Amazon, “Economic Terrorism” and the Destruction of Competition and Livelihoods
Colin Todhunter
Global corporations are colonising India’s retail space through e-commerce and destroying small-scale physical retail and millions of livelihoods.
Walmart entered into India in 2016 with a US$3.3 billion take-over of the online retail start-up Jet.com. This was followed in 2018 with a US$16 billion take-over of India’s largest online retail platform, Flipkart. Today, Walmart and Amazon control almost two thirds of India’s digital retail sector.
Amazon and Walmart have a record of using predatory pricing, deep discounts and other unfair business practices to attract customers to their online platforms. A couple of years ago, those two companies generated sales of over US$3 billion in just six days during Diwali. India’s small retailers reacted by calling for a boycott of online shopping.
If you want to know the eventual fate of India’s local markets and small retailers, look no further than what US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in 2019. He stated that Amazon had “destroyed the retail industry across the United States.”
Amazon’s corporate practices
In the US, an investigation by the House Judiciary Committee concluded that Amazon exerts monopoly power over many small- and medium-size businesses. It called for breaking up the company and regulating its online marketplace to ensure that sellers are treated fairly.
Amazon has spied on sellers and appropriated data about their sales, costs and suppliers. It has then used this information to create its own competing versions of their products, often giving its versions superior placement in the search results on its platform.
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) published a revealing document on Amazon in June 2021 that discussed these issues. It also notes that Amazon has been caught using its venture capital fund to invest in start-ups only to steal their ideas and create rival products and services.
Moreover, Amazon’s dominance allows it to function as a gatekeeper: retailers and brands must sell on its site to reach much of the online market and changes to Amazon’s search algorithms or selling terms can cause their sales to evaporate overnight.
Amazon also makes it hard for sellers to reduce their dependence on its platform by making their brand identity almost invisible to shoppers and preventing them from building relationships with their customers. The company strictly limits contact between sellers and customers.
According to the ILSR, Amazon compels sellers to buy its warehousing and shipping services, even though many would get a better deal from other providers, and it blocks independent businesses from offering lower prices on other sites. The company also routinely suspends sellers’ accounts and seizes inventories and cash balances.
The Joint Action Committee against Foreign Retail and E-commerce (JACAFRE) was formed to resist the entry of foreign corporations like Walmart and Amazon into India’s e-commerce market. Its members represent more than 100 national groups, including major trade, workers’ and farmers’ organisations.
JACAFRE issued a statement in 2018 on Walmart’s acquisition of Flipkart, arguing that it undermines India’s economic and digital sovereignty and the livelihoods of millions in India. The committee said the deal would lead to Walmart and Amazon dominating India’s e-retail sector. It would also allow them to own India’s key consumer and other economic data, making them the country’s digital overlords, joining the ranks of Google and Facebook.
In January 2021, JACAFRE published an open letter saying that the three new farm laws, passed by parliament in September 2020, centre on enabling and facilitating the unregulated corporatisation of agriculture value chains. This will effectively make farmers and small traders of agricultural produce become subservient to the interests of a few agrifood and e-commerce giants or will eradicate them completely.
Although there was strong resistance to Walmart entering India with its physical stores, online and offline worlds are now merged: e-commerce companies not only control data about consumption but also control data on production and logistics. Through this control, e-commerce platforms can shape much of the physical economy.
What we are witnessing is the deliberate eradication of markets in favour of monopolistic platforms.
Bezos not welcome
Amazon’s move into India encapsulates the unfair fight for space between local and global markets. There is a relative handful of multi-billionaires who own the corporations and platforms. And there are the interests of hundreds of millions of vendors and various small-scale enterprises who are regarded by these rich individuals as mere collateral damage to be displaced in their quest for ever-greater profit.
Thanks to the helping hand of various COVID-related lockdowns, which devastated small businesses, the wealth of the world’s billionaires increased by $3.9tn (trillion) between 18 March and 31 December 2020.
In September 2020, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s executive chairman, could have paid all 876,000 Amazon employees a $105,000 bonus and still be as wealthy as he was before COVID. Jeff Bezos – his fortune constructed on unprincipled methods that have been well documented in recent years – increased his net wealth by $78.2bn during this period.
Bezos’s plan is clear: the plunder of India and the eradication of millions of small traders and retailers and neighbourhood mom and pop shops.
This is a man with few scruples. After returning from a brief flight to space in July, in a rocket built by his private space company, Bezos said during a news conference:
I also want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all of this.”
In response, US congresswoman Nydia Velazquez wrote on Twitter:
While Jeff Bezos is all over the news for paying to go to space, let’s not forget the reality he has created here on Earth.”
She added the hashtag #WealthTaxNow in reference to Amazon’s tax dodging, revealed in numerous reports, not least the May 2021 study ‘The Amazon Method: How to take advantage of the international state system to avoid paying tax’ by Richard Phillips, Senior Research Fellow, Jenaline Pyle, PhD Candidate, and Ronen Palan, Professor of International Political Economy, all based at the University of London.
Little wonder that when Bezos visited India in January 2020, he was hardly welcomed with open arms.
Bezos praised India on Twitter by posting:
Dynamism. Energy. Democracy. #IndianCentury.”
The ruling party’s top man in the BJP foreign affairs department hit back with:
Please tell this to your employees in Washington DC. Otherwise, your charm offensive is likely to be waste of time and money.”
A fitting response, albeit perplexing given the current administration’s proposed sanctioning of the foreign takeover of the economy, not least by the unscrupulous interests that will benefit from the recent farm legislation.
Bezos landed in India on the back of the country’s antitrust regulator initiating a formal investigation of Amazon and with small store owners demonstrating in the streets. The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) announced that members of its affiliate bodies across the country would stage sit-ins and public rallies in 300 cities in protest.
In a letter to PM Modi, prior to the visit of Bezos, the secretary of the CAIT, General Praveen Khandelwal, claimed that Amazon, like Walmart-owned Flipkart, was an “economic terrorist” due to its predatory pricing that “compelled the closure of thousands of small traders.”
In 2020, Delhi Vyapar Mahasangh (DVM) filed a complaint against Amazon and Flipkart alleging that they favoured certain sellers over others on their platforms by offering them discounted fees and preferential listing. The DVM lobbies to promote the interests of small traders. It also raised concerns about Amazon and Flipkart entering into tie-ups with mobile phone manufacturers to sell phones exclusively on their platforms.
It was argued by DVM that this was anti-competitive behaviour as smaller traders could not purchase and sell these devices. Concerns were also raised over the flash sales and deep discounts offered by e-commerce companies, which could not be matched by small traders.
The CAIT estimates that in 2019 upwards of 50,000 mobile phone retailers were forced out of business by large e-commerce firms.
Amazon’s internal documents, as revealed by Reuters, indicated that Amazon had an indirect ownership stake in a handful of sellers who made up most of the sales on its Indian platform. This is an issue because in India Amazon and Flipkart are legally allowed to function only as neutral platforms that facilitate transactions between third-party sellers and buyers for a fee.
Under investigation
The upshot is that India’s Supreme Court recently ruled that Amazon must face investigation by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for alleged anti-competitive business practices. The CCI said it would probe the deep discounts, preferential listings and exclusionary tactics that Amazon and Flipkart are alleged to have used to destroy competition.
However, there are powerful forces that have been sitting on their hands as these companies have been running amok.
In August 2021, the CAIT attacked the NITI Aayog (the influential policy commission think tank of the Government of India) for interfering in e-commerce rules proposed by the Consumer Affairs Ministry.
The CAIT said that the think tank clearly seems to be under the pressure and influence of the foreign e-commerce giants.
The president of CAIT, BC Bhartia, stated that it is deeply shocking to see such a callous and indifferent attitude of the NITI Aayog whch have remained a silent spectator for so many years when:
…the foreign e-commerce giants have circumvented every rule of the FDI policy and blatantly violated and destroyed the retail and e-commerce landscape of the country but have suddenly decided to open their mouth at a time when the proposed e-commerce rules will potentially end the malpractices of the e-commerce companies.”
