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Amazon's Whole Foods deal under scrutiny
- msoad 9y agoConsidering how Walmart is the only option for many Americans to buy groceries I wouldn't worry about this deal at all.
- jethro_tell 9y agoWhat if it's Walmart that is pushing for scrutiny and not the average american. Judging by the clout the average american has in the political system vs the average corporation it's not much of a stretch.
- flubert 9y agoIs there a way we can quantify that? Is there any publicly available geospatial database of buildings sorted by type (residential, grocery store, etc.)?
- jdavis703 9y agoTrump tends to frequently call the Washington Post "the Amazon Washington Post." I wonder if this anti-trust scrutiny could be a way to leverage Bezos into toning down WaPo.
- R_haterade 9y agoIf it did, that would be bezo's plan in buying the paper backfiring spectacularly.
- bitJericho 9y agoBezos never intended to leave the paper alone. The fact that Wapo abandoned Snowden is evidence of that. Bezos is the biggest liar. Just read any of his company wide emails and you'll see how bad of a liar he is.
- R_haterade 9y agoI ain't even mad. Life is about finding out exactly how much you can get away with.
- bitJericho 9y agoYou don't have to destroy everyone around you to have a good time ;)
- bobthechef 9y agoMight makes right!
- R_haterade 9y agoBezos' plan was always to have a mouthpiece to spout propaganda. Why else invest in a dying medium? Same with Carlos Slim and the NYT. This isn't rocket surgery.
- komali2 9y agoWould the same argument apply to Rupert Murdoch and Fox News?
- komali2 9y agoCan you link to some specific examples that to you demonstrate that Bezos is a liar?
- bitJericho 9y agoFor example, when he pretended that he didn't know about the working conditions of the warehouses. He knows exactly what's going on with every detail of the company. He personally oversaw the design of the entire Amazon system, including the warehouse. His letter is absurd on its face. http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-responds-nyt-report-amazon-working-conditions-2015-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-responds-nyt-repor...
- SapphireSun 9y agoThe crazy thing is, the deal should be getting scrutiny anyway. This would be Trump doing his job. The thing that should worry us more is the concentration of power of a single individual owning Amazon and the Washington Post represents. Why should a corporate deal affect a newspaper watching out for the interests of the public? It seems insane. That's because it is.
- heartbreak 9y agoWell the President is also flat out wrong when he calls it the "Amazon Washington Post" because Amazon doesn't own the Washington Post. Perhaps we should fix the President's blatant misinformation ability before we go preventing someone from founding/buying/inheriting particular businesses.
- SapphireSun 9y agoJeff is CEO of Amazon and owns the Post. While the President is technically inaccurate, I'm not sure he is de facto inaccurate.
- mtanski 9y agoFacts or accuracy are not a strong suit of the current guy in office. /s Also, he doesn't seam to care much for independent journalism... which WaPo is. Anytime Amazon is discussed in the WaPo, they do mention in interest of disclosure that Jeff Bezos is the owner of WaPo and Amazon. Got karma to burn so why not.
- striking 9y ago> Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or proclaim that you expect to get downvoted. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- cgy1 9y agoRemember Trump also accused Amazon of "not paying internet taxes," so facts are not his strong suit. (Although he is correct only in that there is no such thing as internet taxes)
- dajohnson89 9y agoIf you read the article, you'd see that Democrats are the ones pushing for more scrutiny.
- Zigurd 9y agoMarcia Fudge, quoted in the article, is also anti-net-neutrality. Minority leaders are often the targets of strategic influence campaigns on issues like net neutrality. It's possible this is a similar situation.
- dajohnson89 9y agoPossibly -- but AFAIK liberals are generally the ones who favour busting up large corporations.
- JustAnotherPat 9y agolink? "In April of 2011, the House voted on a measure to prevent recent FCC rules regarding net neutrality from taking effect. The measure passed 236-174. Marcia Fudge voted against the resolution and therefore approved of the FCC rules regarding net neutrality."
- Zigurd 9y agohttps://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/newsfromunderground/dvLbQXU1mPs/fK-v95JOLQ8J https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/newsfromunderground/dv... It's possible she was successfully pressured to change her position. My point was more about corporate efforts to drive wedges between Democrats.
- nightski 9y agoCan someone explain to me how this could be considered "consolidation"? Is amazon buying multiple grocery store chains? The entire point of this article seems extremely far fetched.
- wbl 9y agoAmazon had a grocery delivery service and is purchasing a grocery store.
- dragonwriter 9y agoAmazon is already in the grocery retail business. Whole Foods is in the grocery retail business. The consolidation is kind of obvious.
- nightski 9y agoThey have 1 store iirc, and it's not even ready for prime time yet (the automated one). I'm not sure I'd call that industry consolidation... EDIT: Is delivery even relevant to the topic at hand? It's basically a completely different type of business.
- dragonwriter 9y agoAmazon's grocery retail is not limited to, or even primarily conducted via, the one brick and mortar store. EDIT: > EDIT: Is delivery even relevant to the topic at hand? It's basically a completely different type of business. I think it's pretty clear that people do substitute between in-person and online retail based on price and other competitive factors, so they aren't isolated, unrelated businesses.
