Terms of Service. The Tweet was removed and her account has been unlocked. We will be clearer about these policies and decisions in the future. Twitter is proud to empower and support the voices on our platform, especially those that speak truth to power. We stand with the brave women and men who use Twitter to share their stories, and will work hard every day to improve our processes to protect those voices.
We now await Bezos" response.
After claiming its 27th victim of the year in the form of the Toys "R" Us bankruptcy filed earlier this morning, the Amazon-induced retail bloodbath of 2017 has just turned full-on apocalyptic. According to data aggregated by Reorg First Day, the Toys "R" Us filing brings the total amount of defaulted retail debt to over $14 billion so far in 2017.
All of which should be sufficient to drive U.S. equity markets to fresh new highs before the end of the day.
Meanwhile, according to Bankrupty Data, Toys "R" Us marks the third largest U.S. retail bankruptcy in history, based on assets, exceeded only by Kmart and Federated Department Stores...
...and here is how the 2017 retail bankruptcies have stacked up.
Of course, the real question is whether the 3rd largest retail bankruptcy in U.S. history is enough to once again push Amazon"s Jeff Bezos to the top the world"s list of biggest douches wealthiest men.
We"ve recently found ourselves frequently noting a rather bizarre new trend in which the mainstream media and liberal Washington D.C. establishment has turned its back on the Silicon Valley elites. Just last week, even Hillary Clinton called out Facebook for allowing someone who may have been Russian buy a staggering $50,000 worth of political ads on their site...hopefully we don"t have to explain the irony of that statement given that Facebook execs gave millions to Hillary"s campaign.
But, just a word to the wise, if you"re a writer and have intentions of joining in on the recent wave of tech titan bashing, you may want to first make sure your paper isn"t owned by the same tech titan who has wandered into your crosshairs. Unfortunately, Fredrick Kunkle of the Washington Post didn"t heed that advice when he published a scathing op-ed about Jeff Bezos in the Huffington Post. Here"s a taste of what he had to say:
One of the wealthiest men in the world is thinking of ways to give back. But he’s still taking from the very people who helped him build his fortune.
But as Bezos, whose worth now exceeds $80 billion, loosens his pockets, it’s important to put his charitable giving — and the philanthropy of the super-rich — into perspective: Many people worked hard for Bezos to help make him so rich, and he has a record of treating them poorly.
Amazon’s history of dodging taxes, its mistreatment of workers, and its ruthlessness toward even the smallest competitors have been well documented. It put ambulances outside distribution centers rather than install adequate air conditioning. It broke up a union organizing effort by closing the call center and dismissing everyone who worked there. The New York Times documented its punishing work environment in a front-page exposé. The company’s actions, as Forbes put it, hark back to an earlier time when workers were treated as “replaceable cogs in the machine.”
Everyone at the Post wants it to succeed and prosper. But we want our employees to succeed and prosper, too.
Two years ago, however, Bezos slashed retirement benefits. For reasons that remain unclear, he froze a pension plan that was awash in so much money that neither he nor the company would possibly have faced additional liabilities. He also spurned the sort of compromise plan The New York Times Co. had pioneered ? an adjustable pension plan that would have ensured the Post would never encounter a problem funding it. In essence, this innovative approach, developed by the financial services firm Cheiron, would have mitigated the company’s risks by sharing them with employees and continued to grow their annual retirement benefit.
Bezos’ decision on retirement benefits had nothing to do with the balance sheet and, arguably, everything to do with ideology. And it almost overshadowed Bezos’ demand for the right to cancel everyone’s health insurance and his push to take it away from part-time employees.
Not surprisingly, Kunkle"s efforts earned him this sternly-worded warning from Wapo"s Director of Labor Relations for his "willful and intentional violation of
The Washington Post’s standards and ethics policy." Of course, we wouldn"t be surprised if this letter turns out to be just a prelude to Kunkle"s eventual dismissal...somehow we suspect his "performance reviews" are about to become a bit more critical.
But, as it turns out, punishing writers for "publicizing a dispute with management" might just violate union rules and has earned Wapo an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board.