Of course, money talks and buys influence. In addition to tens of billions of US dollars invested in India by Walmart and Amazon, Facebook invested US$5.5 billion last year in Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Platforms (e-commerce retail). Google has also invested US$4.5 billion.
Since the early 1990s, when India opened up to neoliberal economics, the country has become increasingly dependent on inflows of foreign capital. Policies are being governed by the drive to attract and retain foreign investment and maintain ‘market confidence’ by ceding to the demands of international capital which ride roughshod over democratic principles and the needs of hundreds of millions of ordinary people. ‘Foreign direct investment’ has thus become the holy grail of the Modi-led administration and the NITI Aayog.
The CAIT has urged the Consumer Affairs Ministry to implement the draft consumer protection e-commerce rules at the earliest as they are in the best interest of the consumers as well as the traders of the country.
Meanwhile, the CCI probably will complete its investigation within two months.
Colin Todhunter specialises in development, food and agriculture and is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization in Montreal.
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Did I miss the bit where Government on favouring various businesses like Amazon to be unaffected by the lockdown, for these companies to find themselves subject to a windfall tax to pay back the Government for monies expended in giving a hand out to all those people/businesses not so lucky?
I’m sure it’s just around the corner.
War Profiteering……….human nature at its most EXCEPTIONAL
Conservatives in Alberta declare that Covid is over and drop all restrictions: the WSWS complains, moaning in good socialist fashion, that they are killing people … https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/08/03/alpa-a03.html
A win for common sense conservatives.
Don’t worry, arsepnaz, Nurse Ratched will be along soon with your sleeping pills and then you can escape from all this for a while… provided, that is, you don’t have one of your regular nightmares about being bent over by a pack of randy socialists… but then, perhaps they’re actually sweet dreams?
Yes, very droll. You obviously fancy yourself as quite the comedian. The fact that you bore us with your adolescent comedy means you obviously have not grown up. But thanks for responding to my comment, it reassures me that I have pissed off one failed socialist today – always good to set oneself goals.
Pissed off? 🤣😂🤣😂🤣 You’re the best entertainment on this website.
Don’t forget to check under your cot before you go to beddy-byes tonight and make sure to cuddle that teddy bear real hard so the big bad “socialists” don’t getcha.
He can’t do that. Hairy emasculating women (mom) took away his woobie and now someone must pay.
And the rear-guard appears: that’s it, safety in numbers eh?
Hey, here’s a tip: don’t travel to your “Nirvana” in China, the socialist overloards are cracking down on the likes of you … https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ccp-cracks-down-incorrect-politics-effeminate-men-show-business.
Another tip, the overlords of Nirvana will not allow non-Chinese people to appear on any public broadcasting or film media – you have to be from mainland China, HK and Taiwan are not permitted to appear. Yes, the socialists are turning into National Socialists, you know, like the party Hitler created!
Don’t like it much in China? Diddums.
You remind me of another cretinous conservative, the late and unlamented anti-porn crusader Mary Whitehouse, who was so obsessed with porn that she spent all her time thinking about it. Just replace “porn” with “socialists” and that’s you. No wonder you dream about bending over for them.
I buy my stuff hateable Amazon but will think about how products can be delivered straight from vendor without their parasitism from now on.
Search on Amazon, purchase on eBay.
You think Ebay is better? Really? Their algorithms continually pitch their commission charges at a point where the seller just about can carry on, but never make any money. But how else do you reach people now if you don’t use one of the big platforms?
Jeff bezos is not a genius, he’s an unchallenged American parasite.
Why should billions of our tax dollars go towards companies and sporting events that do not allow the unvaccinated entry? The unvaccinated therefore should pay much less tax if they are not allowed entry. You don’t pay car registration if you don’t drive on the roads.
Certainly it’s nice to have a whipping boy or two or three. But even if these few are whipped into the ground, the beast will still carry on as if nothing happened.
The beast is the corporate structure as practiced. Corporations are spin offs of the military/intelligence configuration, which then become so powerful they incorporate the government as a subsidiary.
But then, who’s behind the military/intelligence thing? The bankers perhaps? Then who’s behind them? The underworld perhaps?
The corporate world is a box inside a box inside a box inside a box. Is it really productive to keep opening boxes all day and all night looking for some ultimate box maker?
Isn’t it enough simply to say the corporate structure is the ultimate expression of evil? Instead of trying to pick out which corporations are good, which are bad.
People can’t be heroes and shuck responsibility like the husk from a cob.
In practice the system is far too complex for Bezos, Gates, Musk, Thiel, Zuckerborg etc to have much personal influence. They role play and it is important to shout that from the rooftops: they are not caped libertarian crusaders.
‘It’s their money and they can do as they like’ is sophomoric Reddit nonsense. It is not their money as a cursory investigation suggests (it’s our money and, even more, our data but that’s another discussion).
1/ The most influential are allowed to accumulate billions. It is a small price for the veneer of authority and makes them more useful.
2/ Very few get to influence the direction — maybe a politician like Xi or Putin in an autocratic system but largely…
3/ it is those who control the force or the money who call the shots.
How do you know? — asks a voice stage left.
You and I will not see this nexus of power — only its footprints in the sand. It is not reported in the press and the networks of communication are not the same that we use. We won’t stumble across some admission on Telegram or Twitter.
On the other hand, the powerful have divined the runes for millennia. It’s our duty, too — unless we are to follow blindly.
“… the Pentagon and The Investors, the world’s most resilient, interconnected and sustained family fortunes, centered upon banking and oil.”
Examining the machine: https://moneycircus.substack.com/p/amazons-future-past
I agree with the both of you..
Bezos is a socialist, as evidenced by his Washington Post: socialist billionaires are the problem.
🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣
Typical left wing response, having trouble living with your guilt as a socialist.
If I were the sort of person you mistakenly label “socialist” I wouldn’t feel any guilt at all because sociopaths don’t, but as I’m a lefty but not a socialist you can stick your theories where the sun don’t shine.
“socialist” is your version of “conspiracy theorist”, is it not? Just trot it out and argument over, right?
Just wondering, is Gates a “socialist”? How about Zuckerberg? Musk? Dorsey? Soros? Murdoch?
Such a shame, your going off like a two-bob watch about the “socialists” under your bed, because occasionally you come out with good stuff like the following, with which I fully agree:
But, as you are wont to do, you then go on and ruin it. Tsk, tsk…
Wow, you are even adopting the CIA playbook “conspiracy theorist”! Now I know you are a mindless moron who has no idea of what he is saying.
How you’ve managed to interpret what I said as calling you a “conspiracy theorist” is beyond me. Learn to fucking read.
Cliff of the socialist defense league: I obviously touched a raw nerve.
Tell me, asp, do you explode with “Fuckin’ socialist bastards!” even before you look at the news?
The news provided by the Guardian? You socialists are so stuck in your culture: you know something is wrong but it can’t be us!
Oh asp you’re like a distant echo from millennia ago. Oh those happy days when we could blast off at the Big Bogy Bolshy Bastards!
Let me jump in here please to point out that the problem is far bigger than socialism and socialists; or capitalism and capitalists.
The problem is so very very big that it takes…three little letters to express it: ism and its corollary ist.
EVERY ism and ist is wrong headed simply because it defines reality so narrowly and offers a solution so pin-headed that all sense flies out the window.
Getting a little unhinged aren’t we, arsepnaz?
Of course, most of my comments on here are deleted before they are published … such is the life of an echo chamber.
Not true, I withdrawn that statement.
When Admin2 had a go at someone for questioning the holocaust as also being government/scientist/historian lies, it dawned on me that OG is actually full of socialists who don’t like the way socialism is going. It was all very well fighting for the poor, the oppressed, the homeless etc but when it came to our society insisting that we be locked down, masked up, vaccinated etc, this was a step too far.
The most telling thing about OG is what you cannot question. Obviously the holocaust – I am not a believer, all governments make shit up to justify their sins – but also China – this is big for me because I live in mainland and Hong Kong.
