The Death Of Retail Real Estate Continues: 77MM Sq.Ft Of Shopping Space Closed In 2018 Already

This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge

Retail real estate carnage is going to continue this year with no signs of slowing up, as Bloomberg reported this morning that over 77 million square feet of retail real estate has closed this year and that 2018 will easily pass 2017’s record of 105 million square feet closed. The latest example was the fall of the once massive Toys ‘R’ Us name:

The fall of the Toys “R” Us chain, with more than 700 U.S. stores, shows how much retail real estate has changed in just the last decade. When KKR & Co., Bain Capital, and Vornado Realty Trust took over the company in 2005, the buyers justified the $7.5 billion price, in part, because of the supposedly valuable properties that came with the deal.

If there was ever to be any silver lining to the complete carnage in the retail real estate space, it was the argument that has been perpetuated over the last decade or so: despite retail stores closing, the real estate would eventually be worth something.

This argument was made by real estate investment trusts as well as activist investors and analysts who tried to put a positive spin on the death of brick and mortar retail. Now, with more space freeing up, the bid under former retail property is at ask of falling off as supply is starting to get far ahead of demand:

Real estate can put a floor under the value of a retailer and make it easier for the company to borrow. Maybe a particular store concept doesn’t work out as consumers’ tastes change, but in that case, investors can always sell the land and buildings to someone with a better plan. Long-term leases can be similarly valuable. But what if the problem isn’t that a particular store is out of fashion, but that consumers are just shopping less at brick-and-mortar retailers in general? As more storefronts empty, the valuation floor will look wobblier.

This pace of closings puts 2018 on pace to pass 2017’s record of 105 million square feet of retail space closed:

At last count, U.S. store closures announced this year reached a staggering 77 million square feet, according to data on national and regional chains compiled by CoStar Group Inc. That means retailers are well on their way to surpassing the record 105 million square feet announced for closure in all of 2017.

It doesn’t look like the pace of these closings is going to slow anytime soon, either:

And with shifts to internet shopping and retailer debt woes continuing, there’s no indication the shakeout will end anytime soon. “A huge amount of retail real estate in the U.S. is going to meet its demise,” says James Corl, managing director and head of real estate at private equity firm Siguler Guff & Co. Property owners will “try to re-let it as a gun range or a church—or it’s going to go back to being a cornfield.”

So goes one set of stores, as go others. Despite the fact that the U.S. still has some of the most square footage of shopping space per person, there isn’t enough being spent at these locations to make them worth it:

Even though retailers have been retreating for years, the country still has about 24 square feet of shopping space per person, many times more than any other developed nation, according to research firm Green Street Advisors. Consumers aren’t spending enough offline to support such a generous amount. Vacancies are headaches for landlords, of course, but they also have a mushrooming effect. People may steer clear of a mall that has lost an anchor tenant or has an abundance of “for lease” signs in smaller spaces. Deserted big-box stores, their facades naked and parking lots barren, can spread a sense of blight for blocks around. Who wants to open a business next to a place that’s gone out of business?

The article finishes by pointing out that companies like Amazon and Whole Foods have still seen success using a brick-and-mortar retail concept. It’s possible that the space is simply just downsizing and becoming more efficient instead of disappearing entirely. Regardless, there seems to be a long runway to go in terms of retail real estate freeing up over the next couple of years. The trend of internet versus department stores also remains anything but encouraging.

And the outlook, with overlevered companies and lack of a serious bid under property prices, continues to look grim. Retailers are not going to be able to refi or recapitalize in ways necessary to try and grab onto lifelines. As the sector continues to collapse it’s going to be harder and harder to try and engineer turnarounds – this could lead to a self fulfilling prophecy of accelerating turmoil and collapse for the industry:

But not every deserted retail property can be turned into a gym, theater, or boutique outlet of a tech company. That reality will weigh on any investor thinking about scooping up a struggling chain with real estate assets today—especially buyers in private equity, who borrow heavily to finance their deals. “Retailers cannot support large debt loads,” says Perry Mandarino, head of restructuring at B. Riley FBR, an investment bank that’s worked on retail liquidations. “Add to that the possibility of a decrease in the value of other collateral, such as real estate, and the successful execution of a retail-leveraged buyout may be almost impossible.”

Almost a year ago to the day, we reported on retail closing setting up to hit a scorching pace in 2017. The narrative for 2018 stays the same, only worse. In early 2017 we pointed out the astonishing fact that “Barely a quarter into 2017, year-to-date retail store closings had already surpassed those of 2008.”

We asked in early 2017 if Amazon was assured of becoming the world’s first trillion-dollar stock, perhaps hitting the milestone even before Apple? Here is how the two names have fared since then:

The race is on.

Others have given up waiting for a recovery that seems always out of reach and are settling into what appears to be the new normal – but regardless, 2018 is setting up to, once again, break new ground in misery for retail real estate.

Alexa Device Gives Definition Of Chemtrails And It’s Freaking Some People Out

Amazon’s Alexa device is back in the spotlight after people began taking notice of the response they got when asking about chemtrails.  The actual response, however, is freaking out the “we buy the official narrative about everything and believe everything the government says” crowd.

Alexa stirred some controversy in the past for her “response” when asked if she worked for the CIA.  The device didn’t actually give a response, rather, it just shut down.

But check out what happens when simply asking Alexa “what are chemtrails?”

Of course, that’s not the response the sheeple in the population were hoping for. They wanted a quick validation that all of their faith in the government has been well-founded and they would never be lied to. Most are actually so physically uncomfortable with response (because there’s no way the government would ever lie to them) to the point that they immediately go to the “conspiracy theory” comments.

If ever anyone wants to know why alternative media has gained a foothold, it’s for the simple fact that those who dare to question the mainstream media’s version of events; are to be labeled as false and “conspiracy theorists,” even though their views obviously make the most sense. Conspiracy theorists don’t only have to believe in alien abduction or reptilian creatures anymore. Now, all they have to do is question authority or the media’s scripted version of events; and that was by design as well. –The Daily Sheeple

Any time a credible but politically unpalatable explanation for real world events is expressed in the American public sphere, it is often denounced as “conspiracy theory”, then dismissed and studiously ignored by the mass media. Public opinion, the public herd mind, obediently follows suit and closes itself to any such crazy conspiracy talk. –Econintersect

The cognitive dissonance is real.

IFL Science said:

It turns out that Alexa might not be the best source of information if you want to learn about chemtrails. If you ask Alexa about “chemtrails”, it appears it will go full Alexa Jones on you, and give you a tin-foil hat conspiracy theory that takes you to the very heart of government.

