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That makes Amazon #3, after the federal government and Walmart: Entity US Employees 1. US Government 2.7M 2. Walmart 1.6M

by cs702 5y ago

That makes Amazon #3, after the federal government and Walmart: Entity US Employees 1. US Government 2.7M 2. Walmart 1.6M 3. Amazon 1.0M If Amazon continues to grow at current rates, it will surpass Walmart's figure within 2 years. Looking at these figures, it's evident that these three entities are far larger, wealthier, more connected, and likely more powerful than the vast majority of US cities, the vast majority of small countries in the world, and maybe even a few smaller US states.

polote 5y ago
> likely more powerful than the vast majority of US cities, the vast majority of small countries Indeed there are not a lot of countries/cities that are wealthy/powerful enough to send people in space
- drzaiusapelord 5y ago
  Blue Origin isn't that expensive, at least by nation state standards. Its just if there's no political will for a space program then there will be no space program. Space is a money blackhole for the most part so there's no big incentive to start one especially when governments are busy, ideally, fighting poverty, enforcing law, regulating capitalism, and protecting workers. The USA didn't have its own human rated launch vehicle for years and it wasn't a big deal. Space isn't a compelling target for good reasons and the midcentury space-race was little more than showing off ICBM capabilities between two nations who wanted to murder each other. I'm glad we've moved to a peaceful and private-public model with BO and SpaceX but its not like every country is failing everyday at getting rockets off the ground. They just don't care that much and know they can buy rocket rides from other nations, the same as buying medicine or arms from them. It just makes a lot more sense to buy space-related services from others than start your own for almost all nations.
  - 7thaccount 5y ago
    Neils degrasse Tyson has a really good video presentation he made at some UAE conference that's on YouTube somewhere. I normally don't listen too much to the science popularizers (Bill Nye, Tyson, Kaku...etc) that get consulted to talk about subjects outside their specialty (Example: talk to a geologist or whatever and not a string theorist when discussing plate tectonics). However, this one got my attention. NDT says that people do big expensive projects for 3 reasons: 1.) War (people will do anything not to die like build a great wall or an atom bomb), 2.) For religious reasons or to satisfy a monarchy(pyramids, Notre Dame cathedral), or 3.) For economics. We spent $$$$ on the space program as it was a key part of showing off our might in the cold war (#1). NDT speculates that Mars will not happen unless there is a military or economic reason to go there since #2 isn't big anymore.
- 8note 5y ago
  Very few companies are wealthy/powerful enough to do so. I'd guess that there's a similar number of cities and companies that could send people to space
hansvm 5y ago
Not just a few, Amazon has more workers than any of the 10 smallest states and more revenue than the GDP of the smallest 30 (individually, not summed).
- cs702 5y ago
  I meant entire states, not just state employees. Some states have fewer residents than Walmart and Amazon have employees.
  - hansvm 5y ago
    Me too, sorry if that wasn't clear. Amazon has more workers than the smallest 10 states have people.
  - 8note 5y ago
    I think that says more about the state's being defined badly than about the companies. There's a lot of people nowadays, and the government representation and power should be updated to match
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      Revoke the statehood of stuff like Wyoming annd Delaware[1]? Certainly doesn't feel all that unreasonable. ___ [1]: Hm, maybe gotta wait four years for the latter.
tptacek 5y ago
Is this level of concentration a totally new phenomenon? In the 1970s GM employed almost 700k people, and the US population like 30% lower. Is it just different companies every generation?
- jhallenworld 5y ago
  Oh boy, the new quote: "What's good for Amazon, is good for America." When GM was "good for America", we pretty much lost public transportation, so what are we losing now?
  - echelon 5y ago
    - Book stores (which were pretty awesome, actually) - Open source - Concentration of compute resources - American cinema (well, I suppose Disney has a hand in this too)
    - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
      >Book stores Ebooks killed book stores. Amazon was one of the many involved in that process. Like Pitney Bowes holding on to the printer industry for dear life. And stores sucked cause they charged ridiculous amounts of money for a glorified paperweight. Might as well scour Goodwill. >Open Source We live in a time with the most available and easily discovered open source code in the history of the world. This is nothing but false. >Concentration of computer resources Which is not a bad thing. >American Cinema That has been dominated well before Amazon came around.
    - robertlagrant 5y ago
      How are we losing open source?
      - jdavis703 5y ago
        I don’t agree with OP, but what they were trying to say is they’re killing open source business models. They take a popular open source project, turn it into an AWS offering and then crush any SaaS/cloud ambitions of the open source developers.
PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
The law grants cities powers that corporations do not have. Corporations are only more powerful if wealth can be used to subvert the rule of law. And that never happens. /s
postmeta 5y ago
"Across the U.S., nearly 24 million people—a little over 15% of the workforce—are involved in military, public, and national service at the local, state and federal levels. Of this number, approximately 16 million are employed in state and local governments. The federal government numbers include active duty military personnel and U.S. Postal Service workers. The U.S. military has about 1.4 million active duty service members and another 800,000 reserve forces. There are approximately 800,000 postal workers. Beyond the military and the postal service, 2 million people—just over 1% of the U.S. workforce or 0.6% of the total population—are permanently employed by the federal government. More than 70% of the federal workforce serves in defense and security agencies like the Department of Defense, the intelligence community agencies, and NASA. Contrary to popular belief in the bloated growth of the U.S. public sector, the size of the federal government proportionate to the total U.S. population has significantly decreased over the last 50 years. It has also shrunk in absolute numbers in terms of both the full-time and part-time workforce. If we compare the size of the U.S. public sector as a percentage of the total workforce with other advanced countries, the U.S. is often smaller than its European counterparts, including the United Kingdom, although larger than Japan, which has one of the smallest public sectors internationally. In stark contrast, 40% of the workforce in Russia is employed in the public sector. In Europe, the optimal size of government is equally hotly debated, while in Russia, the size of the government and the dependency that this generates within the workforce tends to mute critical commentary." https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/public-service-and-the-federal-government/ https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/public-servi...
- nonameiguess 5y ago
  I'd like to see how that proportional drop in workforce compares to the contracted workforce. Are they actually purchasing less labor or just directly employing fewer of the people they pay for labor? I think states and cities have legitimately shrunk budgets in proportion to regional economic output since the downsizing efforts of the 80s, but the federal government has not. Tax revenue as a proportion of GDP has dropped, and presumably discretionary budget has, but debt-financed mandatory budget has skyrocketed. The chart from the Fed seems to show outlays in proportion to GDP steadily growing for over a century, but pretty slowly: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S Obviously, the ginormous spikes for WWII and Covid are outliers.