Read this… https://hongkongfp.com/2021/08/31/china-limits-childrens-online-gaming-to-three-hours-a-week-in-bid-to-curb-addiction/ … yes, the Chinese government are playing at being parents … to me this is totally sick, but this is modern socialism.
Sorry, my third comment was censored in good ol’ Twitter style.
Apologies, my third commen was NOT deleted, it was just not loaded when I refreshed the page. But is here now.
Don’t worry, arsepnaz, Nurse Ratched will be along soon with your sleeping pills and then you can escape from all this for a while… provided, that is, you don’t have one of your regular nightmares about being raped by a pack of randy socialists… but then, perhaps they’re actually sweet dreams?
Playing to the gallery by posting the same reply to me twice. You are obviously very proud of this composition, do you think this adolescent humour makes you appear to be a clever boy?
I haven’t for awhile and am happy to work for people who won’t either unless necessary, but I do wish local business was more responsive.
For instance, I live on the west side of the US. I got back into drinking beer when this shit went down, because I’m unsure about mixing sobriety and the apocalypse.
I just wanted a can crusher, y’know, one of those thingys that compresses a can into a quarter or third of it’s size, thus prolonging the time between recycling runs.
I couldn’t find one anywhere. Local hardware stores known for carrying every damn thing didn’t have one and even suggested I try Amazon. I held out. The damn cans piled up.
I took my last (ever?) plane trip last spring to the Carolinas to visit an old friend.
As you can probably guess, I found my can crusher in an old-timey hardware store tucked into a tiny town. I almost cried and the storekeeper looked at me with “Why bless her heart” written amusedly in her eyes.
I had to import a can crusher across the country to avoid getting one through Amazon. This shit is crazy.
” unsure about mixing sobriety and the apocalypse. ” gold, i’m stealing this, thanks for the laugh Juno, they are becoming fewer and farer betweener 🙂
Well, I’m still using it – sorry. There are a lot of businesses now that advertise through Amazon.
I recently bought a book from Blackwells in Oxford, advertised on Amazon.
I honestly don’t care about how much money Jeff Bezos has. Envy won’t make me rich.
CONSUME FREAK
FEED THE BEAST
PUT YOUR MASK ON PRETTY
THATS IT
COMPLY
CHEAP SOUL BOUGHT AND SOLD
EARTH GAPE
STRAIGHT TO HELL
Getting your employees to wear nappies will make you rich, John.
Amazon Crime. Anyone noticed that the ‘arrow’ under Amazon’s ‘Prime Video’ connects the ‘i’ to the ‘d’. Just an observation.
That’s not AMAZON fault!
Every AMAZON user/client/worker/share older/owner simply doesn’t care about any of that.
Ah, diadems – poor Amazon. You bet they don’t care!
Amazons top owners are the usual suspects Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street and so on.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AMZN/holders?p=AMZN
globo nazi commie and zio satan sicko
cannot run without china
partner and more
china is your dream factory
builders of your plastic world
consume be happy
buy more
just buy
treasure for you now
a planned obsolescence days months if you are lucky
alexa this and amazon that
can i pay with my iphone
i need this stuff now can you deliver you have all my details on the data base.
winston
Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage,or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves.
The whole charade knocks me sick. So transparent, so much at stake and yet so many people fall for it. Selling their souls for a plastic convenience that nobody ever needed.
Cheery soul aren’t you Gordan?
IM SO PRETTY OHH SO PRETTY
SO PRETTY SO PRETTY AND WISE
you ugly fugly
Thanks…great article. If anyone is interested in the whole shenanigan of big tech abuse of Antitrust laws, Harper’s did a wonderful series last year on this. https://harpers.org/archive/2020/09/the-big-tech-extortion-racket/
The Big Tech Racket, a series of critics, with the first segment available for free (at least it was last year).
Amazon’s Future Past — Billionaire Disruptors are Nothing New
The universal shop for high-density living under Agenda 21, no car needed, quarantine friendly, your every purchase traced and recorded for posterity. It fits perfectly into the globalist dream, ticking every box: digital store credits replacing cash, with total surveillance by Amazon cloud ™.
There is more than meets the eye to Jeff Bezos. Despite the company’s backstory its origins are tied to the deep state, the Pentagon and The Investors, the world’s most resilient, interconnected and sustained family fortunes, centered upon banking and oil. It should not surprise that Amazon is the company at the heart of The Great Reset.
Society stripped
What we are witnessing is the stripping away of the weft and warp that makes up the cloth of human existence.
Economics derives from the Greek words for homestead and distribution; which in turn is simple argot for the entire scope of existence, from the shepherd on the hillside to the maker of musical instruments to the writer of songs who performs in the taverna as the sun sets on another day.
It beats with the rhythm of life from the calving to the shearing to the butchering. It is why the dairymaid and the baker rise before dawn and why the fire watcher stays up all night to tend the smudge pots and keep the frost from the vines.
It determines the steepness of the lanes that reach the cottage, the terracing of the valley walls and the building of jettys and the shape of the boats that ply the river.
The reduction of economics to mathematics and computer modeling is denuding life of its richness and meaning. The result is that everything is bent to one outcome. The corporations finance think tanks to shape government policy and pay scientists for research that supports it.
It is hard to say which came first — the financialization of the economy or the formulaic ideology that provides its self-serving logic.
Together they have unleashed a vortex upon society and the jettison of all teaching and knowledge that cannot be reduced to a cipher, a bit or a digit.
Mighty digit
In its place we have winner takes all. And the academy and humanities have been co-opted to rationalize this zero sum game.
The universities went corporatist — what else do you call the consideration only of power, which resides in the hands of states and corporations. Academics may blame white males or dress power in racial garb or change its gender. That can only ever be a euphemism or ‘straw person’ for the genuine seat of power — which accumulates in the merger of state and corporation
Meet Jeff
There is another bit of information you should consider in the creation of this digital behemoth. You see, Jeff Bezos is not his real name and there may be a reason to obscure his history.
He is from a DARPA family, was introduced to Google before most people had heard of it and his company Amazon was only viable because of military-intelligence contracts along with special concessions from the government.
Amazon Web Services controls about one third of the global cloud market, twice as much as its closest competitor. Those, not surprisingly, are Microsoft, IBM, Google and Alibaba.
So DARPA, or closely-related companies, runs the cloud. That gives it an overview into smart cities. Due to its dominance in cloud, Amazon is one of the biggest vendors to transportation, energy, manufacturing and healthcare. And in each case, there is data to harvest and crunch.
Amazon Exxon Chevron
Rockefeller did not get rich by drilling oil. It was his rivals he drilled — into the ground. Oil is not rare, or certainly wasn’t then. He had to make it so.
Nor is e-commerce unique in any way. An intriguing parallel with Amazon.
In the same way as Rockefeller, the dominant online retailer Amazon plays one delivery company against another, demanding discounts of up to 70 per cent. To offset their losses on Amazon, FedEx and UPS punish smaller retailers and hike their rates. Having got what it wanted, Amazon is now poised to abandon FedEx and UPS and is buying its own fleet of aircraft.
Exxon and Chevron are in talks to re-combine. It is no coincidence that the time is ripe to restore Standard Oil as the oligarchs make their greatest-ever bid for power.
By switching to renewables and energy rationing, the owners of oil and gas get to preserve their riches. Scarce minerals don’t lose value. They lock the gold in the ground.
Oligarchical collectivism is happy with fascism, communism or any other kind of state corporatism. History is stacked high like books ready for burning:
Ignore the cardboard — Amazon shipped 2 billion packages in 2019 in the U.S. alone. That mountain of packaging must be an inside joke on the forest. Maybe it’s the same humour as the founders of the World Wildlife Fund who used to shoot tigers.
In full at: https://moneycircus.substack.com/p/amazons-future-past
Important comment.
Scare tactics what happened to the ozone layer???Now climate change yes because it’s a part of nature nothing to do with us.Too many people on the planet you could fit everyone in Brazil and still have room it’s all a lie it’s all to scare you the sooner you realise the sooner we will get back to normal.
You don’t have to go to Brazil. You could stack the world’s population into Texas. But they would all die, of course, for lack of resources. And that’s the point: it isn’t about the number, it’s about what’s required to sustain the number.