But all Alexa did was give the actual definition of a chemtrail. So why all the scary conspiracy nonsense? That is by design. When asked, the Amazon Echo Dot Alexa gave the very accurate response:

“Chemtrails. Trails left by aircraft are actually chemical or biological agents deliberately sprayed at high altitudes for a purpose undisclosed to the general public in clandestine programs directed by government officials.”

What’s even more fascinating, is that the propagandists upset about Alexa giving a correct definition actually made such a big deal about it, that the product will now no longer give you the definition of a “chemtrail.” It’ll instead, tell you what a “contrail” is.

Since the flaw in the Echo Dot’s reasoning was found, Amazon has updated the response. The device will now explain to you what contrails are, rather than give you a conspiracy theory response that will send you down a rabbit hole that leads you to believe the Deep State is hiding the truth about the Earth being flat. –IFL Science

Remember, these are the same people that needed Google to change the definition of fascism because the correct definition doesn’t make them look all that good. The simple fact that people were upset that the delicate balance of lies was upended in their minds to the point they had to have the response changed to fit their biased belief is all the indication most need to know that asking questions is how we get the truth; not some blind allegiance to the mainstream media and government agents.

The Left’s Embrace of Amazon’s Corporatism Proves Haunting Power of Two-Party Paradigm

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 Now Wants To Photograph Your Home Every Time They Make A Delivery

By Mac Slavo, SHTFplan | 

Amazon has decided to offer a new service that seems innocent on the surface. The retailer has begun photographing packages left at homes and sending that picture to the customer’s email address to help them locate packages that may have been hidden.

It all seems so innocent. But is it? According to Natural News, Amazon’s new service is meant to help customers find where their package was left while they were at work or out running errands, especially if it was intentionally tucked behind a bush or a flower pot to keep it hidden from potential thieves. Amazon has a good reason for taking pictures of the homes packages are delivered to, but that doesn’t make it any less creepy and privacy concerns are now, once again at the forefront.

Especially considering USA Today reported that this new “feature” is being rolled out almost silently. Amazon has been quietly expanding a program over the past few months in which some of its delivery providers take a picture of where they put your package. The photo is included in the notice of delivery received by shoppers so they know when it arrived and where to look for it.

Amazon Logistics Photo On Delivery is “one of many delivery innovations we’re working on to improve convenience for customers,” Amazon spokesperson Kristen Kish said. The Photo on Delivery program has existed for at least six months, but recently Amazon updated the delivery device and app used by delivery personnel in its Amazon Logistics delivery system called Rabbit by drivers. Now, all Logistics drivers can take a photo. This has made the program more visible to a broader geographic swath of Amazon customers nationwide. It’s currently available at least in the Seattle, San Francisco, and Northern Virginia metro areas and only comprises a small portion of U.S. deliveries.

This feature is rolling out as Amazon increasingly asks its customers to accept its constant presence in their homes, from a voice-activated speaker that records snippets of commands to a high-tech entry system that allows delivery personnel to enter their home. It’s like Amazon is looking for ways to try to make people more comfortable with major violations of their privacy and personal space.

And when it comes to Amazon, concerns over privacy violations are more often than not legitimate, especially considering the fact that the electronic commerce giant has ahistory of spying and surveillance. Just a few months ago, the Daily Mail published an article on “Amazon’s creepy plan to put a camera and microphone in every bedroom” with the launch of the Echo Spot’s “smart alarm.”

But at least for now, you can opt out of having pictures taken of your home. For those who’d prefer not to have photos of their doors or shrubbery sent to them, customers can opt out of the service on the Amazon website under the help and customer service tab.

Copyright Information: Copyright SHTFplan and Mac Slavo. This content may be freely reproduced in full or in part in digital form with full attribution to the author and a link to www.shtfplan.com. Please contact us for permission to reproduce this content in other media formats.

The post Amazon Now Wants To Photograph Your Home Every Time They Make A Delivery appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.

Amazon Now Wants To Photograph Your Home Every Time They Make A Delivery

Amazon has decided to offer a new service that seems innocent on the surface. The retailer has begun photographing packages left at homes and sending that picture to the customer’s email address to help them locate packages that may have been hidden.

It all seems so innocent. But is it? According to Natural News, Amazon’s new service is meant to help customers find where their package was left while they were at work or out running errands, especially if it was intentionally tucked behind a bush or a flower pot to keep it hidden from potential thieves. Amazon has a good reason for taking pictures of the homes packages are delivered to, but that doesn’t make it any less creepy and privacy concerns are now, once again at the forefront.

Especially considering USA Today reported that this new “feature” is being rolled out almost silently. Amazon has been quietly expanding a program over the past few months in which some of its delivery providers take a picture of where they put your package. The photo is included in the notice of delivery received by shoppers so they know when it arrived and where to look for it.

Amazon Logistics Photo On Delivery is “one of many delivery innovations we’re working on to improve convenience for customers,” Amazon spokesperson Kristen Kish said. The Photo on Delivery program has existed for at least six months, but recently Amazon updated the delivery device and app used by delivery personnel in its Amazon Logistics delivery system called Rabbit by drivers. Now, all Logistics drivers can take a photo. This has made the program more visible to a broader geographic swath of Amazon customers nationwide. It’s currently available at least in the Seattle, San Francisco, and Northern Virginia metro areas and only comprises a small portion of U.S. deliveries.

This feature is rolling out as Amazon increasingly asks its customers to accept its constant presence in their homes, from a voice-activated speaker that records snippets of commands to a high-tech entry system that allows delivery personnel to enter their home. It’s like Amazon is looking for ways to try to make people more comfortable with major violations of their privacy and personal space.

And when it comes to Amazon, concerns over privacy violations are more often than not legitimate, especially considering the fact that the electronic commerce giant has a history of spying and surveillance. Just a few months ago, the Daily Mail published an article on “Amazon’s creepy plan to put a camera and microphone in every bedroom” with the launch of the Echo Spot’s “smart alarm.”

But at least for now, you can opt out of having pictures taken of your home. For those who’d prefer not to have photos of their doors or shrubbery sent to them, customers can opt out of the service on the Amazon website under the help and customer service tab.

Silent Spy: Amazon’s Alexa Can Listen for More than Just Its Name, Even While in Sleep Mode

By David Williams, Natural News | 

During the last Super Bowl, Amazon had an ad spot for Alexa, its intelligent voice-based personal assistant. During the spot, Alexa’s name – usually the device’s trigger to go from Sleep mode to Wake mode and await a user’s commands – was uttered some 10 times. Surprisingly, these didn’t trigger the Alexa devices that were sitting in viewers’ homes. That might not seem like much, but it’s a huge win in terms of the device’s usability in that particular situation.