In response to the Post’s warning, the Washington-Baltimore News Guild, which represents the paper’s editorial staff, filed on Tuesday what is known as an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing the Post of violating Kunkle’s legally protected right to engage in “concerted activities” to further the union’s interests. The National Labor Relations Act bars employers from interfering in worker activities that advance their welfare, which typically include a worker’s right to publicly criticize an employer about a work-related matter.
“If you’re a Guild officer and Freddy is, he has a legal right to publicize a dispute with management,” said Rick Ehrmann, the Guild representative for the Post newsroom. “It doesn’t matter what the outlet is.”
Kunkle, who writes the Post’s “Tripping” blog about transportation in the Washington, D.C. area, pitched the Post’s opinion section at the end of August on an op-ed challenging Bezos’ rollback of employee retirement benefits and planned overhaul of the company’s severance policy, according to his account of events.
When the newspaper rejected it, in his telling, Kunkle decided to publish it at HuffPost, informing Washington Post Editor-in-Chief Marty Baron of his plans. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am a member of the labor-management committee at HuffPost, which is represented by the Writer’s Guild of America, East.)
That said, while Kunkle"s NLRB filing is "cute", somehow we suspect it"s only a matter of time before he learns the true cost of defying a mainstream media outlet"s official list of pre-approved narratives.
Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,
The Washington Post, whose sole owner is both a CIA contractor and one of the wealthiest plutocrats of all time, has sent its Bezos-paid Ringwraiths after small independent reporters for having the temerity to talk about a lawsuit that had severe implications for the future of democracy in America.
Back in May, comedian and Youtuber Jimmy Dore released a video titled “Washington Post Caught Blatantly Lying To Their Readers Yet Again” about one of the many, many deceptions that WaPo has been caught inflicting upon their unsuspecting audience. Dore pointed out that while corporate media reporters have long served as guard dogs for the establishment, in today’s environment where plutocratic CIA contractors can openly buy up media to advance blatant propaganda, those reporters have now become attack dogs for the establishment. As an example of this new breed of establishment attack dogs who go out of their way to smear and discredit all dissenting voices, Dore named amoral Bezos android Dave Weigel, who then spent months attacking both Dore and his writers.
In a new article titled “In one corner of the Internet, the 2016 Democratic primary never ended”, big brave truth warrior Weigel used his massive platform to tear down writers and Youtubers who earn a fraction of his income because they reported on the DNC fraud lawsuit, which was dismissed last week.
At no point in his insipid article does Weigel mention the Impartiality Clause of the DNC Charter, which was the central point of the fraud lawsuit and which the DNC was shown to have undeniably violated in such WikiLeaks releases as the conversations in the more egregious DNC emails, the Podesta emails showing that the DNC and the Clinton camp were colluding as early as 2014 to schedule debates and primaries in a way that favored her, and then-DNC Vice Chairwoman Donna Brazile acting as a mole against the Sanders campaign and passing Clinton questions in advance to prep her for debates with Sanders. DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was involved in all of these things, thus violating the promise the DNC made to the American people in its Impartiality Clause.
Instead of addressing the lawsuit’s actual claims, Weigel opted to toss out a bunch of red herrings about voter roll purges and state elections officials to make the case that the DNC was not responsible for Sanders’ unfair treatment. But this baseless criticism was tangential to Weigel’s primary driving narrative, which was that independent reporters like HA Goodman and Tim Black belong to a marginal band of online kooks who ought to be scorned and ridiculed. At one point in the article he even argued that they should have spent more time covering the still completely unproven “hack” of the DNC rather than focusing on the contents of the WikiLeaks releases. Weigel’s whole piece revolved around his assigned task of discrediting alternative media, which is of course one of the most threatening enemies of the unelected power establishment that he works for.
https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/866700030417059841
Weigel has attempted to argue on multiple occasions that it’s just a wacky, zany conspiracy theory to criticize his publication’s consistent violation of standard journalistic protocol by refusing to disclose its conflict of interest when reporting on the US intelligence community. If you find it at all suspicious that one of the most popular news publications in America downplays the fact that it is exclusively owned by a CIA contractor, you’re no different than someone saying the earth’s flatness is being suppressed by reptilian Illuminati. The second-richest billionaire in the world obviously bought the Washington Post in 2013 because he sensed that newspapers were about to enjoy a lucrative resurgence, you silly child.