I’m not sure what you mean about the ozone layer. Here’s a link to show that we are losing that protective barrier because of the never ending climate engineering.
UVC: The Sterilization Of Planet Earth, Part One » UVC: The Sterilization Of Planet Earth, Part One | Geoengineering Watch
climate engineering? i thought that was to save us fromt he damage done with above ground nuclear detonation – that is what filled the holes. the aluminum is to reflect the sun since our holes are filled ;} – imnsho
We do feel fucked
I think that ozone depletion is a real thing but it’s neither us nor industrial activities causing it – let alone cows farting. Earth’s magnetic field has been weakening for some time and the magnetic poles are wandering.
The PTB know this. They are trying to hide it, but, at the same time, they are not about to let a good crisis go to waste. After they’ve corralled us all into sustainable shoe-boxes and extracted every last drop of life, they won’t care. It’ll be, ‘job done’, as far as they are concerned. After all, they will be safely (they think) in their bunkers.
Pollution and climate change, on the other hand, is definitely down to them and them alone.
Australian truckers are only going to cause more misery to Australians.If your going to do something don’t tell the whole world actions speak louder than words just do it without telling your neighbour and cousins think something was fishy about this,I’m not hundred percent but smells of shite from government shills.
Yes….two truckers doesn’t make a manful protest.Lame.
Meaniwhile the socialist police celebrate gay day with a party … https://www.rebelnews.com/nsw_police_throw_themselves_lgbtq_party_during_covid_lockdown
FDA have approved a vaccine when it’s still in clinical trials??Even a brain dead zombie would stop and think.
They are not brain dead zombies. They are clever criminals with perverted intelligence, destined for the Last Circle of Inferno.
A BUS LOAD OF BILLIONAIRES
Another insidious consequence of “COVID/911” is that monopolistic multinational corporations and public/private partnerships heightened their power.
These public/private partnerships prevalent on social platforms such as Twitter, Google, Facebook, etc….is also common at DARPA where research results is regularly shared with big pharma. In other words, big pharma is reaping the economic benefits of tax dollar research.
Liberal democracies have been transformed into fascist states.
China, the country railed against by mainstream media news for its authoritarianism and intrusive surveillance is being “REPLICATED” by Western governments.
The plan is to consolidate all businesses, banks, resources such as food, water, real estate as well as every communication platform into the control of a small cabal of “transnationalist sociopaths” whose sole intention is to ensure worldwide dominance over billions via AI surveillance and economic appropriation.
Below is some data showing how a “virus” became an economic boom for a busload of billionaires……..
“U.S billionaires have seen their wealth surge $1.8 trillion during the pandemic, their collective fortune skyrocketing by nearly two-thirds (62 percent) from just short of $3 trillion at the start of the COVID crisis on March 18, 2020, to $4.8 trillion on August 17, 2021, according to a report from Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies Program on Inequality (IPS).
Elon Musk has seen his wealth increase by an eye-popping $150 billion during the pandemic, a gain of over 600 percent.”
Yup! It’s all so flagrant.
What, exactly, has Elon Musk done? Other than a couple of rocket landings, sorry, crashes, sorry CGI cartoons, which would embarrass the original production crew of ‘Thunderbirds’.
Musk was good for those who invested in his stock…..
In a way, Walmart and Amazon are like a tag team. Never mind that they’re competitors. Walmart comes in, drives all the local retailers out of business; then seems to have fewer and fewer odds and ends in their stores – so you end up having to order stuff online.
And that’s where Amazon takes over. It has much more “stuff” than Walmart online; so you end up stuck in Amazon’s clutches.
The obvious solution is to streamline your life so you don’t need too much “stuff.” Easier said than done.
Or pay the extra pennies on each item to keep your local store in business; I do; saves running a car for those trips to the supermarket.
“The obvious solution is to streamline your life so you don’t need too much “stuff.” Easier said than done.”
It is not an easy choice, but once you understand the WEF slogan “You will own nothing and be happy” for the extortion it really is, the choice is easier. What they really mean is “Obey or you will be extremely uncomfortable”. You all know how bullying works, if you give in it will never end.
Gotta say, the ‘covid pass’ is quite brilliant in all its evil: By staying away from restaurants etc. for good, we the thinking & feeling citizenry will actually hasten the demise of retail, hospitality, tourism and many other sectors. Which will make Amazon well and truly the king of the hill.
Compared with the shrill and totally transparent “get your jab now!” propaganda, this IS rather clever.
“Rather surprising that any retailer would want to turn away business would one not say? The war racketeer corporate fascist eugenicist oligarch mobster psychos behind it are not unlike present day Al Capones, Lucky Luciano’s and Meyer Lansky’s (but on steroids) using their corrupt criminal political toady/flunky musclemen to put the squeeze on local businesses. Sort of a modern day protection racket, except involving the requirement that certain populations be discriminated against and denied service instead of direct extortion payments. Seems like the old time Jim Crow era segregationists have returned in force. The Klan in the suites one can call them.”
“Now let all that remain bow down and pray to BROTHER MENGELE”
“Now go forth to Cull, Cull, Cull, Cuomo-ize (Euthanize) the world and spread the Gospel/Word of Eugenics and Corporate Fascism forever.”
Speaking of first days at school: I’ve perversely taken to capturing screen images of Megadeath Virus of Doom Scamdemic daily propaganda, which I dubbed “Little Big Lies”. Mostly these are taken from the aptly-named “Yahoo” site, which posts articles from a variety of publications. FWIW, I notice that a rag named “Business Insider” is a prolific source for many sensational COVIDganda genres, e.g. the “temperance-revival” stories of “COVID skeptics” repenting on deathbeds.
This morning, though, my first catch of the day was from the Inquirer.com’s website: this charming photo is part of the local news coverage of Philly’s “first day back to in-person school in 18 months” story. Outrageously, but not surprisingly, the local media imparts a “feel-good” spin to this; if not exactly characterized as a “return to normal”, it definitely seeks to convey the impression that it’s a return to a normal– perhaps a New! Improved! Health & Safety-Aware Normal.
This is so sickening. The masks have been bad enough but now to have them above the kids noses. What the hell are people thinking.
“So it’s official then, the corporate fascist eugenicist mobster psychos have re-instituted child abuse in the public schools? What next, bringing back the lash.”
https://wifflegif.com/gifs/536504-the-blues-brothers-nuns-gif
So hands up anyone that has never bought anything from Amazon or will boycott it.
Not me although I prefer Ebay these days or even better for bargains Facebook marketplace. Funny enough Facebook marketplace is part of the black economy where cash is king. It is called free enterprise or the free market economy. When a local small shop opens do they want to loose money. The answer is no and that means getting customers to come in and buy stuff. If they can get and edge on the competition all the better. Be it an exclusive line or cheaper price. If they do well over time they can open more stores and get bigger and bigger. So we have Amazon.
Yes it is unfair that a third of my wages disappeared in Tax while Amazon avoid tax.
As they say life is not fair and then you die. You have to laugh and enjoy the ride.
Sorry, mate but I can’t agree.
They are laughing and we are being taken for a ride. The whole online shopping con is incentive to stay at home. And look how that’s turned out these past eighteen months.
Some years ago, I made a pledge never again to buy from Amazon and I have remained true to that pledge.
Bezos is a disgusting piece of human filth who absolutely should be fired into space to float free with the rest of the trash.
“Some years ago, I made a pledge never again to buy from Amazon and I have remained true to that pledge.”
Good on you, John. Same here. Antitrust laws are dead and gone so we need to take it on ourselves to find ways to live with a modest dose of integrity and not have that stolen from us too.
Yes.
If everyone in a position to do that would do that, then Amazon and the other commercial predators would wither and die on the twisted vine that is the internet.
Additionally, I need to be comfortable in the company of that bloke in the mirror.
‘Bezos is a disgusting piece of human filth who absolutely should be fired into space to float free with the rest of the trash.’
…..
Or at least fired very high into the sky and left to free-fall into the middle of an ocean somewhere without a parachute.
Yes.
