Re: Chris Hedges
 

This is what occurred post-2008 in the extreme, and persists considerably to the present, and it is creating pernicious wage stagnation.

As oil stagnates, so does inflation. Consumer necessities have a similar relationship to inflation.

Re: Chris Hedges
 

Agreed.

Agreed.

I could conceive of a relationship between customers and value retailers such as Amazon in which the pain of low wages could be offset by cheaper and cheaper goods, made so as a result of constantly improving efficiencies. Where it gets tricky is when you build in fixed costs to consumers such as taxes (progressive wage tax is flexible, of course, but property taxes, SS/Medicare, and other state and local taxes are not) and health care. In that instance, companies like Amazon depress wages from which consumers can tackle these fixed and often increasing costs. This in turn starves the taxing entities (states, municipalities) of tax income, which decreases govt services to the these same consumers.

Re: Chris Hedges
 

I think it highlights why Hedges has been relegated to RT. He's critiqued establishment journalism's Hallin's Spheres too often and too well.

I'd have gone with, "Ex-Insider Chris Hedges Explains Why He's an Ex-Insider, and Why the Insiders Might be Delusional, and Perhaps Dangerous."

It's a mouthful, I know.

I wish Hedges weren't so shrill. And so connected to Chomsky and Nader. His points are lucid and worthy of discussion, but just as Ron Paul would say a couple sensible things, then disqualify himself by stating, "And that's why we need to go back on the gold standard!", Hedges can't help aligning himself with fringe sorts. (I get that Chomsky is arguably non-fringe, but Hedges could cite less polarizing sources for certain points than Chomsky.)

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

What this article misses is the connection from the clubs and academies for kids to the profits produced by everyone who touches a gifted athlete from high school to college to the pros. And since Americans don't know the sport, and the type of athletic talent and build that translates to can't lose-success isn't immediately apparent by looking at a kid aged 8, people who would be all over a clear cut future talent don't exist. Because of that, the types of scholarships and opportunities at all levels, as well as the constant search for talent in places not already mined by the opportunists that live in the basketball and football worlds, don't exist.

If you could look at a kid and see a future Messi or Ronaldo just from watching him play for 5 minutes at age 10 (like you could with Lebron), the sport would change here overnight.

[eta: That's not to say I didn't enjoy that article very much.]

TM

Re: Chris Hedges
 

What are you talking about?

You think below target inflation is because of oil prices? That's not right.

Again, that's not how inflation works.

Re: Chris Hedges
 

Some of the effects of the tech giants have to do with their specific models and choices, but the larger effects have to do with technological shifts. Collectibles used to be sold in stores. The internet comes along, and eBay makes it much more possible to buy and sell them without going to stores, which suffer in a big way. This transition was bad for stores and good for eBay and (consumers), but it fundamental it was driven by the way the internet changed distribution. A similar thing is true for Amazon. Amazon is not generally competing by driving prices down. It's competing by letting you buy stuff without going to a store.

eta: Over time, things generally get cheaper and turn into commodities. New stuff comes along and is valuable.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Is there anything Trump could do now that would be both shocking and surprising?

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Something basic and decent.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Surprising but not shocking.

Surprising and shocking
 

TPM: Russia ran a Tennessee Republican Party twitter account that had 10 times more followers than the Twitter account of the actually Tennessee GOP.

Re: Chris Hedges
 

Deflation.

It runs a fairly solid correlation.

It runs a fairly solid correlation.

This is one of the few measures cited by "relics" that still makes sense to me.

Re: Chris Hedges
 

I think it's a mix. Amazon enjoys a massive advantage because, yes, I hate the fucking mall/grocery store/hardware store/getting in the car at all if I don't have to do so. But it is also cheaper. The cost of bricks and mortar are built into the price of its traditional competition.

From an economies of scale perspective, Amazon is unstoppable. I don't think it should be broken for this. But it's taxable event removal effect might require some additional taxation to offset the projected tax revenue losses for a time.

By "time" I mean, until baby boomers are dead. That's the pig in the python that constrains our ability to apply nimble fixes.

Re: Chris Hedges
 

And yet it doesn't compete by offering better prices. And it takes whatever profits it makes and ruthlessly invests them back into its business instead of returning them investors, and has done this for years, which is why it's been jokingly referred to as a charity run by Bezos for the benefit of consumers.

That's just its particular business model. As you point out, it can sell consumers things they want without brick and mortar stores. Consumers benefit from not having to pay those costs. Anyone else can choose the same model. No one is forcing Wal-Mart to maintain all those stores (and it's the one with lower prices, btw).

Re: Surprising and shocking
 

That will change now that they own the Tennessee Party's account, too.

Re: Chris Hedges
 

No doubt Amazon is a fantastic benefit to consumers. And most of what people assert is unfair advantage or predatory accrues from pure innovation and a unique business model. So antitrust isn't the answer.

But you still haven't addressed the tax issue. This is where disruption on the scale of Amazon's causes a really nasty ripple effect.

Spending is predicated on projected tax revenues. Projected tax revenues are crafted from consideration of current business conditions. When something as powerful as Amazon enters the picture, it blows up a lot of those projections.

Amazon removes massive amounts of jobs and taxable events by gobbling up market share, wiping out competitors, and providing ruthless efficiency. Wal Mart does the same thing, by the way, only not quite as well in terms of efficiency.

This decreases tax revenue while increasing dependence (transfers for people put out of work). The safety nets are not only starved of revenue, but their burden is simultaneously enhanced.

I don't know what the solution would be, as this cannot be tackled by merely raising taxes on the affluent, or anyone else. I think at a minimum, Wal Mart should be hit with a tax in the exact amount of transfer costs provided to its employees because the company refuses to pay anything close to a living wage.

But as to Amazon, I'm at a loss... The idea of an "efficiency tax" I floated previously bothers me. But as we run into coming decades of baby boomers requiring greater transfers from govt while revenue drops as a result of massive disrupting forces like Amazon, the spread between what we've got to pay for the transfers and the cost of the transfers could widen to an unsustainable level.