Amazon later revealed that Alexa’s ability to simply ignore the sound cues from the commercial during the broadcast was made possible by something called acoustic fingerprint technology. This is what allowed all of the Alexa devices in the wild, and listening in during the live broadcast, to easily distinguish between the words that typically trigger them to wake up and the commands that were given by actual users.

Of course, as a new report now posits, Amazon had a lot of data and resources at their disposal. They were able to plan ahead of time to make sure that they wouldn’t be waking up the Alexa devices already being used by their customers while their new Superbowl ad played. But what if that technology — acoustic fingerprinting — could be taken to the next level and worked on a bunch of other sound signatures?

That’s exactly what one startup company called Audio Analytic is evidently doing: they are currently modeling sounds beyond voice and music. So far, it is said that they have encoded the sounds of a baby’s cry, a glass window being broken, a dog’s bark, and a smoke alarm going off. At the moment, they’ve also developed a method to spot any small anomalies in ambient noise, and they are licensing their software products to various consumer electronics companies.

According to Chris Mitchell, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company with a dual degree in music technology and electrical engineering from Anglia Ruskin University, their work is the result of much more complicated work than what Amazon had to do for their Super Bowl commercial. “With speech, and in particular wake words, the sound you make is constrained by the words and the broader rules of the language,” he explained, “there are a limited number of phonemes that humans can produce, and our collective knowledge here is considerable.”

In other words, audio fingerprint technology might be good enough for certain specific wake words, but for other sounds and noises, a much more robust system is required. For their work, Mitchell’s company relies on a deep learning system in order to analyze sounds and code them into ideophones — the representation of sound in speech. As a result, they could potentially give voice-based personal assistants that extraordinary ability to listen in for a variety of background noises and act accordingly, depending on the situation.

In an ideal scenario, that would be a wonderful feature to have on a device like Alexa. However, it does have the potential to be used for nefarious purposes. As one example, Alexa could listen in for certain types of background noise unhindered, even while it sleeps. That would, of course, violate the privacy of its users, who might be under the impression that the device only works once they utter the designated and supposedly necessary wake words.

The silver lining in all of this is that it may be a while before the technology that would allow such a situation to happen exists in the real world. But knowing how quickly new can be developed, it’s always good to be one step ahead in order to ensure your own personal safety and privacy during these times.

Stay alert and follow the latest news on privacy with PrivacyWatch.news.

Sources include:

Spectrum.IEEE.org

Blog.AboutAmazon.com

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Amazon Patents Bracelet to Control its Workers

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.

Amazon And Google Employees Busted In Asian Sex Trafficking Sting

Several Seattle employees of both Google and Amazon were busted after using their corporate accounts to send emails to local brothels and pimps looking to purchase services from sex workers trafficked from Asia, according to emails obtained by Newsweek.

"[E]mails obtained by Newsweek reveal another sordid corner of the tech sector’s treatment of women: a horny nest of prostitution “hobbyists” at tech giants Microsoft, Amazon and other firms in Seattle’s high tech alley." 

Many of the emails were swept up in a 2015 sting operation which targeted online chat rooms and message boards in which customers rate sex workers - resulting in the arrest of 18 of these "prostitution hobbyists," including several high level Amazon and Microsoft directors - two of which are currently scheduled for trial in March. 

Seattle brothels had been catering to Microsoft employees through several "backpage.com" ads located nearby the company"s Redmond, WA headquarters, in what is becoming a booming business. 

A study commissioned by the Department of Justice found that Seattle has the fastest-growing sex industry in the United States, more than doubling in size between 2005 and 2012. That boom correlates neatly with the boom of the tech sector there. It also correlates to the surge in high-paying jobs, since this “hobby” (the word johns use online to describe buying sex) can be expensive: some of these men spent $30,000 to $50,000 a year, according to authorities.

 

The tech sector has not only employed a significant number of men who pay for sex with trafficked women, it has also enabled traffickers to more easily reach customers and to hide their business from cops by taking it off the streets and into computers and ultimately, hotel rooms, motels or apartments. In one 24-hour-period in Seattle, an estimated 6,487 people solicited sex on just one of the more than 100 websites that connect buyers with sellers, according to a 2014 study.

Of note, Backpage.com shut down its adult sections in January, citing government pressure following a 2016 Senate report on commercial sex services fingered the website as a hotbed for criminal activity, and stating that "Backpage officials have publicly acknowledged that criminals use the website for sex trafficking, including trafficking of minors." 

Backpage.com CEO Carl Ferrer (Texas AG)

In October, 2016, Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer was arrested in Houston and the company"s Dallas headquarters searched. NPR reported at the time that Ferrer, 55, was charged with pimping a minor, pimping and conspiracy to commit pimping. Two controlling shareholders of Backpage — Michael Lacey and James Larkin — also are charged with conspiracy to commit pimping." 

The prostitutes trafficked from Asia typically don"t speak much English, relying on translation apps to offer services such as "girlfriend" experiences and "Nuru" (nude massage). Many of the women are working their way out of debt bondage, and feared for their lives or those of their families - according to one pimp interviewed during the 2015 sting.

A spokesman for Microsoft said of the emails "Microsoft has a long history of cooperating with law enforcement and other agencies on combating sex trafficking and related topics, and we have employees who volunteer their time and money specifically to combat this issue as well. The personal conduct of a tiny fraction of our 125,000 employees does not in any way represent our culture. No organization is immune to the unfortunate situation when employees act unethically or illegally. When that happens, we look into the conduct and take appropriate action. Microsoft makes it clear to our employees they have a responsibility to act with integrity and conduct themselves in a legal and ethical manner at all times. If they don’t, they risk losing their jobs."

Amazon told Newsweek it"s investigating the matter, and that "It is against Amazon"s policy for any employee or Contingent Worker to engage in any sex buying activities of any kind in Amazon"s workplace or in any work-related setting outside of the workplace, such as during business trips, business meetings or business-related social events." When Amazon suspects that an employee has used company funds or resources to engage in criminal conduct, the company will immediately investigate and take appropriate action up to and including termination. The company may also refer the matter to law enforcement."

Christmas in an Amazon Culture

Remembering the days when you shopped until you dropped seems to be from a time when socializing meant actually interacting with other people. Toys “Я” Us has lost its appeal because the reverse dynamics of spoiling the toddlers resists the challenge of braving the elements and cold temperatures to put wrapped presents under an artificial tree. Now, if it cannot arrive at the door delivered by USPS, UPS or FedEx; it’s just not desirable. The consumer culture has made a giant leap into the cyber space of emptiness and irrelevancy. Spending money and spreading the wealth no longer operates under the same rules that enriched the growth in the (PCE) personal consumption expenditures. The void of satisfaction in buying trendy gadgets and stylist apparel feeds a basic isolation from meaning or contentment.