Finally, a purpose for live TV…
Better yet, launched high enough to remain in a permanent orbit with the tons of other space trash.
After all, why risk harming some innocent sea creature happily frolicking on the ocean blue? 😉
“Some years ago, I made a pledge never again to buy from Amazon and I have remained true to that pledge.”
Just stopped, without dignifying it with a pledge.
YES!
Well sure Brian but “the ride” seems to be getting shorter all the time.
Not to mention far less enjoyable….
Not sure why so many “downvotes”; so I gave you an “upvote.” You point to one of the truisms of human existence: Never Say Never.
I’ve already picked up on the fact that a lot of the commenters here have “money to burn.” I don’t. If I need something (like a new computer) and by getting it from an Amazon or a Walmart, I can still buy groceries – call me a stooge for an evil corporation, but I don’t have a choice.
Besides, he who can name one corporation that’s not evil – please raise your hand and do so.
There’s a general problem here: private versus public good. What’s good for General Motors is not always good for the country. The Chinese government recently cut a couple of big corporate bosses down to size. There used to be Anti-trust Laws but, as Paul-too remarks, they have gone ever since Snatcher and Raygun introduced the Gospel of Greed. Little guys are now left on their own to face Behemoth, except in Communist China where the government is still on our side.
PS I am writing this on a 10 year old PC inherited from my son.
You can buy a second hand computer, usually much better spec than a new one for the same price, and not from Amazon or Walmart. Buying second hand is a very good way to go for most things, the money often goes to an actual person, not a corporation and rather than send something perfectly good to landfill, or have billions of tons of Earth displaced so that you can have a new thing, you’re re-using something that already exists. The laptop that I’m typing this on is second hand, it was a beast of a machine 8 years ago when it came out and it is still more than adequate for my needs (online research and music production, mainly). It cost me about £280 and it’ll be good for years to come, hopefully.
I work two jobs, one full time (hod carrying, hence the name), one part time (sound engineering) in order to earn a living that’s below the average wage in this country. I don’t have a lot of money, but the Amazons of this world can get to fuck. I’d rather go without than give a penny to them.
yup, they play the long game while we scrounge for food – i am always hungry…
There is a rather big difference between life not being fair ( which anybody not born with a silver spoon in their mouth, or any individual not willing to sell out, or gain employment by spying or bullying their fellow man knows only too well ) and being imprisoned, constantly threatened with violence of one sort or another, and denied basic human rights because the criminal cabal have decided to turn influenza into WWIII, and carpet bomb the entire planet with phials of poison for the useless eaters. I was going to be rude but I will bite my tongue.
The article was not about the scamdemic the endless wars or the many injustice’s in the world. It was about mega corporations. I was first made aware of what mega corporations get up to back in 1961. The Mad Magazine took its dig at Coca cola. A mega corporation with a very dark history. But the article was how small shops can get undercut by the big boys. Today I shopped at the local spar but it is part of a much larger group same as local Filco or Lidl. I do not like giant superstores it takes to long to find stuff. I shop at small Tesco . I know they should pay more for milk and local produce. But I can not control it. I was pointing out the basic inconsistency in free market economy.
we can all start by dumping prime – i just did!
For the conservatives on OG … https://whistleblowerphilosopher.blogspot.com/2020/?m=1
It makes some good points, but it overlooks the anaesthetizing effect of constant media bombardment – upon even rabid conservatives.
Are you implying that “rabid conservatives” are normally immune to “the anaesthetizing effect of constant media bombardment”?
The whole Covid scam, the “for the good of society” theme, the lockdowns, the masks, the decimated small businesses, the promoted “essential” big businesses, the leaders that live by different rules, the enforced vaccinations, the compulsory vaccine passports …. in a few short years there will be no individual freedom if you want to participate in society, you will have to obey the socialist leaders or be expelled either through death or through concentration camps (as in Australia) as used by that other famous National Socialist, Hitler. The Neo-Nazis are here and they are doing it “for your own good”.
The conservatives have been beaten into submission, the war is actually already won, it is just a matter of time before all the rules and regulations are tightened until we are no longer free. Of course, the long term socialists on this site, the ones denying their role in this whole disaster, will say it is all the fault of capitalist corporations, the ones led by socialists like Bezos who feed them their daily morsels of hate via the Washington Post.
The only way to stop this – if that is even possible – is for the socialists in society to rise up and declare that enough is enough, but I am not holding my breath. I am planning to run away and eventually die in peace in a place of little interest to these barbarians. My only potential victory will be if those who have taken the vaccine, and the future vaccines, die first.
“socialists like Bezos”
Ever considered a career in comedy?
Maybe Bezos is paying you to be the site spaz? You do it well.
At least I’m getting paid. You’re doing it for free.
Neo-Nazi = Socialist
Did you forget to take your meds today?
The Aussie socialists are building concentration camps.
Even the states with right-wing regimes. Strange eh, arsepnaz?
As I suspected, not one conservative to press the like, of course, plenty of socialists pressing the dislike. Doesn’t that poll make you question your thinking?
Oh dear we are getting our fingers rapped:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58387017
Note the interesting question below:
The article it leads to is singularly unenlightening. She leapt to prominence at a school strike, challenged world leaders at the United Nations, and then gave Trump and Putin a damned good thrashing. But at 18 I reckon her shelf life is fast expiring. So somebody better secure the film rights quick!
Hmm, yes. Trump and Putin look remarkably thrashed, George, by this manipulated Children’s Crusade naif. Humbled and grovelling, aren’t they?
There have been previous ‘Infant Phenomenon’ kids being propelled by cynical forces which they don’t understand into their quarter-hours of ‘fame’; only to disappear subsequently into normal lives, where they’re quickly forgotten. Poor deluded and abused Greta is almost there, right now.
Not really normal, she’s far right in “the spectrum”
Some of us hoped that as she got older, she’d also get wiser. Nope. She’s still a tool, but now she’s a willing tool. That makes her evil. Cory Morningstar is still far and away the best source of info on the creation of Greta the climate warrior. As for Cory, I hope that she hasn’t become a covid crazy.
Not really evil, she’s lobotomized by the vaccines.. severe autism… remember vaxxed?
Can you just imagine how totally shit such a biopic would be- so bad it is good perhaps? As close to the entirety of the world population drops dead from the flu shot, watch her transgress multiple times until she finally achieves singularity by disappearing up her very own arse.
Bearing in mind that biopics don’t have to – and indeed hardly ever – conform to the truth, it could be a terrific film. Scarlett Johansson as Greta (age credibilty is irrelevant), Benedict Cumberbatch doing his Smaug voice as The Evil Trump, Gollum as Putin. We could call it The Wokey Cokey.
Isn’t she a Tesla prototype?
In kind of the same way as Musk.
She comes from a long line of industrialists and merchants on her (actress and singer) mother’s side and on her father’s side, they are all actors. IMDb even lists her younger sister as an actress…although when you follow the link, I suspect it’s her aunt. Poor Greta. She only got to dress up once for her fake 100 year old Yukon gold-rush photo-call.
Grandpa Thunberg was quite successful and very prolific. It might also be worth noting that he did the Swedish voiceovers for Shere Khan, in the Jungle Book and for characters in Monsters Inc. and the Lady and the Tramp.
Interesting info and photos on the background and hypocrisy here.
https://www.leftyliars.com/swedish-greenies-use-children-to-lecture-america/
Thank you for posting that very informative family history article.
I learnt much about mankind’s last hope…
Microsoft prototype
Everything is going ready for the GREAT RESET
https://irishtechnews.ie/covid-19-who-is-shaping-the-great-reset/amp/
So many countries sold out their manufacturing bases to Chinese production, sending many businesses down the tube and now we are reaping the results – flooding countries such as Ghana with container loads of clothing waste. Do politicians care? NO. Listen to Paul Keating now and he will defend his decision to the hilt. Plain and simple hubris.
It wasn’t the, ‘countries’, that sold out. It was the owners of the countries/companies.
The biggest thing that people have to learn is that, when these people talk about, ‘country’, they mean the land – everything upon it, under it and flying above it.