by cs702 5y ago

polote 5y ago

> likely more powerful than the vast majority of US cities, the vast majority of small countries Indeed there are not a lot of countries/cities that are wealthy/powerful enough to send people in space

drzaiusapelord 5y ago
Blue Origin isn't that expensive, at least by nation state standards. Its just if there's no political will for a space program then there will be no space program. Space is a money blackhole for the most part so there's no big incentive to start one especially when governments are busy, ideally, fighting poverty, enforcing law, regulating capitalism, and protecting workers. The USA didn't have its own human rated launch vehicle for years and it wasn't a big deal. Space isn't a compelling target for good reasons and the midcentury space-race was little more than showing off ICBM capabilities between two nations who wanted to murder each other. I'm glad we've moved to a peaceful and private-public model with BO and SpaceX but its not like every country is failing everyday at getting rockets off the ground. They just don't care that much and know they can buy rocket rides from other nations, the same as buying medicine or arms from them. It just makes a lot more sense to buy space-related services from others than start your own for almost all nations.
- 7thaccount 5y ago
  Neils degrasse Tyson has a really good video presentation he made at some UAE conference that's on YouTube somewhere. I normally don't listen too much to the science popularizers (Bill Nye, Tyson, Kaku...etc) that get consulted to talk about subjects outside their specialty (Example: talk to a geologist or whatever and not a string theorist when discussing plate tectonics). However, this one got my attention. NDT says that people do big expensive projects for 3 reasons: 1.) War (people will do anything not to die like build a great wall or an atom bomb), 2.) For religious reasons or to satisfy a monarchy(pyramids, Notre Dame cathedral), or 3.) For economics. We spent $$$$ on the space program as it was a key part of showing off our might in the cold war (#1). NDT speculates that Mars will not happen unless there is a military or economic reason to go there since #2 isn't big anymore.
8note 5y ago
Very few companies are wealthy/powerful enough to do so. I'd guess that there's a similar number of cities and companies that could send people to space

hansvm 5y ago

Not just a few, Amazon has more workers than any of the 10 smallest states and more revenue than the GDP of the smallest 30 (individually, not summed).