Come the fuck on. Jeff Bezos is not paying conscience-free ghouls like Dave Weigel to tear apart anti-establishment media because he thinks it’s a booming business venture. Jeff Bezos did not purchase one of the most respected newspapers in America for less than half the price tag of his CIA contract because he loves you and wants you to know the truth about things. Jeff Bezos purchased the Washington Post because he knows that the empire that he is building his plutocratic kingdom upon needs a robust propaganda mouthpiece.
A pleasure to host #SecDef James Mattis at Amazon HQ in Seattle today pic.twitter.com/JnQZoSOnFN
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) August 10, 2017
“Control of thought is more important for governments that are free and popular than for despotic and military states,” says Noam Chomsky. “The logic is straightforward: a despotic state can control its domestic enemies by force, but as the state loses this weapon, other devices are required to prevent the ignorant masses from interfering with public affairs, which are none of their business…the public are to be observers, not participants, consumers of ideology as well as products.”
That is why Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post. In a corporatist system of government wherein corporate power is not separate from government power, corporate media is state media. It is propaganda. And for Jeff Bezos, only the best propaganda will do. He will continue to use his media arm to bolster the power establishment with which he is interweaving his massive corporatist kingdom, and he knows that winning the media war is an essential part of that agenda. Control the way Americans think and vote, and you’ll never have to worry about them interrupting your metamorphosis into a god.
This shit right here is why I’m constantly talking about the importance of winning the media war. Enemies of humanity like Jeff Bezos know that the front lines of the battle against tyranny are not happening at the ballot box, nor in counter-protests against skinheads, but in the field of propaganda. Freeing mainstream America from the shackles of plutocracy necessarily means combating the mind viruses being dumped into their heads by toxic establishment war machines like the Washington Post.
So please, support independent media, start creating your own independent media to the extent that you are capable, and help fight these bastards. Their propaganda machine remains the weakest point in their armor. We can take it down together. Keep fighting.
There are many conspiracies surrounding the total solar eclipse that will occur on Monday, August 21. Everyone, including scientists, talk like this is a sure thing, but is it?
Some conspiracy theorists are asking us all to follow the money. And they make a few good points. On August 21, the moon will pass between the Earth and the sun, obscuring the light of our star. The government agency NASA says this will result in “one of nature’s most awe-inspiring sights.” But some say that it’s all just a gigantic conspiracy to make money.
The Atlantic says “something doesn’t add up.” The astronomers at NASA claim to have calculated down to the minute exactly when and where this will happen, and for how long, and have put out maps detailing the “path of totality.” They have reportedly known about this eclipse for years, just by virtue of some sort of complex math. But they haven’t released the math to the public so we can check the calculations for ourselves.
Meanwhile, the scientists tell us we can’t look at it without special glasses because “looking directly at the sun is unsafe.” Of course, it’s unsafe, we’ve known about this for decades. You shouldn’t look directly at the sun, and there are documented cases of retinal damage because of it. But what if they only say this during an eclipse (when the moon is blocking the majority of the sun’s rays) to capitalize on the sale of special glasses?
Corporations like Amazon are profiting from the sale of these eclipse glasses. Is anyone asking how many of these astronomers also, conveniently, belong to Amazon Prime?
Let’s follow the money a little further. Hotels along the “path of totality”—a regiondrawn up by Obama-era NASA scientists—have been sold out for months. Some of those hotels are owned and operated by large multinational corporations. Where else do these hotels have locations? You guessed it: Washington, D.C. –The Atlantic
The entire political-scientific-corporate power structure is aligned behind the eclipse. This includes the mainstream media. There are almost no stories about how the eclipse may not happen. But could that be because it really is going to happen? Perhaps we should delve a little deeper into the money trail.