We are just another animal resource…like ducks…or deer…or anything else that needs to be ‘managed’.
They don’t need us to work their pits or man their factories anymore. We are surplus to requirement, as far as they are concerned.
Does this only happen in India? NO, and for good reason. These businesses have saved many “consumers” during lock downs. They also reduce traffic / pollution even before that.
More competition needed: for India: Reliance and maybe allow Chinese Albaba? Plus …..
Monopoly/Oligopoly and competition do not mix. Even Adam Smith knew this. It works like this. Small companies – which roughly represent half of the economy – are being systematically wiped out because we have a banking system that is only interested in property and not small loans to small firms, including start-ups. Being starved of credit small companies go bust. This of course has been the result of lockdowns. The banking market concentration and financialization have grown beyond control of the authorities which which were supposed to be overseeing them.
The reality is that global high finance and banking is de facto a set of interlocking cartels that divide the market among themselves and use their advantages to keep out competitors. Banking cartels can extract huge premiums over what would be normal profits in a functioning market, and part of those profits go to keeping the cartel intact: huge PR efforts, a permanent recruiting circus drawing in top academic talent; clever sponsoring of, say, an ambitious politician’s cycling scheme; vast lobbying efforts behind the scenes; and highly lucrative second careers for ex-politicians. There is also plenty of money to offer talented regulators three or four times their salary.
So the circus goes on. The small insolvent companies are bought up for pennies in the £, or cents in the $ which leads to more market concentration and more monopoly-Oligopoly and the inevitable supression of competition.
And it goes beyond that. People who have no debts will, still, be killed by inflation and an inability to pay taxes. So, whatever they own will be seized by the state/bankers/aristocracies/crime families – insert whatever you like. They are all the same.
How is Amazon remotely “Green” and it’s never called out with the corporate climate catastrophists
It has a PR department and it pays them a lot of money to deceive convincingly enough for the majority.
From the (pack) horse’s mouth:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-29/amazon-flex-delivery-drivers-voice-safety-concerns/100404498
Yes, I know it’s the ABC (Australian Brainwashing Corporation) but it’s still a view from the trenches
And on Foreign Correspondent last week we saw the same situation in South Korea, with a company the equivalent of Amazon. A young man died of heart failure from exhaustion.
increasing evidence of who is really behind all the turmoil in the world yes including C
another benefit for a very small group of very wealthy folks are the “Clear skies” no more waiting in line on tarmacs or extensive holding patterns due to congestion
Convenient, that Charles.
Apparently private jets are wizzing around our besieged planet in greater numbers than ever before.
Turd munchers.
Given that 1% of the population is psychopathic, and that Michael Moore has shown us that corporations behave as psychopaths/sociopaths in the world, it’s highly likely that the CEO’s, and other’s high up in the corporate hierarchy of the wealthiest and most aggressive corporations, are also psychopaths. After all, for a company to act as a psychopath in the world the behaviour, it seems to me, has to be controlled by somebody closely aligned to that psychopathic way of behaviour.
Maybe we just have to lock up these people in an institution for the criminally insane.
At the very least these people seem to be driven by an insatiable greed that has profoundly affected their psychological balance and worldview, such that they are totally out of whack. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Granted, psychopaths are far more prevalent amongst the hubristic class Peter, but sometimes I think it’s just a case of AMBITION ON STEROIDS. Stupid pricks.
When employees have to wear diapers during the day because they cannot go for a comfort stop, that is serious lack of empathy – a hallmark of psychopathy. And then Bezos has the hide to thank his employees for financing his trip into space.
I expect that the vast majority of his employees, especially the lower-level “line” staff, are not so much gratified by his appreciative “shout-out” as distressed that his space venture was not a one-way voyage to some vacant region of intergalactic deep space.
There has been a long-term recruitment drive by corporations, especially to recruit psychopath CEOs, but also for other roles. We’re now in the situation where estimates are thrown around citing anything up to 30% of global corporate CEOs being psychopaths. It’s certainly reflected in their companies’ monopolistic, gaslighting cultures that refuses to accept anything that gets in the way of them getting exactly what they want when they want it.
It’s a huge problem and a big part of how Conjob-1984 was able to happen, specifically because most people are completely unaware of it. I saw the computer software industry change dramatically in the period 2000-2020, shifting from an industry that rewarded and appreciated skills and ability to one that was more interested in obedience and arse-licking up the chain of command to make sure all were ‘on side’ as they increasingly lied to clients and the majority of staff. And it’s what I hear from everyone I’ve ever known working in the industry.
Back in the 80s and 90s it was common for companies to give all interviewees a psychometric test – to measure their levels of empathy/psychopathy. Software development staff were selected for their empathy, seen as better employees as they would work well with others, and form strong teams – essential for complex software development. I’m convinced they have been using the same to identify and recruit psychopaths into the higher roles. This old article from 2011 is one of many claims that this is commonplace, especially in banking (which now controls our politics).
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/brian-basham-beware-corporate-psychopaths-they-are-still-occupying-positions-power-6282502.html
This is a Washington post article seriously questioning a study that stated 21% of CEOs are psychos:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/2016/09/16/gene-marks-21-percent-of-ceos-are-psychopaths-only-21-percent/
IMO it is one of the biggest problems of our age.
Tescos, Sainsburys etc etc have been squeezing suppliers for decades and we have all known that it is happening, but we vote with our cash and we accept that it benefits us as well as the companies.
This piece is typical left wing drivel, “crying” about bad things happening over there – its always miles away – and how evil the corporations are, while sipping a coffee purchased from an identical corporate “bad guy”, but the local bad guy is okay, because left wing people are hypocrites.
Just the “do nothing” and “somebody else must fix this” generation complaining.
Speak for yourself, arsehole. Some of us lefties are more than happy to pay extra in order to support local small businesses.
Typical leftie retard!
And even more conservatives do, so what is your point? Is this your justification for attacking Amazon while leaving your local supermarkets alone? Pathetic fucking NIMBY behaviour.
“And even more conservatives do… ”
Kindly provide a source, typical fascist fucktard.
Oh, and by the way, I didn’t write the article.
Do try harder, there’s a good boy.
🤣😂🤣😂🤣
and you just did the lefty – whats your source? why should your opinion matter? – what did you start out with A** hola? oh yeah, i witness against you sir!
By all means “witness” against me because, as opposed to mine, your opinion really really matters, conservative c**t.
Conservatives are not trying to destroy your country, people like you are trying to destroy your country. The shame is that people like you cannot reason: as soon as someone contradicts your view you burst out in emotion like a young girl, screaming for her dolls to behave the way she wants them to behave. You then throw the disobedient dolls out, expelling them from your world of fantasy.
In resorting to your toddler-self to have an argument, you enable the Bezos, Gates and other billionaires to lead you by the nose into the current socialist quagmire. Your reasoning is similar to that of a chimp that throws shit at chimps they don’t like. I actually feel sorry for you: you have my pity.
Condescending, cowardly socialist. You love the NHS, social security and all the other socialist stuff except for the vaccine. Why do you hate the vaccine, is it because some companies may be making some money out of them.
But I have some sympathy, you must be torn because the vaccine passport will teach your anti-vax neighbours to disobey what is good for society. It will be good to teach them a lesson, won’t it.
Then on top of all that you have to resort to your toddler-self to have an argument. Oh dear. if you are anything like your fellow citizens, your country is in the shitter.
I’m not “torn” at all, you cretinous conservative fuckwit. There is no “pandemic” hence there’s no point to the covid “vaccines” regardless of whether or not they’re dangerous.
Every time you claim that the likes of Bezos are “socialists”, as you have in other comments, you reveal just how fucked your understanding of socialism is. Please don’t stop though – it’s always good for a laugh.
But those organisations you support, the centralised government health department, centralised drug screening, centralised epidemic management etc, all those good socialist departments say there is a pandemic, so why are you rejecting the advice of your socialist overlords? What is wrong with you good socialist?
Are you a NIMBY, happy to have socialism as long as it doesn’t inconvenience you? Or, are you a virtue signaller that was willing to be a socialist while it was “cool” but now don’t have the balls to go through with the real thing.
