
Trump is not entirely wrong. Is Amazon too big? - 3327
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43606088
======
evan_
This is an incredibly stupid headline. Trump didn’t criticize Amazon because
it was a monopoly, he criticized it because he thinks that Amazon owns the
Washington Post and he’s mad at the Washington Post.

~~~
ethanwillis
And anti-trumpers don't defend Amazon because they don't believe it's a
monopoly, they defend it because Trump criticizes it.

The point is that the motivation doesn't matter too much if the end result is
the same. Amazon IS too big and we need to do something about it. We can all
have differing motivations but still want the same thing.

~~~
evan_
If I say “the claim that Amazon costs the USPS money has no basis in fact”- or
point out any of the other factual innacuracies in the president’s months-long
tantrum about Amazon and the Washington Post- that isn’t defending Amazon. If
there’s a case to be made against Amazon then it should be made without making
things up.

~~~
ethanwillis
Why does Amazon use USPS so heavily? It's because they charge them _much_
lower rates than their competitors. USPS should (and not discussing
regulations _could_ ) charge Amazon more.

I think it's pretty tasteless that Amazon takes advantage of regulations and
the dismal financials of USPS to get cheap delivery. In the long term who wins
and loses here? Amazon wins and makes some more billions and the postal
workers lose as all their pensions get gutted.

~~~
evan_
You’ve moved the goalposts from “the USPS is losing money” to “the USPS is not
making as much money as possible”- and still not actually provided any real
numbers or facts.

Wouldn’t a better solution to the problem you claim exists be to try to change
the postal rate? Instead, Trump (and, apparently, you) attacks Amazon for
being so “tasteless” as to... pay the bill for services rendered.

Trump famously doesn’t pay his bills so maybe he just doesn’t understand how
this kind of thing works?

Elsewhere in this thread you argue that the ends justify the means because
Amazon needs to be regulated. This ignores the possibility that if Trump is
lying about his motivation, then he's also lying about the "ends" he's after:
If he's trying to hit Amazon as a way to hurt the Washington Post, then you
have to factor that in to your calculations. It's no longer "Amazon is too
big", it's "Amazon's too big _and_ the Free Press is too free".

~~~
ethanwillis
I actually didn't move a single goal post. I never stated that I believe that
the USPS is "losing money" in the strictest sense on each of the transactions.
You're projecting Trumps tweets onto me personally.

I don't care if Trump famously doesnt pay his bills because that has nothing
to do with how I view Amazon. If you ask me directly I'd say it's tasteless
how Trump treats his contractors and fucks them around when he can definitely
afford to pay them.

And maybe he is lying about the ends he's after, that's the risk with allying
with people who do have different motivations than you. However that's a risk
you have to take in a society that's trying to organize many different people
with many different opinions. It's almost like we need to debate and come as
close to a solution as possible that meets each person's
expectations/motivations without crossing the lines in the sand we each draw
for acceptable behavior.

So let's discuss all the issues so you can maybe have a real discussion with
me and not just argue with me because you think I'm some Trump shill.

Trump 1.) He treats women like garbage 2.) He plays games with subcontractors
and employees to fuck them out of as much money as possible or not pay them at
all. 3.) He plays all the tax loopholes to pay the minimum possible tax that
he can. etc etc.

Amazon 1.) Utilizes the USPS's precarious financial situation and their
massive buying power to get lower rates that screw over the USPS in the long
term. 2.) They don't care about the fact that when they have drones doing
deliveries and drop USPS that all of the USPS workers who need their pensions
paid will be SOL.

Free Press 1.) I don't think that the press is too free when it's basically
all sock puppeting for rich people whether that be Fox News or Washington
Post. At the same time I would definitely oppose any kind of legislation that
curtails the ability of the free press to be.. free. I don't have to support
gutting the Washington Post to talk about putting some regulations on Amazon.

~~~
ethanwillis
1.) [http://fortune.com/2017/12/29/trump-amazon-post-
office/](http://fortune.com/2017/12/29/trump-amazon-post-office/) 2.)
[http://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-
service/](http://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-service/) 3.)
[http://www.govexec.com/management/2017/09/usps-defaults-
bill...](http://www.govexec.com/management/2017/09/usps-defaults-billions-
mandatory-payments-despite-scheduled-relief/141404/)

\- "He estimated at the time that Amazon pays the USPS $2 per package, which
is about half what it would pay United Parcel Service (UPS, +1.95%) and Fedex"
[1]

\- "The Postal Service reported a net loss of $2.1 billion in the third
quarter of 2017, and has $15 billion in outstanding debt. The service has lost
$62 billion over the last decade." [1]

\- "USPS’s chief financial officer, Joseph Corbett, wrote in a post for
PostalReporter.com in August that the service is required by law to charge
retailers at least enough to cover its delivery costs. ... He said Congress
should pass provisions of legislation introduced last year by former
Representative Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, that would allow the postal
service to raise some rates and discontinue direct delivery to business
customers’ doors." [1]

\- "The Postal Service, writes Shapiro, “can borrow from the U.S. Treasury
through the Federal Financing Bank, at highly-subsidized interest rates.” It
currently borrows the legal limit of $15.2 billion at a rate of 1.2%. Without
this access, it would be paying somewhere between $415 million and $490
million per year more in interest." [2]

\- "The worst of it came in 2012, when the USPS lost a whopping $15.9 billion
dollars, followed by $4.8 billion and $5.3 billion in 2013 and 2014,
respectively." [2]

\- "From 2012 through 2016, the agency failed to deliver nearly $34 billion
toward its pool for retirees’ health care." [3]

\- "“Given that the Postal Service is now unable to pay money it owes to the
federal retirement system and to the retiree health care system,” Cummings
said, “it is more urgent than ever that Congress take action to ensure that
the Postal Service continues to be able to serve the American people.”" [3]

------
jedwhite
The story itself is reasonable but the headline added by OP substantially
misrepresents the content. The story title itself is "Donald Trump steps up
attacks on Amazon." OP headline for HN is "Trump is not entirely wrong. Is
Amazon too big?" That is not an accurate description of the story at all.