Newspaper owner Jeff Bezos is out there buying all of Seattle with the revenue from these “eclipse glasses.” Conspiracy theorists are saying that there is a chance the eclipse won’t happen at all and are asking for their voices to be heard. But if it does happen after a scientist says that it will not, his credibility and trustworthiness for the rest of his life will be questioned.
It isn’t likely that the eclipse won’t happen. But if it doesn’t, we will have a few validated conspiracy theorists out there all too happy to point out that they were right.
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Author: Mac Slavo
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Date: August 17th, 2017
Website: www.SHTFplan.com
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How fast the fortunes of the world"s richest shift: just two weeks ago, when AMZN hit its all time high on July 27, its CEO Jeff Bezos briefly surpassed Bill Gates as the world"s richest man for the first time ever, despite growing rumors and rumblings of regulatory pushback against Amazon which is rapidly emerging as the biggest monopoly threat to established legacy industries.
Fast forward two weeks and Bezos is no longer the world"s richest man, he isn"t even the world"s second richest man because after yesterday"s market slump and Nasdaq plunge that drained $42.7 billion from the net worth of the world’s 500 richest people, the drop in Amazon stock...
.... was enough to push Bezos from his spot as the world’s second-richest person according to Bloomberg calculations. The worst market rout since May, lopped $2 billion from Bezos’s fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, after AMZN dropped 2.6% to under $957, more than $100 lower than its July 27 all time high of just over $1.080.
As a result, Bezos is now worth "only" $82.2 billion about $600 million behind Spanish retail magnate Amancio Ortega, founder of the Zara clothing chain.
The losses, which came following the escalating jawboning and war of words between President Trump North Korea, spanned multiple regions and industries, but tech billionaires were hit the hardest, accounting for seven of the 10 biggest declines. NetEase Chairman Lei Ding incurred the second-largest loss, dropping $1.8 billion to $16.8 billion, followed by Facebook"s Mark Zuckerberg, whose net worth slid $1.6 billion to $71.2 billion, rounding off the list of the Top 5 richest people in the world.
Meanwhile, the top spot once again belongs to Bill Gates, who briefly ceded the No. 1 spot to Bezos on an intraday basis two weeks ago; Gates lost $848.5 million on Thursday which however was not nearly enough to dethrone him from the rank of world"s richest, with a net worth of $90 billion.
(FAIR) The three most prominent US newspapers haven’t run a critical investigative piece on Jeff Bezos’ company Amazon in almost two years, a FAIR survey finds.
A review of 190 articles from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the Bezos-owned Washington Post over the past year paints a picture of almost uniformly uncritical–ofttimes boosterish–coverage. None of the articles were investigative exposes, 6 percent leaned negative, 54 percent were straight reporting or neutral in tone, and 40 percent were positive, mostly with a fawning or even press release–like tone.
The last major investigative piece we found in any of these three publications was a 4,500-word critique of Amazon’s labor practices in the New York Times (8/16/15) almost two years ago. Considering that Amazon is the fourth-most-valuable company in the world, with a 43 percent (and growing) share of all US online commerce, it’s a striking absence of journalistic scrutiny.
The line between straight reporting and fawning coverage wasn’t always clear, given the nature of technology journalism, but, in general, a distinction was drawn when reporting on Amazon’s latest moves featured no criticism or contrary third-party input, and the article was mostly indistinguishable from a press release.
Examples of this type of breathless corporate coverage, from a one-week span in 2016, included “Amazon’s Latest Weapon in the E-Commerce Wars: Its Own Air Force” (Washington Post, 8/6/16), “Amazon Reveals ‘Prime Air’ Cargo Jet” (Wall Street Journal, 8/5/16) and “Think Amazon’s Drone Delivery Idea Is a Gimmick? Think Again” (New York Times, 8/10/16). The most embarrassing example of outright PR pablum was this Washington Post “exclusive look,” based primarily on futurist porn speculation (3/2/17):
Amazing how a Bezos-owned paper got an “exclusive” on Jeff Bezos!