The Federal Reserve acknowledged, years ago; Don’t Expect Consumer Spending To Be the Engine of Economic Growth It Once Was. Be that as it may, the easy of placing an order online that sells its wears with free delivery has diminished the old concept that retail commerce actually impacts the expansion of prosperity in your own community.

This description of circumstances and forecast of developing trends should be apparent to anyone familiar with the changing landscapes in the shopping malls. Still the far more profound question about the very nature of the celebration around the Christmas season is an even more pronounced topic then the extinction of the friendly and helpful department store clerk.

Long ago the devotion to observe the birth of Jesus Christ has been lost by the majority in this society. Even among professed Christians, the lack of focus and recognition that Christmas is less of a religious observance than the more important holy day of Easter.

In order to illustrate this analysis, a review about Christmas – Philosophy for Everyone by Scott C. Lowe (Editor) of Better Than a Lump of Coal, argues accordingly.

“The philosophical arguments presented such as Aristotle’s ‘virtue ethics’ (“Lying to Children About Santa: Why It’s Just Not Wrong”), Foucault’s social formation theories (“Making a List, Checking it Twice: The Santa Claus Surveillance System”), or Hume’s testimony of Miracles (‘Jesus, Mary and Hume: On the Possibility of the Virgin Birth”) are easily accessible to all audiences interested in the ultimate Christmas debate: secular or religious. For those more philosophically trained or inclined, the utilization of these philosophical works within the context of the great Christmas debate provide an alternative dimension into classic philosophical arguments of ethics and sociological structures, not typically revealed in academic literature.

The remaining question to be asked following each of these essays is: Has the secular nature of Christmas overtaken the religious underpinnings of the celebration in so far as we come full circle from a Pagan celebration of Winter Solstice, to the birth of Jesus Christ, to a new Commercial Christmas?”

Clearly our confused culture has abandoned much of the traditional canons of veracity and now operates under an extreme system of a dominating political correctness that offers little room for authentic individualistic values. What better example of this homogenized humanity than Jeff Bezos on Amazon’s culture: ‘We never claim that our approach is the right one’.

“A word about corporate cultures: for better or for worse, they are enduring, stable, hard to change. They can be a source of advantage or disadvantage. You can write down your corporate culture, but when you do so, you’re discovering it, uncovering it — not creating it. It is created slowly over time by the people and by events — by the stories of past success and failure that become a deep part of the company lore. If it’s a distinctive culture, it will fit certain people like a custom-made glove. The reason cultures are so stable in time is because people self-select. Someone energized by competitive zeal may select and be happy in one culture, while someone who loves to pioneer and invent may choose another. The world, thankfully, is full of many high-performing, highly distinctive corporate cultures. We never claim that our approach is the right one — just that it’s ours — and over the last two decades, we’ve collected a large group of like-minded people. Folks who find our approach energizing and meaningful.”

Bezos is certainly correct when he says that Amazon has collected a large group of like-minded people and more significantly that the Amazon culture does not contend to be the “right one”. This is exactly the point with the systematic decoupling of the human element in business transactions, much less than converging upon the spiritual and religious component in society.

Amazon is analogous to the dominance of the Roman Legions. The only difference is that in the technological age of immediate satisfaction, the fulfillment factor does not need to fear the wrath of corporal punishment, but only the loss of a fleeting pleasure.

According to the Telegraph, With Amazon’s growing dominance, investors must learn to love the new conglomerates asks:

“The latest financial trend making a comeback is the global conglomerate, but this time it’s got a digital twist. US tech giants are ever-expanding into businesses beyond their core operations, creating sprawling businesses operating in many different areas. But the big issue for those of us that remember the fate of last century’s mega-conglomerates, such as Tiny Rowland’s Lonrho and the Hanson Trust, is that things did not end particularly well and most ended up being broken up into their constituent parts. So, given that history tends to repeat itself, will the new digital titans end up with the same fate?”

An attempt to foretell this outcome lies Inside the Philosophy of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.

“Jeff’s philosophy is if you want to start a website, if you want to start a company, if you need storage and bandwidth, he wants Amazon to be a public utility. You just plug-in and all the storage, all the servers, all the bandwidth that you need is right there, basically accessible without you having to then get a rack, and install the equipment, and buy the hardware, and not knowing whether you need 40 machines or five machines.

I think that this is actually part of the new world where everything is sorted infinitely stretchable and expandable in real time.”

Imagine a favored government company that wants to function as a public utility, while evading the anti-trust violations because their Santa reindeer sled is kept in motion all year long fueled by a $1.46 subsidy from Amazon’s sweetheart deal with the USPS. Yet Amazon is accused of ‘ruining Christmas’ by disgruntled customers. Oh, so go the trials and risks of converting Christmas into a gift giving endeavor, when the divine birth by grace of our savior is ignored.

After a number of highly critical reports from the New York Times, the spotlight has gradually uncovered the danger of a monopolist for the consumer society. In Amazon’s Tactics Confirm Its Critics’ Worst Suspicions departs from its original mission.

“Now Amazon is walking right into its detractors’ predictions. There are a couple obvious reasons this is a bad strategy. It’s bad public relations — if it doesn’t already, Amazon may soon control a monopolistic stake of the e-book market and its tactics are sure to invite not only scorn from the book industry but also increased regulatory oversight.

But the more basic problem here is that Amazon is violating its own code. To win a corporate battle, Amazon is ruining its customer experience. Mr. Bezos has long pointed to customer satisfaction as his North Star; making sure customers are treated well is the guiding principle for how he runs Amazon.

Now Amazon is raising prices, removing ordering buttons, lengthening shipping times and monkeying with recommendation algorithms. Do these sound like the moves of a man who cares about customers above all else?”

The sociologist and philosopher Jean Baudrillard views the consumer society as “consumption has become a means of differentiation, not satisfaction. As a corollary, the objectification of social relations, that of bodies and individuals has taken over the subject. The real world has gone according to him, replaced by signs of reality from the illusion of the real world”.

Is there any doubt that Amazon is the epitome of an artificial construct that sells at predatory pricing in order to eliminate competition so it can control Kriss Kringle’s North Pole enterprise? How much consumer’s satisfaction will remain when Amazon’s ruthless practices are fully understood? The deceptive roots of the Amazon culture, in their own words: “Bezos himself chose when explaining how to get small book publishers to cough up deep discounts as the price for getting their titles listed on the Amazon website. As related by Businessweek reporter Brad Stone, Bezos instructed his negotiators to stalk them “the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle.”

Not exact a jolly old St Nick. It is doubtful that the Amazon Prime refund policy will live up to its promise of fulfillment. Failure of overnight delivery does not hold a candle to the meaning of the Star of Bethlehem.