Yes, of course you are a NIMBY virtue signaller. All socialists love socialism until it inconveniences them.
Why not support the socialist agenda: the lockdowns, the masking? It is for the good of society and is determined by your socialist leaders, socialism does not believe in individualism, your individualism is rebelling against your socialist leaders, otherwise known as government employees.
So, why not go along with your adopted beliefs?
This is a classic dis-information piece.
I’m going to stop the world and get off (I’m going to bed).
If one has produce to sell on a commercial scale, it would pay to simply go around Amazon. Create your own small website for marketing and payments only via crypto or some other electronic means. Maybe even paypal.
No more problems from Amazon.
The world will see your website, not just patrons of Amazon, so give Bezos the boot and see if we can’t put him back in orbit.
I agree with your sentiments, but how will anyone know your website exists? Online marketing seems to be extremely expensive. Online searches only seem to bring up the big players with the deepest pockets.
I’m always reminded of the epigram: how do you make a small fortune out of X? Start off with a large one!
the most successful business – small or large exist and are successful due to word of mouth
we could also try secret exclusivity ;}
i dont know, what do you think?
Isn’t corporatism wonderful? I’m sure those fluffed up pension funds will net millions to those who are already dead…
Oh well, the real Amazon is burning and shrinking every year. Maybe SHITHEAD will follow suit.
I get customers coming in bragging about the stuff they buy on “AmazingDrone”, and how come I don’t use it for hard to get stuff.
“Amazon IS the “race-for-the-bottom!” I cannot get the “hard-to-get” stuff because Amazon has a monopoly on product they have probably got by presenting “an offer one can’t refuse”, or extortion.
I tell them, “get your product DIRECT from a manufacturer”, and tell them why.
I tell businesses, “I choose to get it from you, avoiding the parasite. Amazon will eat you (the manuf) alive if you do not refrain from pimping their service.”
So far, I have received a discount on everything (6 items, 5 sources) I have purchased by mentioning the above.
I know that AmazingDrone beats the price often, but that is NOT the point.
You don’t have a right to buy products: if the manufacturer decides that Amazon is the only way to go, then you have a choice: the self-control to buy an alternative or discard your principles and buy from Amazon. Amazon is not the only source of even essential items, like medicines and food.
My experience is that Amazon is NOT cheaper, it may have been during the market share grab time period.
Now it charges as much and more as other competitors.
So true
Folk are lazy. They want a one-stop shop, to save eating into their precious time, time better spent on fuckin’ ThikCok or Instajerk.
In the UK, punters flood to my local B&Q to buy timber and hinges etc. There’s a timber merchant not 100m away that is cheaper & friendlier.
We’re back to critical thinking. The mask-wearing gimps can’t do it.
and has anyone noticed that the products are sub-retail, not the same quality i would find in the mall – because i can touch it? lot of open box and what appears to be returns…
I’ve never bought anything from Amazon. At this point, in all honesty, I don’t know whether it matters. The world is evil. Still, Old habits die hard. I cringe when a book I’m interested in carries a link to Amazon. I use Amazon for one thing only, namely to find the name of the publisher of a book I’m interested in. Then I go to that website, and, often, buy the book directly from the publisher.
Interesting, I’ve just bought a hifi direct from the manufacturer via www.
Readying for pandemic 2017 :
https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3A1afb3e02-0026-441a-829a-310f94e6186d#pageNum=1
The perfect form of capitalism is monopoly . The Pseudo science of Economics was invented to hide that fact.
Don’t buy from them. I don’t. Can’t stand them.
The following is a brilliant rant, from an ‘ordinary’ person…
https://brandnewtube.com/watch/5th-straight-covid-lockdown-driving-woman-over-the-edge_oQVEMnPdirViF3I.html
Upset and passionate though she is, she is no egotist, or ‘me-me-me’ person.
She is really bright, and can see this catastrophic situation from everybody’s point of view.
She is not vindictive, but she knows who is to blame here.
Exactly the sort of human being who probably ought to be running things, instead of begging for her livelihood and that of other ‘ordinary’ people.
My heart goes out to her.
She talks about having worked and paid tax ‘all her life’…
Well I’m twice as old as she is, but I still couldn’t have given a better description than she does of the evil that has befallen us – and I’m not even an Australian…
i am an Australian and the way this has been set up it is so very hard to see one can do much…by making us 6 states they cut the rest of us off and tell us it is only their business…..the over all aust govt just sits there like blithering idiots saying oh it’s state rights….they obviously all knew they could subdivide before they did all this….
my own bro got hit day one and lost everything….which was bankruptcy and then his marriage…so her plight is familiar…I told him then that he was probably lucky…got it over and done with…could do the grieving and now is attempting to move on…people like this lass have been tortured for 18 months…and will still probably lose everything….mind numbing…
all this just so the rich get richer and they can go play their agenda 30, WEF bullshit….
totally disgusting…one hopes they rot in hell..
That was so heart-rending. Don’t know what else to say.
If the situation is so dire, in her view, then why hasn’t she informed herself. There’s NO Sars CoV 2 virus. That’s what ‘I’ am saying.
This really pertains to the previous article, but I think everyone should know that the ‘vaccines’ have just been definitively shown, by Dr Robert Young, to contain graphene oxide:
https://www.drrobertyoung.com/post/transmission-electron-microscopy-reveals-graphene-oxide-in-cov-19-vaccines
His analysis also reveals the presence of, variously, metals (including stainless steel) and a parasite which he identifies as Trypanosoma, a genus ‘of which several variants are lethal and is one of many causes of acquired immune deficiency syndrome or AIDS’.
Moreover, he concludes that ‘the endogenously created “Corona Effect” and “Spike Protein” ARE caused by chemical and radiation poisoning from reduced graphene oxide and microwave radiation’ (my italics). This may explain the frenzied rollout of 5G and the fact that multiple warnings from eminent scientists about its dire biological effects have been disregarded.
Transmission of the spike protein to people who have not been jabbed is now a widely accepted phenomenon among dissident scientists. Even if you have not been jabbed, therefore, you would do well to minimise your exposure to pulsed electromagnetic fields such as are generated by cell towers, smartphones and wi-fi. I strongly recommend connecting to your router via a high-quality, shielded ethernet cable — make sure the router’s wi-fi and that of your computer are both turned off. I would also recommend using only wired keyboards and mice and ditching bluetooth. Also, if you have a cordless telephone for your landline, get rid of it and use a wired version instead.
All good advice. Thanks for this post.
You can buy good shielding fabrics – I have and know they work as I have tested them with my emf (electro magnetic frequency) meter.
Screening Fabric with up to 50dB Damping — Aaronia AG
And this is a good site for getting more information and advice on protection from radiation, etc.
https://emfacademy.com/
Thank you Simon Dutton. The civilian public (along with the majority of the “medical” profession) knows absolutely nothing about the dangers of radio broadcast and 5G. There are hundreds of articles relating negative health impacts. I guess actually reading the studies is less important than owning a cell phone…
Good to see 5G moving back into focus. Australia has ordered 85 million ‘covid’ doses for next year, the press reports that the US government is down for one billion doses. They expect ‘covid’ to be around for A LONG TIME, there’s no doubt the effects of 5G
will be attributed to ‘covid’ – even though the 4 to 6 monthly ‘booster’ shots will wear down people’s immune system, weeding out the weak, with each dose..
From the article:
“vaccines were taken from each vile”
That should be vial, of course. It would be good if somebody could correct it.
Indeed. Vaccines are created and marketed by viles, not stored in them. 😉
I wonder how Amazon is going to go in the future when you’ll own nothing and be happy…
My guess is that Bezos will be extremely unhappy, severely depressed, and will no longer find any joy in e- commerce. Amazon will become a space travel agency.
Who do you think you’ll be renting your clothes from?
I will not rent clothes (specially under wear). My mother in law taught me how to make clothes and I learned how to make shoes of hemp cord. Highly recommend.