cs702 5y ago
I meant entire states, not just state employees. Some states have fewer residents than Walmart and Amazon have employees.
- hansvm 5y ago
  Me too, sorry if that wasn't clear. Amazon has more workers than the smallest 10 states have people.
- 8note 5y ago
  I think that says more about the state's being defined badly than about the companies. There's a lot of people nowadays, and the government representation and power should be updated to match
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    Revoke the statehood of stuff like Wyoming annd Delaware[1]? Certainly doesn't feel all that unreasonable. ___ [1]: Hm, maybe gotta wait four years for the latter.

tptacek 5y ago

Is this level of concentration a totally new phenomenon? In the 1970s GM employed almost 700k people, and the US population like 30% lower. Is it just different companies every generation?

jhallenworld 5y ago
Oh boy, the new quote: "What's good for Amazon, is good for America." When GM was "good for America", we pretty much lost public transportation, so what are we losing now?
- echelon 5y ago
  - Book stores (which were pretty awesome, actually) - Open source - Concentration of compute resources - American cinema (well, I suppose Disney has a hand in this too)
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
    >Book stores Ebooks killed book stores. Amazon was one of the many involved in that process. Like Pitney Bowes holding on to the printer industry for dear life. And stores sucked cause they charged ridiculous amounts of money for a glorified paperweight. Might as well scour Goodwill. >Open Source We live in a time with the most available and easily discovered open source code in the history of the world. This is nothing but false. >Concentration of computer resources Which is not a bad thing. >American Cinema That has been dominated well before Amazon came around.
  - robertlagrant 5y ago
    How are we losing open source?
    - jdavis703 5y ago
      I don’t agree with OP, but what they were trying to say is they’re killing open source business models. They take a popular open source project, turn it into an AWS offering and then crush any SaaS/cloud ambitions of the open source developers.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

The law grants cities powers that corporations do not have. Corporations are only more powerful if wealth can be used to subvert the rule of law. And that never happens. /s

postmeta 5y ago

"Across the U.S., nearly 24 million people—a little over 15% of the workforce—are involved in military, public, and national service at the local, state and federal levels. Of this number, approximately 16 million are employed in state and local governments. The federal government numbers include active duty military personnel and U.S. Postal Service workers. The U.S. military has about 1.4 million active duty service members and another 800,000 reserve forces. There are approximately 800,000 postal workers. Beyond the military and the postal service, 2 million people—just over 1% of the U.S. workforce or 0.6% of the total population—are permanently employed by the federal government. More than 70% of the federal workforce serves in defense and security agencies like the Department of Defense, the intelligence community agencies, and NASA. Contrary to popular belief in the bloated growth of the U.S. public sector, the size of the federal government proportionate to the total U.S. population has significantly decreased over the last 50 years. It has also shrunk in absolute numbers in terms of both the full-time and part-time workforce. If we compare the size of the U.S. public sector as a percentage of the total workforce with other advanced countries, the U.S. is often smaller than its European counterparts, including the United Kingdom, although larger than Japan, which has one of the smallest public sectors internationally. In stark contrast, 40% of the workforce in Russia is employed in the public sector. In Europe, the optimal size of government is equally hotly debated, while in Russia, the size of the government and the dependency that this generates within the workforce tends to mute critical commentary." https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/public-service-and-the-federal-government/ https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/public-servi...

nonameiguess 5y ago
I'd like to see how that proportional drop in workforce compares to the contracted workforce. Are they actually purchasing less labor or just directly employing fewer of the people they pay for labor? I think states and cities have legitimately shrunk budgets in proportion to regional economic output since the downsizing efforts of the 80s, but the federal government has not. Tax revenue as a proportion of GDP has dropped, and presumably discretionary budget has, but debt-financed mandatory budget has skyrocketed. The chart from the Fed seems to show outlays in proportion to GDP steadily growing for over a century, but pretty slowly: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S Obviously, the ginormous spikes for WWII and Covid are outliers.