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As Amazon Shares Fall, Jeff Bezos Is No Longer A Centi-Billionaire


Guest thanh03041993
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I ordered an action figure on Sunday morning from Amazon USA, because it was $11, and if I wanted to buy it in this country it would run at least three times as much.

 

This morning - Wednesday - it arrived. Three days. From America.

 

The cost of shipping a shoebox sized package to me from the USA? $6.50. It would cost me more or less the same to mail something of that size within this country.

 

The package was below the £15 threshold for import VAT, but if it had have cost more than £15, then the import duties are calculated by Amazon and you pay them when you place your order. No sign of the £8 swindle "handling charge" that Royal Mail slap on each and every package you receive from outside the EU.

 

On Monday, Jeff Bezos became the richest man in history. If my experiences this week are at all typical, I cannot say I am surprised.

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I ordered an action figure on Sunday morning from Amazon USA, because it was $11, and if I wanted to buy it in this country it would run at least three times as much.

 

This morning - Wednesday - it arrived. Three days. From America.

 

The cost of shipping a shoebox sized package to me from the USA? $6.50. It would cost me more or less the same to mail something of that size within this country.

 

The package was below the £15 threshold for import VAT, but if it had have cost more than £15, then the import duties are calculated by Amazon and you pay them when you place your order. No sign of the £8 swindle "handling charge" that Royal Mail slap on each and every package you receive from outside the EU.

 

On Monday, Jeff Bezos became the richest man in history. If my experiences this week are at all typical, I cannot say I am surprised.

 

 

What action figure did you buy?

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I hope he gets buried in a cardboard box 50 times too fucking big for his weird alien like body.

Wonder how much he has in actual cash.

Apparently the size of the packaging can be determined by the size of the space left in the van. If the van is tightly packed there are fewer breakages so a small item may have a large box just to plug a gap.

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  • 6 months later...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45053528

 

Online retail giant Amazon paid far less tax in the UK last year, despite seeing a jump in profits.

 

Amazon Services UK paid tax of £1.7m, down from £7.4m in 2016, but operating profits rose to £80m from £48m.

 

One reason for the lower tax bill was a rise in share-based payments for staff. Its full tax bill was £4.6m, but it has deferred paying the remaining £2.9m.

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45053528

 

Online retail giant Amazon paid far less tax in the UK last year, despite seeing a jump in profits.

 

Amazon Services UK paid tax of £1.7m, down from £7.4m in 2016, but operating profits rose to £80m from £48m.

 

One reason for the lower tax bill was a rise in share-based payments for staff. Its full tax bill was £4.6m, but it has deferred paying the remaining £2.9m.

 

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Smash the monopolies and try and give small to medium sized businesses a fair fight not forgetting the toxic influence monopolies can play in politics and have an impact on many circumstances.

 

Historically there was very strong opposition to monopolies in America. Here is a quote from a former president and Brandeis on the supreme court.

Woodrow Wilson, the Democrat, took a different approach: He argued that monopolies are a fundamental threat to political liberty, and that the government should attack and disperse them to protect democracy from the corrupting influence of economic concentration. After his election, Wilson went on to lay the foundation for the government’s anti-monopoly apparatus. He established federal oversight of corporate mergers, set up the Federal Reserve System to rein in Wall Street, and created the Federal Trade Commission to protect free commerce from anti-competitive business practices. Most important of all, perhaps, he placed Louis Brandeis on the Supreme Court.

Brandeis, who had cemented his reputation as “the people’s lawyer” during his six-year crusade to prevent banker J.P. Morgan from monopolizing New England’s railroads, was the chief intellectual architect of the New Deal. In 1933, just days after Franklin Roosevelt was inaugurated, Brandeis issued a stirring dissent in Liggett v. Lee, which struck down a Florida law designed to protect local businesses from out-of-state chains. Reading from the bench, Brandeis blamed the Great Depression on “the gross inequality in the distribution of wealth and income which giant corporations have fostered.” The government, he argued, had the right to regulate the “concentration of wealth and power” if it threatened the public welfare. Antitrust, as Brandeis saw it, wasn’t about protecting consumers—it was a way to safeguard democracy.

Full article below.

https://newrepublic.com/article/143595/return-monopoly-amazon-rise-business-tycoon-white-house-democrats-return-party-trust-busting-roots

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That was a President well before the US looked globally and actually had much military pull. The world turned on its head post 1939.

You would be surprised antitrust legislation that refers to monopolies. Was regularly discussed as part of the American political discourse until the early 1970s where similar language was used. Then the Chicago school of economics gang influenced Reagan and Clinton and the rest is history. Then here we are today where Bezos needs to spend roughly $28 million a day just to keep from accumulating more wealth as his his company can legally shaft everyone.

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