The post Christmas in an Amazon Culture appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.

What Are Retail Investors Buying Right Now?

Submitted by Nicholas Colas of DataTrek Research

Today we want to expand on our recent thoughts on “What are retail investors buying right now?” We showed last week, courtesy of Fidelity Investments data, that mom-and-pops are still adding to positions even on breakouts in US equities. Further, the names at the top of the retail investor league table tend to be single stock Tech names rather than ETFs. Yesterday, for example, Fido’s retail customers were net buyers of NVDA, AMZN, and BABA and those names were the most heavily traded.

One way to assess general interest in any topic is to see what “Autofills” as you start typing into a search engine box. For example, enter “Buy a” into Google, and in NYC the autofills are: "Star", “bitcoin", “car”, “domain”, “dog”.

We assume the first is a holiday gift idea and the second a reflection of the ongoing crypto craze. And “Bitcoin bites dog” does seems to capture the spirit of the age… Autofill works, after all, by using Big Data analysis to guess what you might type next based on how other users in your area completed the same initial text.

To see which specific equities search engine users express the most interesting in purchasing, we typed “Buy stock in” and then noted what Google, Yahoo and Bing came back with in terms of autofills.

For Google “Buy Stock In” the autofills were: Amazon, bitcoin, Apple, Tesla, Weed

For Yahoo!: Marijuana, Amazon, Facebook, Disney, Tesla

For Bing: Amazon, Nike, Wal-Mart, Google, Netflix

Not surprisingly, technology companies dominate popular investment interest; do not, however, slough this off as less-informed retail investors just buying what they know. The point here is that the general population thinks these are the most attractive investment ideas – stocks they want to, or wish they could, own.

This is one (of several) reasons we question the sustainability of any rotation out of the large cap Tech sector in the context of a continued bull market for US stocks generally. Simply put, for many individual investors technology IS the US equity market. And if those stocks do not continue to rise, their enthusiasm for allocating incremental capital to equities may well diminish. Will they trust a US stock market where financials or industrials are the leadership names?

It is hard to imagine “Buy stock in Citibank/JP Morgan/Wells Fargo” ever making it to the top of the autofill charts.

We Have Tripled The Number Of Store Closings From Last Year, And 20 Major Retailers Have Closed At Least 50 Stores In 2017

This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse

Did you know that the number of retail store closings in 2017 has already tripled the number from all of 2016? Last year, a total of 2,056 store locations were closed down, but this year more than 6,700 stores have been shut down so far. That absolutely shatters the all-time record for store closings in a single year, and yet nobody seems that concerned about it.  In 2008, an all-time record 6,163 retail stores were shuttered, and we have already surpassed that mark by a very wide margin. We are facing an unprecedented retail apocalypse, and as you will see below, the number of retail store closings is actually supposed to be much higher next year.

Whenever the mainstream media reports on the retail apocalypse, they always try to put a positive spin on the story by blaming the growth of Amazon and other online retailers. And without a doubt that has had an impact, but at this point online shopping still accounts for less than 10 percent of total U.S. retail sales.

Look, Amazon didn’t just show up to the party. They have been around for many, many years and while it is true that they are growing, they still only account for a very small sliver of the overall retail pie.

So those that would like to explain away this retail apocalypse need to come up with a better explanation.

As I noted in the headline, there are 20 different major retail chains that have closed at least 50 stores so far this year. The following numbers originally come from Fox Business…

1. Abercrombie & Fitch: 60 stores
2. Aerosoles: 88 stores
3. American Apparel: 110 stores
4. BCBG: 118 stores
5. Bebe: 168 stores
6. The Children’s Place: hundreds of stores to be closed by 2020
7. CVS: 70 stores
8. Guess: 60 stores
9. Gymboree: 350 stores
10. HHgregg: 220 stores
11. J.Crew: 50 stores
12. JC Penney: 138 stores
13. The Limited: 250 stores
14. Macy’s: 68 stores
15. Michael Kors: 125 stores
16. Payless: 800 stores
17. RadioShack: more than 1,000 stores
18. Rue21: up to 400 stores
19. Sears/Kmart: more than 300 stores
20. Wet Seal: 171 stores

If the U.S. economy was really doing well, then why are all of these major retailers closing down locations?

Of course the truth is that the economy is not doing well. The U.S. economy has not grown by at least 3 percent in a single year since the middle of the Bush administration, and it isn’t going to happen this year either. Overall, the U.S. economy has grown by an average of just 1.33 percent over the last 10 years, and meanwhile U.S. stock prices are up about 250 percent since the end of the last recession. The stock market has become completely and utterly disconnected from economic reality, and yet many Americans still believe that it is an accurate barometer for the health of the economy.

I used to do a Black Friday article every year, but I have ended that tradition. Yes, there were still a few scuffles this year, but at this point the much bigger story is how poorly the retailers are doing.

So far this year, more than 300 retailers have filed for bankruptcy, and we are currently on pace to lose over 147 million square feet of retail space by the end of 2017.

Those are absolutely catastrophic numbers.

And some analysts are already predicting that as many as 9,000 stores could be shut down in the United States in 2018.

Are we just going to keep blaming Amazon every time another retail chain goes belly up?

What we should really be focusing on is the fact that the “retail bubble” is starting to burst. In the aftermath of the last financial crisis, retailers went on an unprecedented debt binge, and now a lot of that debt is starting to go bad.

In fact, in a previous article I discussed the fact that “the amount of high-yield retail debt that will mature next year is approximately 19 times larger than the amount that matured this year”. This is going to have very serious implications on Wall Street, but very few people are really talking about this.

Most stores try to stay open through Christmas, but once the holiday season is over we will see another huge wave of store closings.

And as individual stores close down, this will put a lot of financial pressure on malls and shopping centers. Not too long ago, one report projected that up to 25 percent of all shopping malls in the entire nation could close down by 2022, but I tend to think that number is too optimistic.

The retail industry in the United States is dying, and the biggest reason for that is not Amazon.

Rather, the real reason why the retail industry is in so much trouble is because of the steady decline of the middle class. The gap between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of us is greater than ever, and we can clearly see the impact of this in the retail world.

Retailers that serve the very wealthy are generally doing well, and those that serve the other end of the food chain (such as dollar stores and Wal-Mart) are also doing okay.

But virtually all of the retailers that depend on middle class shoppers are really struggling, and this is going to continue for the foreseeable future.

Most American families are either living paycheck to paycheck or are close to that level, and these days U.S. consumers simply do not have much discretionary income to play around with. More hard working Americans are going to fall out of the middle class with each passing month, and that is extremely bad news for a retail industry that is literally falling apart right in front of our eyes.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Michael T. Snyder is a graduate of the University of Florida law school and he worked as an attorney in the heart of Washington D.C. for a number of years.Today, Michael is best known for his work as the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog and The American Dream. 