- snuxoll 9y agoHell, Albrrtson's/Safeway offers delivery and Kroger brands plus WalMart have pickup options - that's a large majority of grocery brand in the US.
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- sremani 9y ago<Quote> "While we do not oppose the merger at this time, we are concerned what this merger could mean for African American communities across the country already suffering from a lack of affordable healthy food options from grocers," </Quote> Did the Democratic representative forgot the grocery in question is Whole Foods? Affordability is not the strong suite of Whole Foods, and the representative from Ohio should know that! This merger means nothing to people looking for affordable grocery. NOTHING.
- IB885588 9y agoIt's a near certainty that Amazon will lower prices at Whole Foods (by accepting lower margins and targeting faster growth and expansion), so if anything, it'll improve affordability.
- eplanit 9y agoThis is correct; and, it helps eliminate the issue of so-called "food deserts"[1], because geography/neighborhood will no longer be a barrier to higher-quality foods. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert
- bdamm 9y agoYou need to afford a computer of some kind, afford the premium for food delivery, and have a debit card in order to have fresh food show up in your food desert. Most people for whom living in a food desert is a problem are impoverished, and therefore don't have a car, don't have a phone/tablet/computer, and often don't have a debit card, and certainly won't pay the delivery premium. So this is not in any way going to help those living in fresh food deserts.
- Eridrus 9y agoPoor people have smartphones at a rate far higher than you would expect, partly because it's practically necessary these days, but also because you can get one on a plan from your carrier. Delivery costs are a real issue, but I have a hope that we will get self-driving trucks in the near future and delivery prices will fall.
- mr_tristan 9y agoDoes the Consumer Watchdog claim only apply to Amazon? http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/ltrftcdojamzon070617.pdf http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/ltrftcdojamzon0706... I just checked Walmart's site, and they seem to do the same kind of "Was" style price points.
- debacle 9y agoNot sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, Amazon probably has too long of fingers. On the other hand, if we (the US) are going to be bad at enforcing anti-trust laws, we should at least be consistent about it.
- skinnymuch 9y agoThat's how I feel too. I dislike Amazon's power and potential future power quite a bit. But the US at least isn't consistent with how it's going about things. Speaking of which, I haven't heard much about the At&t and Time Warner merger in some time. Campaign Trump did say he wouldn't allow it :p
- bobthechef 9y agoFrankly, Amazon is in a league of its own. Amazon has been allowed to acquire and expand until now, far exceeding whoever you have in mind. So I don't think there's an inconsistency. I could expect inconsistencies, however, for two reasons. First, lobbying. Second, because the corporate entity is important to national interests in some way where breaking it up would detract from those interests. I don't think any of these apply in the case of AMZN. So if we're going for consistency, we should have really gone after AMZN quite some time ago.
- skinnymuch 9y agoActually yeah I agree. What would they have gone after Amazon for before? Not for acquisitions, right? Unless Zappos or Goodreads were too far. Or some AWS acqsitions. The first thing I can think of is the BS they pulled when going against Quidsi. Lowering prices for things like diapers far too low among other things. Then being able to buy Quidsi when they were weakened.
- dafty4 9y agoTrump's invisible hand?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- gjmacd 9y agoIf you're going to let Comcast buy half the goddamn content companies like Universal, NBC, etc. You can't block something like this. Just sayin'.
- DerekL 9y agoNitpick: NBC Universal was a single company when Comcast bought it.
- komali2 9y agoI think our government has long ago left behind the "pretending to care about the constituents" mentality. If this merger is blocked, it's because someone standing to profit more from the merger being blocked had more political clout than those who stood to make money from the deal going through.
- wonderwonder 9y agoTrump does not like Bezos due to his ownership of the Washington Post. I would like to hope this does not affect the final decision. As another poster said, in regards to the Democrat raising concerns, she is attempting to leverage a national story for votes. Taken as a standalone purchase removed from politics I see this as a potential boon to many; with the chance for Amazon to leverage it's many expertices to provide lower cost higher quality food to people who otherwise could not afford it.
- tinalumfoil 9y ago> a potential boon to many While I believe the right decision will eventually be made, I'm not quite sure that positive language really holds up to scrutiny. Whole Foods fits a niche in selling a particular type of food, and shoppers are willing to pay a high premium for that food. With the exception of possibly Trader Joe's [0] there's no place near me that fills that niche besides Whole Food's. My understanding of Amazon's intent in purchasing the store is that they have no intention of preserving that niche, and want to turn it into an everyman's grocery store with some Amazon-specific gimmicks. If Amazon is correct in believing the assets of Whole Food's are more valuable as a general grocery store, then the sale is a net positive for consumers. But there's still other anti-trust considerations at play and sometimes minorities do get what they want at the cost of net benefit. Of course I don't know what that congressman's going on about. Whole Foods only exist in places where people can afford to go to Whole Foods. If you're poor the outcome of this deal is absolutely meaningless to you. [0] For the record, the one near me closed down a couple years ago, before the Whole Food's even opened.
- trumpownsyou 9y agothose people were never shopping at whole foods in the first place, and amazon has already said they'd like to make it more affordable. fake news.