One can review the list and determinations here. We included articles about Amazon.com, Inc. (reviews of Amazon TV shows or stories about Amazonbestsellers, for example, were not included) that were significant enough for the outlets’ respective Twitter accounts to post the stories.
One might expect the Washington Post—the personal property of Bezos—to provide more favorable coverage of its owner’s company, but the Post’s level of uncritical praise, though very high, was roughly par for the course. About 95 percent of Post coverage ranged from neutral (43 percent) to positive/fawning (48 percent) in tone.
Ninety-three percent of New York Times coverage of Amazon and 94 percent of the Wall Street Journal’s ranged from straight news to press release. Fifty-seven percent of the Times‘ coverage and 31 percent of the Journal‘s could be characterized as somewhat to extremely flattering. (Note that the Post‘s level of positive coverage fell in between the two other papers’.)
One of the major reasons Amazon gets such glowing coverage is that tech journalism is traditionally not a very critical vertical. Tech company X reveals it’s doing Y or will do Z—that is, by the beat’s definition, newsworthy, and the press release is rewritten, with some added commentary from friendly talking heads and market analysts. Because it’s “tech,” the political or labor implications come in a distant second to the shiny-object quality of the beat.
Occasionally issues such as privacy or anti-trust or union unrest will be touched on, but this is usually in response to legal action taken by the state or by activists, not as a topic raised by reporters themselves. On a case by case basis, this is understandable (clearly not every tech write-up has to be an exposé), but on the whole, tech journalism is a media landscape dominated by corporate stenography.
With Amazon’s stock surging to well over $1,000 a share, and its head recently crowned the richest person in the world, the stakes for putting Amazon and Bezos in a critical light couldn’t be higher. Yet time and again, the pillars of US media provide them all the critical rigor a high school paper typically provides the spring dance committee.
By Adam Johnson / Creative Commons / FAIR.org / Report a typo / Steve Jurvetson
This article was chosen for republication based on the interest of our readers. Anti-Media republishes stories from a number of other independent news sources. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect Anti-Media editorial policy.
Click here for a larger, more legible version of the infographic that you can explore in-depth.
When we think of wealth today, we often think of the massive personal fortunes of business magnates like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, or Warren Buffett. However, it is only since the Industrial Revolution that measuring wealth by one’s bank account has been a norm for the world’s richest.
For most of recorded human history, in fact, the lines around wealth were quite blurred. Leaders like Augustus Caesar or Emperor Shenzong had absolute control of their empires – while bankers like Jakob Fogger and Cosimo de Medici were often found pulling the strings from behind.
This infographic focuses on the richest people in history up until the Industrial Revolution – and in the coming weeks, we will release a second version that covers wealth from then onwards (including figures like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jeff Bezos, etc.).
While it is certainly fun to speculate on the wealth of people from centuries past, putting together this list is exceptionally difficult and certainly not definitive.
Here’s why:
Firstly, much wealth in early periods is tied to land (Genghis Khan) or entire empires (Augustus, Akbar), which makes calculations extremely subjective. What is most of Asia’s land worth in the year 1219? What separates personal fortune from the riches of an empire that one has full control of? There are a wide variety of answers to these questions, and they all influence the figures chosen to be represented.
Secondly, records kept from Ancient eras are scarce, exaggerated, or based on legends and oral histories. Think of King Solomon or Mansa Musa – these are characters described as immeasurably rich, so trying to put their wealth in modern context is fun, but certainly not guaranteed to be historically accurate.
Lastly, wealth and conversion rates can be approached in different ways as well. Take Crassus in the Roman Republic, who had a peak fortune of “200 million sesterces”. Well, that’s a problem for us in modernity, because that stash could be worth anywhere from $200 million to $169.8 billion, depending on how calculations are done.
So, enjoy this list of the wealthiest historical figures, but keep in mind that it is mostly for fun – and that the list of the wealthiest people in history changes depending on who you ask!
Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,
PCR Takes a Look at Today’s “Top Stories” on Bloomberg
“Jeff Bezos briefly overtook Bill Gates as the world’s richest person. A surge in Amazon shares Thursday morning in advance of its earnings report gave Bezos a net worth of $92.3 billion, surpassing the Microsoft founder’s $90.8 billion fortune.