------
reificator
The article title is "Donald Trump steps up attacks on Amazon" and the article
offers no evidence for the current post's title of "Trump is not entirely
wrong. Is Amazon too big?".

In fact the article states that USPS profits off of Amazon, exactly the
opposite of the accusation.

In keeping with tradition here, the answer to the post's question is "no".

~~~
ethanwillis
This is a much better article with more info than the OP:
[http://fortune.com/2017/12/29/trump-amazon-post-
office/](http://fortune.com/2017/12/29/trump-amazon-post-office/)

~~~
reificator
I forgot that I have the
[http://maketrumptweetseightagain.com/](http://maketrumptweetseightagain.com/)
extension installed, which apparently works on embedded tweets as well. Just
open up the page and there's the tweet in crayon in the middle of the
article...

[https://i.imgur.com/poq2tYw.png](https://i.imgur.com/poq2tYw.png)

~~~
ethanwillis
lmao, my girlfriend uses the one that replaces pictures of trump with cats.

------
vlozko
He could make this a win for both consumers and himself if he goes after
Amazon where it really fails badly: counterfeit goods.

~~~
jfoster
Arguably might be a win for Amazon too.

------
adventured
The problem is straight forward: Amazon is clearly not too big today. Their
retail sales are a bit over a third that of Walmart (and that's only if we
count the marketplace sellers in Amazon's retail total). They have plenty of
competition in cloud services, Azure and Google will likely gradually continue
to take market share there.

It will be too big in retail, tomorrow - maybe. Given all that can go wrong,
that's a big maybe. Pre-emptively punishing them for what they may or may not
become ten years from now, is an obnoxious perversion of justice. It's a
massively positive for consumers today that Amazon exists, that they have the
scale that they do, and that they're as friendly toward consumers as they are.

It'll still take another ten years of torrid growth just for Amazon to catch
up to Walmart's retail scale.

~~~
anothergoogler
Wal-Mart engages in anti-competitive practices and also might be too big, so
I'm not sure it's a good reference point.

~~~
adventured
It's a great reference point because we're dealing with things as they
actually are, not a theorized ideal scenario. Walmart made it through the era
of peak Walmart-fear, they're not going to get broken up at this point. There
is no scenario where that happens now.

------
Mononokay
Answer: no. Amazon benefits the vast majority of people, and acting as if a
company can get "too big" is a bit silly. It's hysteria like this that ended
in the Bell split, something that undeniably harmed everyone involved.

------
Gustomaximus
I suspect at some point t we might see Amazon regulated like a utility. For
example in Australia/UK phone networks must give reasonably priced access for
virtual phone network companies to use their infrastructure and compete.

I'd love to see something like this with companies like Walmart. Imagine that
got broken up into 6,000 invividual stores. It would be a jobs boom with every
store now needing an accountant, marketing help etc. Then we have 6,000 stores
all looking back into each others markets wondering if the can open a
competing store and how they can improve. I really think breaking g up large
companies will be a boom for economies.

~~~
adventured
We had that decentralized system. It was terrible for everyone. That's why
Walmart stomped them.

It was bad for consumers - selection would implode, individual stores can't
handle inventory as well or bargain properly, their pricing power is low. It
was bad for employees - very poor wages, _zero_ benefits, no dependability
that the business would be there tomorrow. It was bad for competition - stores
constantly went under.

Walmart benefits from a national system of standards, of training, inventory,
pricing & buying, shipping, storage, quality control, etc and so on for dozens
of other major issues.

Walmart also benefits from being able to offset weaker stores with stronger
stores. You can yield a small profit over here, and make up for it with a
better profit over there. Without that, the store simply goes under given the
hyper thin margins, when things slip (inevitable).

~~~
Gustomaximus
I dont think it would be as bad as you feel. Things like pricing can be
overcome as we have better information flow these days so the opportunity to
order from a variety of suppliers is much easier than ever to create
competition. And wages...well I dont think the centralised system is showing
much benefit there to debate the counter point.

The key is seeing the problem as a flow rather than 2 options. Yes large
centralised systems are more efficient. So over time stores would re-
centralise with the benefit being 'as they centralise'. When you break up a
large player you now have many opportunities for improvement/innovation rather
than someone entrenched who can win via their scale alone. The best stores
will grow and spread, become entrenched and then we rinse and repeat.

I feel people forget a core component of governments role in healthy
capitalism is ensuring a level playing field. This allows competition and
innovation. I agree that centralisation has benefits for business but these
seem to entrench and stagnate the business while they hold out competition
through their scale rather than theses qualities. Some business you can
legislate for this level playing field, others it best to break-up and let the
market sort itself.

------
justboxing
Mods & Readers, Please Flag.

~~~
ethanwillis
Is it because the article/headline are bad or because you don't like the idea?

