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A. Everyone is to blame!! Amazon for not paying taxes > If you don't own a building you still pay rent for a virtual one online. The brick and mortar stores are also at fault. Idiot managers only carry mainstream items. If you want something like a raincoat, good luck finding one.
B. When all the stores have closed. Try putting on a pair of shoes you like or a shirt. It's not going to work is it?? Think of how many thousand items you saw, and tried on, and put back on that shelf.. That car you like? Are you going to fit comfortably in it? Does it drive the way you want it to? You'll never know by looking at it on the Web.. You decide how good the future is going to be by the way you purchase things.
Sears (Kmart) announced an impending shut down early today. Some of this roots to WalMart and other category killers and a huge blame can be laid on the online shopping universe. I do have to say that retailers have to start adapting, just like newspaper, gas stations and telephone companies are doing. The times they are a changin...
Interesting to note that the 'Amazon Model' started as 'lowest prices on the internet'.
It's changed.
Savy retailers that use Amazon as one (of many) selling platform(s) often raise their prices by as much as 20% over their own home site to offset the high fees charged. Others use Amazon to sell items that are temporarily out of stock/print and charge huge mark ups for what stock they have remaining. (I've seen $40 books advertised for $1000 and $100 hand tools at over $300).
Thus, buyer be ware, there are often better prices and service on smaller sites.
Scotty
First off, many of these stores are not well run and haven't been run well for years. JCPenney, for example, had some executive who quit APPLE to run their stores and he did a horrible job and Penney's lost a lot of money. The quality of leaders of these companies center around them making tons of money with a lot of perks! i dont think they really care how the stores do except for the goodies they reap.These stores such as Penney's have to be able to change as society and the market changes which some are trying to do now but for some, it's too late! Oh yes, it was nice when stores gave personal service but they cut their own throats when they hired less employees and it made the shoppers search for some help; I always felt service was important!!!!!
Secondly, many Americans don't seem to care if companies like Amazon hog the highways, so to speak, and push other cars over to the side of the road as they plow through. Amazon does not automatically always have the best prices and deals. I believe in supporting local if possible. And that brings me to my final point and that is many common things that I used to buy in local stores are not availiabe unless I go to Amazon to shop. So, "buy local" loses money as they don't have what I need. Sometimes its not the cost- its the availabilty. Personally I don't buy much from Amazon- only when I cannot find it locally and when other stores on line don't have it. It's a dog eat dog world out there when it comes to merchandising.
When you buy something from Amazon or any other online retailer you also have a shipping company involved. Jobs are there just like being waited on in a department store. I live 10 miles from the closest store and the ones that I use most are 12 miles away. I order a lot on the internet. The times are changing.
k.allen - the hour has cometh but not the man
Yet!
Thank you, Hephaestus. Just popped up out of nowhere ...
Must've gotten bonked.
k.allen - damned good point!
What happened to United States antitrust law?
Scratching of head and wondering!
Simply just implement the Law
(unless some burk has revoked it)
Bicentennial Man?...just bonk 'em on the head and they get real.
I'm definitely ok with fundamental life support, including health in the whole living world ... education, never ending in the school of life, no matter where we are, or who ....
... robots ...?
I would want to know who does the programming.
The new rallying point for 'Choice' in the coming era?
Boycott Amazon! I've never used it and will not Made in China was the corporate desire to get a market share (amongst other things). G-7 did that to us a long time ago and while a small % of Chinese are consumers now...check Mexico's position. It failed...NAFTA failed and it failed Americans, too. We needed to be on top of the Koch's Birch agenda decades ago. Now, with the help of Investigative Journalists/Reporters & Thom Hartmann...you, too....it's getting noticed again. John Birch Society did not get busted up...it was allowed to grow into an organization which is larger than the republican Party itself. Let's stop the nonsense of "it's legal"...it's legal b/c THEY made the laws. Coup our own Gov't to get our Gov't back, if need be....where's the leadership with backbone to take back Democracy? Amazon is just another symptom of Corporate Fascism.