If you want to know what is coming and what you can do to prepare, read his latest book Get Prepared Now!: Why A Great Crisis Is Coming.

America"s New "Trick" To Beat Black Friday Crowds: Wear Employee Uniforms

US shoppers’ lust for Black Friday bargains this year has reached absurd new levels, evidenced by a viral joke that morphed into a disturbing new trend to help shoppers beat Wal-Mart and other big box store crowds by disguising themselves as temporary holiday employees. It started when Twitter user @OverlyLiked announcing he would be selling his Walmart vest for $100.

“I’m selling this Walmart vest for $100,” he wrote. “Use it to skip the line during Black Friday. You can even walk in, grab what you want, and walk out."

I’m selling this Walmart vest for $100. Use it to skip the line during Black Friday. You can even walk in, grab what you want, and walk out????????‍??. pic.twitter.com/Q0UyDHUeU0

— 6"4 (@OverlyLiked) November 20, 2017

Although the tweet was reportedly meant as a joke, earning @OverlyLiked more than 30,000 retweets and almost 80,000 likes, it wasn’t long before he was being inundated with real requests to buy his shirt.

“The popularity of the tweet really did not surprise me… What shocked me was the news coverage of that,” @OverlyLiked told RT, explaining that apart from the bidders, he was also sought out by numerous media outlets covering the story.

Lol people really been trying to buy the Walmart vest. It was a joke i don’t even own a Walmart vest. pic.twitter.com/WFnhEAaNWZ

— 6"4 (@OverlyLiked) November 21, 2017

But @OverlyLiked’s disappointed would-be buyers didn’t need to wait long for other offers to materialize. It seems former and current Wal-Mart employees quickly caught on to the idea and began selling their own uniforms in earnest...

Going out for Black Friday?

Pick up this Walmart vest for $30!

Might be able to cut some lines. https://t.co/8P9MR1SPwz pic.twitter.com/vEsghCDX0K

— Fat Kid Deals (@FatKidDeals) November 21, 2017

Now I know them Walmart vest seemed like a good deal ,but I got these Best Buy joints going for $110 walk right in , skip the line , and take whatever you want !! pic.twitter.com/eVzML3RYbQ

— Teezy (@Jayteeezyyy) November 22, 2017

 

Walmart vest for sale ??80 dollars ..Walk right in ;Get what u want and walk right out on Black Friday ????????‍?? I"m willing to negotiate #FirstComeFirstServe pic.twitter.com/An9yHp275b

— benneth (@KennethRaw) November 20, 2017

 

While others went out looking for them,

If anyone works or has worked at Walmart and has an employee vest..please let me buy it. I’m tryna test something out black Friday.

— scythe (@FuckDae) November 22, 2017

Meanwhile, Walmart has apparently caught on to the hustle, and has asked its employees to “question” anyone they see wearing one of their vests, but whom they do not recognize.

this spread so fast that at the manager meeting today we were told that if we see anyone we don’t recognize on thursday/black friday wearing a walmart vest, to question them. ???????????????? https://t.co/IEA9CTFrkQ

— Emily Gould (@emg_emily) November 21, 2017

The American “Black Friday” tradition has intensified in recent years as big-box stores have sought to fend off the encroaching “Cyber Monday” when shoppers order all their items online - read Amazon - instead of trudging through massive crowds at Wal-Mart, Best Buy or any other retail mecca. Retailers typically open late Thursday evening, before the holiday has even ended, to offer massive bargains, prompting nationwide anarchy as dozens of stories and videos emerge of shoppers fighting one another for the cheapest deals on anything from blenders to widescreen TV’s to underwear. The insanity of Black Friday was perhaps encapsulated best by this meme that made the rounds a few years back:

 

Amazon-opoly: Jeff Bezos May Be About To Control $53 Billion In Federal Government Spending

Authored by Brian McNicoll via The Daily Caller,

Jeff Bezos spends a lot of time directing the newspaper he owns, The Washington Post, to criticize President Donald Trump in every way imaginable. But for some reason, the federal government cannot stop giving Amazon — the retail empire Bezos also owns — a slew of taxpayer-subsidized subsidies. Now, Congress is considering a new federal purchasing plan that could result in Amazon’s most lucrative government handout yet.

The technology giant is no stranger to sweetheart deals that line its pockets at taxpayer expense. The U.S. Postal Service, for instance — which has lost $60 billion since 2007 — handles last-mile shipping for two-thirds of Amazon’s deliveries. This means overtime for workers and a good incoming revenue number on the USPS’s balance sheet, but it’s a financial bonanza for Amazon.

According to media reports, USPS delivers Amazon packages for $2 per package — even though it costs USPS $3.46 per package to make these deliveries. And that’s before you get into the $200 million three years ago for 270,000 handheld scanners to process the packages or the $5 billion or more to replace USPS vehicles with ones better suited to carry Amazon’s packages.

But even this cozy arrangement pales in comparison to the deal Amazon is now trying to push through Congress.

Buried deep in this year’s defense spending bill is a provision that would move Defense Department purchases of commercial off-the-shelf products to online marketplaces.

A summary of the proposal, which was inserted into the legislation by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, argues it is needed to save money over the burdensome and expensive current system.

It pointed to a report from the Inspector General of the Government Services Administration that found some IT equipment could be purchased more cheaply on the open market than through the GSA’s “schedules.”

In response, the plan calls for developing an online marketplace platform through which federal agencies can buy products such as paper clips, bottled water, computers, office furniture and more — just as any business would do.

But it also calls for this platform to be designed to “enable government-wide use of such marketplaces.” This means the government is looking only for a procurement and supply management firm big enough to offer multiple suppliers for the same product with constantly changing selection and prices and serve the entire U.S. government.

That leaves just one likely possibility  - Amazon Business - for basically monopoly control of $53 billion in federal purchasing, much of the supplies for which comes from no-bid contracts.

Amazon provides a platform for e-companies to sell through to their own customers. It receives 15 percent to 20 percent of the proceeds from such sales, which means a huge revenue stream for Amazon for doing basically nothing while vendors are forced to cough up as much as half their margin.

A government deal with Amazon sets up opportunities for abuse, not to mention control over suppliers. Amazon would get to collect an enormous amount of data on agencies, which could be used to identify top competitors and drive them out of the federal marketplace with increased fees or other rules changes.

And it means any discounts that can be negotiated for the bulk rates of purchasing the federal government does would flow not to the government and taxpayers — but instead into Amazon’s pocket.