In afternoon trading, Bezos remains ranked second on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Gates has held the top spot since May 2013.”
Amazon’s stock closed yesterday at $1,046 per share. Amazon’s profits do not support this extraordinary price. Apple, a very profitable company, has a share price of $150.56, an overprice itself.
What or who is making Bezos so rich from an online sales company? Note, amazon.com is just sales. It is not some new manufacturing technology that produces valuable output at low cost. amazon.com is what Walmart, Sears, and Macy’s do, the difference being that amazon.com is online and Walmart, Sears, and Macy’s are in physical locations where real merchandise can be experienced hands on and tried on for fit.
In other words, online purchases are convenient, but you don’t know what you are getting. Does it fit? What is the quality? And so forth. How many times do you send it back before you get what you want?
There are two answers to the question about who is making Bezos rich.
One is that Wall Street is betting that the collapse of US anti-trust law and regulatory authority - it is still on the books but not enforced, just look at the Big Banks - and the ability of Bezos to use his ownership of the Washington Post, the newspaper of the country’s capital, to support those who support him, ensure that amazon.com will be an online monopoly. Once this is put in place, amazon’s prices and profits will rise, and the extraordinary amazon.com P/E ratio will come into line with reality.
Another is that Bezos’ cooperation with Washington’s spy network over all Americans is paid for by the CIA’s many front companies driving up the price of amazon.com’s stock. As the price of amazon.com rises, so does Bezos’ wealth.
[ZH: perhaps there is another reason related to the latter...]
I don’t know that either of these answers is correct. What I notice is that Bill Gates who heads the largest digital technology company is on occasion second fiddle to Bezos who heads an online Sears or Macy’s.
Apple with a share price of $150 earned $52.9 billion during the second quarter of 2017. Earnings per share were $2.10.
Amazon.com earned $38 billion. Earnings per share were 40 cents.
Why is amazon.com’s price $1,046 per share and Apple’s price is $150.56 per share.
Apple’s earnings per share are 5.25 times higher than amazon’s, but amazon’s stock price is 6.9 times higher than Apple’s. What explains this?
The free market answer is that amazon.com, a company that sells other companies’ products, is more promising than a high tech leading manufacturing company of our time.
Does that make sense to you?
Keep in mind that it was Bezos’ government propaganda sheet, the Washington Post, that gave credibility to the shadowy organization, PropOrNot, an entity better hidden than an offshore money laundering operation, that produced a list of 200 truth-tellers which it libeled as “Russian dupe/agent.”
Monopolies are inconsistent with free market capitalism and with democracy. Monopolies and government bond together to create fascism.
Washington, D.C. – Amazon, and its owner Jeff Bezos, who recently surpassed Bill Gates to become the richest man in the world – and who has a $600 million dollar contract with the CIA – have come under fire after a purported whistleblower implicated the company of collusion with the CIA and NSA to spy on Americans.
Bezos, who also owns one of the main propaganda outlets in the United States, The Washington Post, is a controversial figure, who has deep ties to the national security apparatus. He is a former Bilderburger, who has enmeshed his corporations with the national security state.
After building Amazon into an e-commerce behemoth, CEO Jeff Bezos purchased the ailing 140-year-old media goliath in 2013 for $250 million — but his lack of experience in media raised the eyebrows of that industry and much of the business world. The same year Bezos purchased the Post, Amazon landed a $600 million deal with the CIA to develop a coordinated computing cloud for all 17 agencies of the U.S. intelligence community.
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Although innocuous on the surface, that sizable deal appears somewhat darker in consideration of this year’s quasi-official continuance of the U.S. government’s most notorious propaganda program, Operation Mockingbird — during which intelligence agents posed as the media to imbue pro-American propaganda and censor certain information.
