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This article misses the real issue of "the Amazons" of today: The low-wage workers Amazon has built it's empire on (or, the "gig-economy" of others), and the ma

by fnl 9y ago

This article misses the real issue of "the Amazons" of today: The low-wage workers Amazon has built it's empire on (or, the "gig-economy" of others), and the massive scale, legal tax avoidance schemes only companies with global scale can play with. If anything, companies of a certain revenue level should be taxed by (localized) revenue, not (globalized) gains. That alone would already go some way to put SMEs on a little more equal footing. Addendum: In fact, we should tax all companies by a progressive revenue scale.

p0rkbelly 9y ago
The hourly employees are paid significantly more than Walmart/Best Buy/Target employees. In my home state, they start at $14-$15. About 2x Walmart.They also have programs for veterans to make even more. They will also pay for community college degrees for those employees -- and it doesn't have to be related to their job nor do they have to stay at Amazon. I believe only in certain fields though, like STEM degrees.
- fnl 9y ago
  Well, those are not really SMEs with high quality jobs either... I'll happily accept your word that Amazon's sweatshops are better than X's sweatshop - but that just makes more shitty jobs...
  - guitarbill 9y ago
    Ah yes, the world without "shitty jobs" utopia. "Shitty" as compared to what? Who should do those jobs? Robots? Assuming what parent said is true, except for paying employees much more than competitors and education options, what should they do in your opinion to make the jobs less "shitty"?
    - fnl 9y ago
      Doesn't matter, that bright future is an Utopia, as you already correctly derived. So the question becomes, how to avoid the opposite, the dark future of extreme inequality that our world is steering into. Which brings us back on track: Taxing corporations by revenue, not gains, thereby allowing for a better distribution of wealth.
    - pessimizer 9y ago
      > Ah yes, the world without "shitty jobs" utopia. "Shitty" as compared to what? Who should do those jobs? Robots? For the life of me I can't figure out how this argument would be different if we were talking about actual slaves rather than terrible jobs. If we decide that labor standards are shitty, we dictate that wages be raised, that children not work, that machines be as safe as possible, etc.
      - guitarbill 9y ago
        My issue was with "shitty", which is pretty vague. Whatever you consider the bottom tier = "shitty", okay, let's do something about those. Now, bottom tier = "shitty" again. Okay, so we need to define a minimum limit of shittiness, which we're all happy with. That is called minimum wage, labour protections, etc. And this differs from country to country, depending on how society values people with limited options. Of the top of my head, two things that would predict this are a countries wealth, and how much influence corporations have in the political system, i.e. how broken/corrupt it is. However, I must admit that I'm living in a fairly wealthy and "socialist" European country, so it's easy for me to say. I can't figure out if OP is hating the game or the player (Amazon), but the former is a bit of a tangent w.r.t. to the article.
- adventured 9y ago
  > In my home state, they start at $14-$15. About 2x Walmart. Walmart's minimum wage nationally is moving to $11 this year. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/11/walmart-to-boost-starting-wage-give-employees-bonus-after-tax-bill.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/11/walmart-to-boost-starting-wa... Target has recently moved to $11 and is moving its minimum wage to $15 by around 2020. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/25/target-to-raise-its-hourly-minimum-wage.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/25/target-to-raise-its-hourly-m...
TulliusCicero 9y ago
Nonsense, what's the point of progressive revenue taxes for businesses?
- fnl 9y ago
  https://a16z.com/2014/09/05/why-amazon-has-no-profits-and-why-it-works/ https://a16z.com/2014/09/05/why-amazon-has-no-profits-and-wh... So on the contrary, I still am looking for a non-bullshit treason not to do it.
indubitable 9y ago
It's very easy to agree with what you say, but something that I think is difficult to answer is breaking it down into real numbers. How much do you think somebody should be paid for moving boxes? Again you'd probably like to respond with a phrase like a 'livable wage', but I'm curious about an exact number with a natural understanding that it'd be higher for workers in e.g. San Francisco and lower for workers in the middle of Idaho. To avoid making this a trap question, I'll give you my response to any number ahead of time. The US GDP/capita is $52k. So if each and every person received a perfectly equal share of every penny created, that'd be a total of $52k. And society certainly sees value in creating a much stronger economic incentive for e.g. being a doctor or an engineer than for moving boxes. So where would you put the number? It's not easy to answer when you consider that the current average salary for our box movers is already about $26k, or 50% of a perfectly equal share of all wealth generated in the nation. --- And I have one other entirely separate question for you, due to the phrasing of your question. Would you have been happier with Amazon had these jobs simply not existed? There's many possibilities there. In the future these jobs will likely be eliminated through automation. Other business situations, such as Apple's, enable them to avoid US blue collar labor by shipping the jobs off to factories in China where conditions and lifestyles are substantially worse than low wage jobs stateside.
- fnl 9y ago
  I think you're misunderstanding my point. The salary indeed is as a distribution question, and with localized inequality on the rise, this is getting worse every year since around 1973, probably. Beyond that, however, these companies are exchanging humane jobs with rich human interaction for sweatshop/factory/gig jobs. So as you say, hopefully automation will make all these jobs superfluous in the future. After which, then, the question becomes: So how will those having lost those already shitty jobs fare then? I have my doubts the answer will be "better..." So yes, I am all for less regulation and state interference overall - if in exchange the world can become a nicer place for the "average Joe" to live in. To reply with your own class of questions: How much more is the landlord's work worth in comparison to his underlings?
  - badpun 9y ago

by fnl 9y ago

p0rkbelly 9y ago

The hourly employees are paid significantly more than Walmart/Best Buy/Target employees. In my home state, they start at $14-$15. About 2x Walmart.They also have programs for veterans to make even more. They will also pay for community college degrees for those employees -- and it doesn't have to be related to their job nor do they have to stay at Amazon. I believe only in certain fields though, like STEM degrees.