Amazon Business, which only started in 2015, already has 1 million customers and $1 billion in sales, and its revenues grew 34 percent in the last year. Adding federal procurement would effectively drive out all competitors for its business service.

It already is moving into position to do this at the local level. In January, Amazon signed a contract with U.S. Communities, a coalition of 90,000 local governments, to provide them with an online marketplace for office supplies and other goods.

The fate of the proposal is unknown. It is in the House version of the defense spending bill but not that of the Senate. This will be resolved in a conference committee, and one solution is to try it as a pilot project before committing the entire government to it.

There certainly ought to be a breathing period before yet another government agency signs yet another deal to use tax dollars to further enrich one of the richest men on the planet.

It’s beginning to get suspicious.

John Malone Describes Amazon As "Death Star" Moving "In Striking Range Of Every Industry On The Planet"

Famed cable and media investor John Malone, a man who repeatedly manages to cobble together some of the most complicated, and profitable, financial transactions in the world, appeared on CNBC this morning with a message for anyone in the "B2C business"...Amazon is going to use their scale to destroy you.  Speaking with CNBC"s David Faber, Malone hilariously described Amazon as a "Death Star moving into striking range of every industry on the planet."

The internet "makes scale even more important in the media business, where scale always was important. It"s all about scale," he said. Netflix was "the first wave. And I think Jeff [Bezos] is gonna be the most disruptive. As [his] Death Star moves into striking range of every industry on the planet."

 

He explained that Amazon"s business dominance is growing stronger. Malone said any company that sells products to consumers is at risk of being crushed by the e-commerce giant.

 

"If you"re in the B2C business, if you"re selling anything to any consumer anywhere on the planet, you gotta believe that Amazon is gonna have a look at that opportunity to commoditize you to use scale to serve the public," he said. Bezos is "reducing cost to the consumer and providing great convenience ... You just got to take your hat off and envy what he has built."

Ironically, just yesterday we noted that Amazon"s "Death Star" had moved the grocery industry directly into its sights and is preparing to fire (see: Amazon Says It"s "Almost Ready" To Get 1,000s Of Grocery Store Cashiers Fired)...

Late last year we noted Amazon"s efforts to "disrupt" the traditional grocery retail model by introducing small format stores that allow customers to simply walk in, pick up what they want and walk out.  The concept store, dubbed AmazonGo, tracks a customer"s every move, including each item they remove from store shelves, allowing them to skip long, often frustrating, check out lines (see: Amazon Goes Offline With Bricks-And-Mortar Grocery Chain; Envisions Opening 2,000 Stores).

 

Now, after nearly a full year of testing their Seattle concept store with employees, Amazon says their cashier-less grocery store is just about ready to go live.  As Bloomberg notes this morning, the company has already begun hiring construction managers and marketing staff to build out a store base.

 

The e-commerce giant unveiled Amazon Go last December, saying it planned to open the store to the public early this year. However, the company encountered technical difficulties and postponed the launch to work out the bugs, The Wall Street Journal reported in March.

 

Seven months later, challenges remain, but the “just walk out” technology has improved markedly, says the person, who requested anonymity to speak freely about the project. And in a sign that the concept is almost ready for prime time, hiring for the Amazon Go team has shifted from the engineers and research scientists needed to perfect the platform to the construction managers and marketers who would build and promote the stores to consumers.

With that, here is the full interview with Malone:

Amazon Poses A Serious Threat To Freedom And Free Markets

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

It wasn’t until earlier this year that I became really concerned about Amazon.

Sure, I had warned people previously of the dangers of an oligarch like Jeff Bezos owning a major national newspaper like The Washington Post, and I’d also highlighted Amazon’s creepy $600 million contract with the CIA, but I didn’t truly grasp the bigger picture until recently.

It seems I’d been too focused on the financial system and other predatory industries to see the gigantic threat metastasizing in the room. If that happened to me, I’m sure many of you aren’t paying close enough attention to the risks to freedom and free markets posed by Amazon and its oligarch CEO. That’s why I decided to write this post.

This piece will be presented in two parts.

First, I will highlight several recent articles that do a great job describing how dangerous Amazon, and its richest man in the world (net worth of $95 billion) CEO Jeff Bezos, is.

 

Second, I’ll discuss my personal mission of redirecting more our family’s money away from this corporate behemoth.

Let’s kick things off with a few excerpts from a great article by Caitlin Johnstone titled, Friendly Reminder That Jeff Bezos Is Trying To Take Over The Universe:

I will say it again for emphasis: Jeff Bezos, who has used his business prowess to become the wealthiest person in the world, did not purchase the Washington Post in 2013 because he was expecting newspapers to make a profitable comeback. That did not happen.

 

What did happen is the world’s richest plutocrat realizing that he needed a mouthpiece to manufacture public support for the neoliberal corporatist establishment that he is building his empire upon. This is why WaPo ran sixteen smear pieces on Bernie Sanders in the span of sixteen hours at the hottest point in the Democratic presidential primary battle.

 

Last year Silicon Valley venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya said that Amazon is “a multi-trillion-dollar monopoly hiding in plain sight.” In June Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, wrote that Amazon is trying to “control the underlying infrastructure of the economy.”

 

Bezos continues to get cozier and cozier with the US power establishment as his empire metastasizes across human civilization. He kicked WikiLeaks off Amazon servers in 2010, he scored a 600 million dollar contract with the CIA in 2013, he joined a Pentagon advisory board in 2016, he hung out with Defense Secretary James Mattis in August, and he’s spent nearly ten million dollars this year lobbying the federal government, which is likely what led to an NDAA amendment gifting Amazon a $54 billion market it’s expected to dominate as a supplier to the Pentagon.

There’s a lot there, so let’s dig a little deeper. In particular, I want to point people in the direction of the MotherBoard article by Stacy Mitchell, Amazon Is Trying to Control the Underlying Infrastructure of Our Economy. Here’s some of what we learned:

We often talk about Amazon as though it were a retailer. It’s an understandable mistake. After all, Amazon sells more clothing, electronics, toys, and books than any other company. Last year, Amazon captured nearly $1 of every $2 Americans spent online. As recently as 2015, most people looking to buy something online started at a search engine. Today, a majority go straight to Amazon.

 

But to describe Amazon as a retailer is to misunderstand what the company actually is, and to miss the depth of the threat that it poses to our liberty and the very idea of an open, competitive market.

 

It’s not just that Amazon does many things besides sell stuff—that it manufactures thousands of products, from dress shirts to baby wipes, produces hit movies and television shows, delivers restaurant orders, offers loans, and may soon dispense prescription drugs. Jeff Bezos is after something so much bigger than any of this. His vision is for Amazon to control the underlying infrastructure of the economy. Amazon’s website is already the dominant platform for digital commerce. Its Web Services division controls 44 percent of the world’s cloud computing capacity and is relied on by everyone from Netflix to the Central Intelligence Agency. And the company has recently built out a vast network of distribution infrastructure to handle package delivery for itself and others.