It's time for a guaranteed minimum income, free education, and then let the robots do what they want.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1g3_wEAffY
Thank you for that link, Peter from RI (#13). Democracy Now has a clip on today's show that shows some of Gorsuch's reactions ... interesting to note expression and hand action ... what's not to like about the guy? Good looking, smart, compassionate, well spoken, committed to letter of the law ... supportive wife, ... what cylinder is not firing here?
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/3/22/neil_gorsuch_backed_by_10_of
I like Sheldon Whitehouse. He always zeros in on the truth. ((How come people who do that always seem to wind up being some kind of socialist or fringie, or someone you can't vote for?))
(wmleidy - #12)
That follows the same trajectory as Thom's assertion that every 80 years or so, the economy goes through these major cycles of change, and when the last person who remembers war no longer lives to tell the tale, humans will bring it back around ... a kind of cultural myelination ... as the unconscious awakens ... in perpetuity ....
(ErinRose - #10)
I think it's more like "business as usual". I also think business is the only real survival choice for lots of folks - in whatever venue - and then, a monumental challenge to escape the yawning jaws of the corporate corral leading down a chute to ... oh, thank goodness we are not cattle heading into the slaughterhouse ... or, uh ..., well ...
I think the humanity is very much there, deeply ensconced in hidden hearts locked away in treasured troves that never see light of day.
"We the People" happens one person at a time, and all of us at once.
So, I guess the challenge is to find what grounds support what interests best, and keep turning the compost. Seriously. How much power does anyone person have to influence such an array of concerns?
What kind of organizing can bring people together effectively ... personal and social ... locally and globally ... in a world emerging from the grip of tyranny and despotism?
Hootenanny?
(Dianereynolds - #9)
I'll take [howling at the moon] for $500.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Anschutz
These people are so wealthy that it becomes a hobby to control our Government. They cannot spend it, so might as well control the Government with it. And it only takes a small percentage and has a great Return on Investment.
Another one to read up on is Robert Mercer, Trumps big supporter.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/the-reclusive-hedge-fund-ty...
RI Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse is ripping Gorsuch and the Republican SCOTUS to shreds.
Thom, please share this on your show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1g3_wEAffY
Sincerely,
Peter from RI
molly ivins said several years ago in a bill moyers interview that contemporary america is a combination of corporatocracy, theocracy and oligarchy. we have collectively let this toxic state envelope us, and until we are slapped awake by yet another cycle of depression and war, we are doomed remain a nation that is substantially unconscious.
I really have very little hope that anything good is going to come our way. All of these people that we call our leaders have the worst agendas going and their controling bodies, the RNC and the DNC (at the behest of the Deep State) are hand-picking people who are only going to destroy the dream we once had of Camelot and replace it with Nazi Germany, Mussolini's Italy, or England from 1066 to 1381.
I totally agree. These people are all from the "business" class. They see us as nothing other than a commodity and a business opportunity. There is no humanity anywhere in their master plan. They are very sociopathic-egocentric in their world views. But the part that gets me is how willing We, the People, are to go along with this. Just appalling.
Scream, shout pejoratives, stomp your feet, hold your breath until you turn more blue, protest, resist, occupy, rant, burn things down, dig in your heels, smash windows, claim racism, swear, wear vagina hats, blame the cops, howl at the moon, organize a march, drum circles, chant, wave preprinted signs, and in general make bigger fools of yourselves, but Neil Gorsuch will be become the next Justice of the Supreme Court.
Thank you Joe Biden for your sage advice.
One down, hopefully two more to go.
How are those Geritol and prune juice smoothies sittin’ with you Ruth?
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HAPLESS {a rhyme}
America has been for a long time bumbling,
and Trumpsterismo now has us stumbling.
It’ll be quite humbling,
our crumbling and tumbling
while hapless we’re mumbling our impotent grumbling.
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UNJUST DESSERTS {DESERTS} - {a limerick and a coda}
Focus on Trump diverts
from the fact that what Really hurts
is the political prominence,
the whole-hog predominance
of Plutocrats’ unjust deserts.
… Coda:
Their unjust “deserts”
are obscene “desserts”
from obscenely-rich meals
of obscene political deals.
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