Now, a person claiming to be a former tech at one of Amazon’s data centers, which operates “under the purview of VADATA, Inc.” — in an effort to conceal its relationship to Amazon – made a detailed, and scathing claim, which directly implicates the company in working directly with the NSA and CIA to domestically spy on Americans hosting their data on AWS servers.
READ MORE: Breaking: Congress Passes Bill Giving Police Unlimited Access to Citizens" Private Communications
The whistleblower claims that after having stumbled upon the illegal domestic surveillance, and notifying superiors to no avail, he/she began to be targeted by both electronic and physical surveillance.
According to the whistleblower’s post on Reddit titled, “I will remain quiet no longer and Americans need to know. I worked on AWS systems (Amazon) and they let agencies carry out unconstitutional domestic surveillence on their customers.“:
In 2011-2012 I worked for AWS on the PDX OPS team. We were responsible for the installation and upkeep of a newly created data cluster in Boardman, OR and Umatilla, OR known internally as PDX. These datacenters are different from others in that they only hire natural born citizens mainly because hidden away in these datacenters is a section known as PDT. Amazon has these datacenters under the purview of VADATA, Inc so the public doesn’t directly know its an Amazon datacenter.
The PDT section is where the government hosts are located. Within this area you’re not allowed to bring in ANY outside electronic device. Doing so accidentally can bring about a felony charge that carries a 10 year sentence, purposefully doing so can be upwards of 50. The security of these datacenters was so tight they even hired an ex-CIA officer to run security.
One afternoon, while reading articles about Snowden leaks, I get a ticket of a PDT host being utulizied by the CIA that had a failed Network Interface Card (NIC). I replaced the card, loaded the firmware and got the host to assimilate to the rest of the network. To verify I fixed the issue I used a RedHat Linux command to show what other hosts the host I was working on was connected to. I had to use a special command known as “sudo” to give me temporary admin privileges to run the command.
What I got back from that command was seeing this host was connected to PRIVATE hosts. When I was first hired I was explicitly told that I should report any instance of a PDT host connecting to a PDX host as it was unconstitutional. I suspected maybe other hosts were like this and found other CIA and NSA hosts doing the same thing. I immediately reported it to the datacenter manager and he told me not to worry.
After that I noticed a lot of weird things outside of work. My phone would make odd noises when I was calling someone. Numerous occasions I had planes follow me. One time I took a walk around town and this helicopter was following me almost the entirety of my walk. I tried to be out as long as I could and the helicopter left to refeul and came back to find me. I also had someone logging into my bank account on a recurring basis. I would get a text notification everyday at 6am that someone logged into my account. I spoke with the bank IT staff and got them traceroute the request and it was coming from Langley, VA. After this the logins into my account immediately stopped.
Nevertheless my contract wasn’t renewed and my career in IT has stalled since then. My suspicion is I was placed on a blacklist. I am also an unusual IT technician in that I have experience in working in DC having a lot of facetime with politicians and other powerplayers. I was in a unique position to understand the technology AND the significant political impact that this could have on the rest of America.
I can no longer sit idly by and be quiet. What I saw is a crime of the highest order and this was over six years ago. Now the datacluster has grown leaps and bounds and is much more compartmentalized. God only knows what the hell they allow now. I’m done living in fear what happened and I feel ashamed to work on technology that serves to limit and constrain all of us. I only did what I thought was true, just and patriotic and I was punished for it. Amazon is just as much of the swamp and President Trump has every reason to go after them. MAGA
The Free Thought Project attempted to contact the whistleblower to corroborate their version of events, but at the time of publication had not received a response. The clear collusion between Amazon and Post owner Jeff Bezos, and the national security apparatus, is clear and unambiguous.
READ MORE: Julian Assange Emerges in New Interview -- Denies Rumors of WikiLeaks CIA Takeover
The whistleblower’s revelations provide a unique insight into exactly how Bezos is using his mega-fortune to assist in propping up a duel purpose propaganda/domestic surveillance apparatus that allows the government to essentially use these companies as private contractors for the security state, while outwardly operating as businesses that serve the public interest, thus lulling the average American into complacency.
Please share this story to help awaken the public to the collusion between government and business at the expense of privacy and truth!