 

Companies that want to reach the market increasingly have no choice but to ride Amazon’s rails. With Prime and digital assistant Alexa, from GE appliances to Ford cars, Bezos has lured a majority of households into making Amazon the default provider of everything they order online. Most Prime members no longer comparison shop. This has forced competitors of all sizes—from major brands like Levi’s and KitchenAid to small-scale producers, e-commerce innovators, and independent brick-and-mortar stores—to abandon the idea of reaching consumers directly. Instead, they have to rely on Amazon’s platform to sell their goods.

 

Amazon exploits this dependence to dictate terms and prices to suppliers, and it uses the data it gathers from companies selling on its platform to weaken them as competitors. A company that designs a popular product and builds a market for it on Amazon’s site can suddenly find that Amazon has introduced a nearly identical version and given it top billing in search results. One study found that, after a retailer becomes a seller on Amazon, it’s only a matter of weeks before Amazon brings the merchant’s most popular items into its own inventory.

 

With commerce rapidly moving online, Amazon has positioned itself as lord of the realm, which means that online commerce is no longer a market in any meaningful sense of the word. It’s now a privately controlled arena where a single company sets the terms by which we may exchange goods with one another and decides which products—which new authors, which new innovations—get to find an audience.

The sneaky thing about Amazon’s increased dominance in so many key aspects of our lives is that much of the perniciousness is hidden. No one’s going to tell you about all the retailers who have gotten pressured or destroyed via its tactics while you’re happily clicking “add to cart” and smiling about 2-day free shipping. In this sense, it can be best compared to the evils of factory farming. Most people just simply have no idea about the immense damage going on behind the scenes as they indulge in incredible convenience and what looks like a good deal.

While dominating individual and family budgets is all well and good, Bezos is no fool, and he knows the best milk cow on planet earth comes courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer via government spending. Speaking of which, have you heard of the “Amazon amendment” attached to the 2018 NDAA? Didn’t think so.

The Intercept reports:

Under pressure from anti-monopolists, House and Senate negotiators tweaked the controversial “Amazon amendment” this week, but waved it through nonetheless. The provision seeks to turn over federal procurement of commercial off-the-shelf items, a $53 billion market, to e-commerce portals. And with Amazon as the runaway leader in that space, critics say that even with the modifications, the provision still favors the online retail giant, giving it a pathway to billions of dollars in new revenue…

 

Amazon charges third-party sellers for the privilege of using its platform, anywhere between 15 and 20 percent of gross sales. If Pentagon procurement, and potentially all federal procurement, shifts predominantly to Amazon, it would collect billions of dollars annually without doing much of anything.

 

And in addition to hosting third-party sales, Amazon competes against those third parties with its in-house brands, armed with superior data to know what gets purchased and what doesn’t. Procurement officials will be susceptible to Amazon’s usual suite of behavioral nudges, like adjusting search results or controlling what gets into the “buy box,” the top option it suggests for purchases.

 

Plus, the whole concept of relying on web portals for everyday purchases gives away the government’s leverage to buy commercial items in bulk at a superior price to the open market.

 

Amazon hired the former chief acquisitions officer of the United States, Anne Rung, to run Amazon Business’s public sector division and has signed numerous local government contracts and federal agreements. The company has lobbied on the NDAA and the “modernization of the procurement process” this year, according to federal disclosures.

 

“This amendment looks like it will crown Amazon as an official gatekeeper to government procurement,” said Lina Khan of the Open Markets Institute. “Government spending that was previously dispersed across hundreds of distinct companies will now instead all be channeled through one company, with Amazon collecting a tax.”

 

The NDAA, one of the few bills Congress passes every year, now goes to the House and Senate for final approval. It’s not expected to face much opposition. Few members of the conference committee interviewed by The Hill even knew of the existence of the Amazon amendment, let alone rank-and-file representatives.

Congress doesn’t know about the Yemen war. Congress doesn’t know about the Amazon amendment. What does Congress know, and more importantly, why are these people making important decisions?

Moving on to a more personal note, I only started getting up to speed on many of the concerns described above earlier this year. That’s how behind the curve I’ve been when it comes to the danger staring us in the face from Amazon and Jeff Bezos. As soon as I recognized the threat for what it is I started to examine my own life and our family’s purchasing decisions much more closely.

As parents of two young children, we’re constantly replenishing stuff to keep the household going, with most of these items purchased online by my wife. When I suddenly put two and two together and realized that most of the items we were buying appeared on our porch in Amazon boxes, I asked her to try to purchase from elsewhere, even if it meant paying a bit more. I’m happy to say we’ve successfully cut down on Amazon purchases significantly. Around the same time, Amazon announced its intention to buy Whole Foods, which presented an even more difficult challenge.

I enjoy grocery shopping and I take our son with me once a week on the big shopping run. The large Whole Foods in Boulder is a great store, and I’ve always been pleased with the general selection as well as the enormous butcher section. We spend a lot of money there, and as soon as I found out Amazon would be buying it I started feeling dirty. To move away from Amazon groceries would likely mean several significant inconveniences. First, I’d have to find an alternative store with a comparable selection. I went to various stores in the weeks following the announcement, but left very underwhelmed. I knew of a great independent butcher so I started going there, but that’s the most I was able to do. I was still giving Bezos way too much of our family budget. It wasn’t until yesterday that I may have finally found a replacement for Whole Foods. It’s not as magnificent of a store, and it’s far less convenient location-wise, but it has 90% local ownership and this weekend I will do a big shop there for the first time.

The purpose of this post isn’t to convince you to avoid or boycott Amazon as much as possible. That’s up to you. I’m someone with the resources and time to move my family’s budget away from Bezos, and it’s still been extremely difficult. For other people, the convenience and price points offered by Amazon may be too significant to pass up. I get it.

That said, I do want people to start thinking a lot more about how they spend their dollars. Do you complain about the financial system, yet have your savings at a TBTF mega bank? If so, why? Do you complain about Jeff Bezos, his ownership of The Washington Post, Amazon’s predatory attack on competitors and it contract with the CIA, yet still have Amazon boxes piling up on your porch? If so, why?

A lot of people whine, but then spend their money with the corporations damaging this country.
Put your money where your mouth is!

— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) November 15, 2017

How many people bitch about the Washington Post 24/7, yet have Amazon boxes piling up on their porch?
You are feeding the beast.

— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) November 15, 2017

How each and every one of us spends our money is far more meaningful than which puppet we vote for every four years. You vote every single day. Time to grow up.

 

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