Bezos has to believe that his dark world will never be destroyed, or he will have nightmares. Only this dark world sustains sociopaths like him. In this dark world, people as rich as Bezos just never have to worry. His business could go completely bust and it wouldn’t impact him one iota. The good news is, his greatest fear is reality. His dark world is going to be destroyed soon.
You’ll pay for it, you’re just not gonna own it
Just fine.
Amazon already owns everything, and it’s very happy, thank you for asking.
The elites don’t even need the company to continue to be successful.
There comes a point when 735 swimming pools and 146 private schooners all over the world seems a bit over-the-top, even to them…
“They” will own it all.
Indeed. Especially as they will own everything.
By the way, I heard we do not own the money which we have deposited in your bank; we own a promise from the bank to repay an equivalent sum when asked — IF they can.
brazil is a great movie
central services do not just provide ducts for every citizen zombie
they provide the stuff for your life
one stop shop
your life in terror
from water fluid birth canal birthing
standing in the court room dock docking fine paying
for life in maritime admiralty law
unto your insurance factors bonded logans run timed death death
amazon is central services is the government
the bezos tit for the life of goyim
“Brazil” Monty pythons view of 1984 with a cameo by Robert De Niro an instant classic .
“- T.V. Interviewer: minister…How do you account for the fact that the bombing campaign has been going on for thirteen years?
– Mr. Helpmann: Beginners’ luck.”
Arrest Official: This is your receipt for your husband… and this is my receipt for your receipt.
Jack Lint: Information Transit got the wrong man. I got the *right* man. The wrong one was delivered to me as the right man, I accepted him on good faith as the right man. Was I wrong?
Cell Guard: Don’t fight it son. Confess quickly! If you hold out too long you could jeopardize your social score credit rating.
I’ve seen the movie more than once, but for some reason it doesn’t stick in my mind. I can never remember what it’s about. I remember scenes but that’s all.
From the slums, the barrios, the mud huts, the shanty towns, and into our “civilized” lifestyles, you name it, the common denominator is TV. Those who own and control the media control their audience. A cloth on their face and injections into their bodies, the result is the same worldwide. Fear, ignorance and stupidity is the fuel which drives their agenda.
“Unfortunately it is not the tube alone which is the problem. Although it does not help.”
Television was initially the alter from which the high priests preach now replaced by the I-Phone? “Videodrome” ! Prescription pharmaceuticals and life extending chemical mixtures along with alcohol are the drugs of the western nations . Opium has been Asia’s choice of drug for millennia.
“I am gross and perverted,
I’m obsessed and deranged,
I have existed for years,
but very little has changed.
I’m a tool of the government
and industry too,
For I am destined to rule and regulate you!”
“I am the SLIME
From the video,
OOzing along ‘cross
The living room floor”
Frank Zappa, 1973, “Overnite Sensation”
(cue in sizzling guitar solo…)
The masses in Britain, America and India have been skillfully manipulated into believing that billionaires are our betters instead of the truth which is they’re global economic traitors. Indians should use the books written Ayn Rand as burning material to keep themselves warm after sunset.
As i have repeatedly pointed out over the last two years a primary goal of the great reset is the destruction of the very idea of the” small business” ! Convincing small local businesses to enforce vaccine passport compliance is very much like having businesses , collect sales taxes and allow credit card usage for a small piece of the action back in the 1970s . Yet another great propaganda success to be sure , and is death by suicide to the small business. .
Well the trouble with small business is they are not all that controllable.,.and they like to deal in cash at times…..those central bankers have already told us how they feel about cash they cannot control….so wipe out small business and a high % of your problem with getting to digital currency has gone.,,the vax passport will fix the rest I suspect..
Sales taxes and credit cards all supported by small businesses for a small piece of the action have led us to this sorry state of affairs ? Most business associations such as the chambers of commerce etal still believe or pretend to believe small business can still be a player in micromanaging society. I doubt it
Terrorism… on the subject of terrorism… This bombing at Kabul Airport is more than a bit sus….
ONE bomber kills over 200 and maims many more…. yeah right
How many casualties are going to be found to have bullet holes in them and US Marine bullets?
I’ve heard the Marines got a little ‘spooked’ and more than a bit trigger happy…. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see eh….
Bomb goes off and firefight between team T and team USA with plenty of civilians caught in the middle… these things happen
What’s a few more dodgy death statistics eh? I mean who believes them and who’s paying any attention anyway??
interesting info here:
How The CIA Used ISIS-K To Keep Its Afghanistan Businesshttps://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/08/how-the-cia-used-isis-k-to-stay-in-its-afghanistan-business.html
Long article, but here’s a summary someone posted:
I just finished reading another excellent analysis in anther blog that reinforces the “Team 1” and “Team 2” dynamic outlined by Sundance.
The article provides evidence that “ISIS-K” is a proxy force of the CIA – a force that the Taliban had to fight with support of the USAF! In essence ISIS-K provided the CIA with death squads.
Further the story reveals that CIA led Afghan intelligence forces “NDS” provided security at the Kabul airport and that most of the people killed in the suicide bombing attack were actually killed by gunfire from CIA lead security forces manning the guard towers.
The article is very lengthy but I provide below its conclusions. Link > https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/08/how-the-cia-used-isis-k-to-stay-in-its-afghanistan-business.html#more
“Now onto the big question.
If ISKP is, as shown above, a CIA/NDS product and if the guards at the airport who killed the ‘most victims’ in the attack are CIA led Afghan special forces why did all this happen?
We may find the answer in another New York Times piece headlined:
Amid Afghan Chaos, a C.I.A. Mission That Will Persist for Years :
The poor CIA – pulled back into an expensive ‘counterterrorism’ mission in Afghanistan and elsewhere that was supposed to end until … well, until a CIA created terrorist outlet sent a suicide bomber to Kabul’s airport and until CIA led Afghan forces shot up and killed a large crowd of refugees.
One might also call this the deep state’s revenge for President Biden’s order to retreat from Afghanistan.
This is the same deep state that had brought us four years of ‘Russiagate’ when a different president was likewise inclined to call U.S. troops back home and to thereby limit the CIA’s fields of operation.
To make their point absolutely clear the NYT’s CIA authors in their last paragraph issue this not very vague threat:
White House pressure on the spy agencies? No, CIA pressure on the White House to let it stay in its Afghanistan business.
In support of the idea above about CIA were shooting at people, at 29 min in the video posted at the link below, there’s an interview with a witness who inspected the bodies, and he also says the Afghan people died not from a bomb but from being shot at from above:
https://www.sott.net/article/457515-NewsReal-Kabul-Airport-Atrocity-What-Actually-Happened
Did the US Support the Growth of ISIS-K?Regional players have long accused the US of supporting the group with midnight helicopter transport into Afghanistan.https://realalexrubi.substack.com/p/did-the-us-support-the-growth-of
It’s good to know that many more people are finding that the Emproer has been naked for decades!
Also:
https://www.unz.com/pescobar/blowback-taliban-target-us-intels-shadow-army/
The trouble is that we’re all so used to nakedness these days, although a naked emperor is probably still quite a draw…
Have made conscious effort to buy directly from small businesses. However, have recently rec’d 2 shipments via Ama-python delivery anyway. Cornered the shipping mkt as well?
Couple yrs ago, mailed s-m sized holiday package for $28. Asked USPS what it would cost if Ama$on were shipping. Replied, $3-4. What was it Mussolini said abt corp/gov??
Luddites Unite!
Big Tech, Big Pharma and Big Business in general, the Democratic Party in the US and ruling parties in other countries (“right” or “left”) are predators engaging in the greatest heist and economic warfare in the history of the world since March 2020. How the Corona-zombies can’t connect the dots on this, is mind blowing.
I recently watched the Hitchcock film The Birds again, and it’s opening is in a giant bird shop in San Francisco called “Davidson’s”. This was America when I was young. There were a few chains, but mostly it was independently owned stores. Today, the opening of this movie would certainly be a PetCo. Amazon is the ugliest of the glass jar they’ve created through capitalism, but this has been in progress for the last 30 years. Corporate BLM support is a sign that another film, “They Live”, is well underway and right on schedule.