fnl 9y ago
Well, those are not really SMEs with high quality jobs either... I'll happily accept your word that Amazon's sweatshops are better than X's sweatshop - but that just makes more shitty jobs...
- guitarbill 9y ago
  Ah yes, the world without "shitty jobs" utopia. "Shitty" as compared to what? Who should do those jobs? Robots? Assuming what parent said is true, except for paying employees much more than competitors and education options, what should they do in your opinion to make the jobs less "shitty"?
  - fnl 9y ago
    Doesn't matter, that bright future is an Utopia, as you already correctly derived. So the question becomes, how to avoid the opposite, the dark future of extreme inequality that our world is steering into. Which brings us back on track: Taxing corporations by revenue, not gains, thereby allowing for a better distribution of wealth.
  - pessimizer 9y ago
    > Ah yes, the world without "shitty jobs" utopia. "Shitty" as compared to what? Who should do those jobs? Robots? For the life of me I can't figure out how this argument would be different if we were talking about actual slaves rather than terrible jobs. If we decide that labor standards are shitty, we dictate that wages be raised, that children not work, that machines be as safe as possible, etc.
    - guitarbill 9y ago
      My issue was with "shitty", which is pretty vague. Whatever you consider the bottom tier = "shitty", okay, let's do something about those. Now, bottom tier = "shitty" again. Okay, so we need to define a minimum limit of shittiness, which we're all happy with. That is called minimum wage, labour protections, etc. And this differs from country to country, depending on how society values people with limited options. Of the top of my head, two things that would predict this are a countries wealth, and how much influence corporations have in the political system, i.e. how broken/corrupt it is. However, I must admit that I'm living in a fairly wealthy and "socialist" European country, so it's easy for me to say. I can't figure out if OP is hating the game or the player (Amazon), but the former is a bit of a tangent w.r.t. to the article.
adventured 9y ago
> In my home state, they start at $14-$15. About 2x Walmart. Walmart's minimum wage nationally is moving to $11 this year. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/11/walmart-to-boost-starting-wage-give-employees-bonus-after-tax-bill.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/11/walmart-to-boost-starting-wa... Target has recently moved to $11 and is moving its minimum wage to $15 by around 2020. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/25/target-to-raise-its-hourly-minimum-wage.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/25/target-to-raise-its-hourly-m...

TulliusCicero 9y ago

Nonsense, what's the point of progressive revenue taxes for businesses?

fnl 9y ago
https://a16z.com/2014/09/05/why-amazon-has-no-profits-and-why-it-works/ https://a16z.com/2014/09/05/why-amazon-has-no-profits-and-wh... So on the contrary, I still am looking for a non-bullshit treason not to do it.

indubitable 9y ago

It's very easy to agree with what you say, but something that I think is difficult to answer is breaking it down into real numbers. How much do you think somebody should be paid for moving boxes? Again you'd probably like to respond with a phrase like a 'livable wage', but I'm curious about an exact number with a natural understanding that it'd be higher for workers in e.g. San Francisco and lower for workers in the middle of Idaho. To avoid making this a trap question, I'll give you my response to any number ahead of time. The US GDP/capita is $52k. So if each and every person received a perfectly equal share of every penny created, that'd be a total of $52k. And society certainly sees value in creating a much stronger economic incentive for e.g. being a doctor or an engineer than for moving boxes. So where would you put the number? It's not easy to answer when you consider that the current average salary for our box movers is already about $26k, or 50% of a perfectly equal share of all wealth generated in the nation. --- And I have one other entirely separate question for you, due to the phrasing of your question. Would you have been happier with Amazon had these jobs simply not existed? There's many possibilities there. In the future these jobs will likely be eliminated through automation. Other business situations, such as Apple's, enable them to avoid US blue collar labor by shipping the jobs off to factories in China where conditions and lifestyles are substantially worse than low wage jobs stateside.

fnl 9y ago
I think you're misunderstanding my point. The salary indeed is as a distribution question, and with localized inequality on the rise, this is getting worse every year since around 1973, probably. Beyond that, however, these companies are exchanging humane jobs with rich human interaction for sweatshop/factory/gig jobs. So as you say, hopefully automation will make all these jobs superfluous in the future. After which, then, the question becomes: So how will those having lost those already shitty jobs fare then? I have my doubts the answer will be "better..." So yes, I am all for less regulation and state interference overall - if in exchange the world can become a nicer place for the "average Joe" to live in. To reply with your own class of questions: How much more is the landlord's work worth in comparison to his underlings?
- badpun 9y ago