Take what you can use and let the rest go by.
Ken Kesey
Facebook Corner
Normally I've been featuring my rants as blog posts. But I was so incensed by Trump's ongoing attacks on Amazon, I wrote a rare standalone FB post.Okay, it's time for a rant on the Idiot-in-Chief Trump. This discussion should surprise no one who has subscribed to my Twitter feed (raguillem) or my blog (rguillem.blogspot.com).
This rant deals with the idiot's incompetent, economically illiterate attacks on Amazon. Let me print a tweet the idiot himself wrote (look it up): "“I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the election. Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!”
First of all, unlike a number of Internet retailers, who only pay sales taxes where they have warehouses or storefronts, Amazon does pay state sales taxes (for states with sales taxes". This is from a CNN news item in print over a year ago: "On Saturday Amazon (AMZN) will start collecting sales taxes on purchases in the last four states where it wasn't doing so: Hawaii, Idaho, Maine and New Mexico. Four other states -- Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon -- have no sales tax, while a fifth, Alaska, doesn't have a statewide tax, but it does have municipal sales taxes."
What's the logic for charging an out-of-state retailer a sales tax? What public services is it receiving, e.g., First Responders, education, etc.? Not to mention the 5 states that don't asses sales taxes somehow manage to balance their budgets without sales taxes.
The fact is that local retailers also have the opportunity to expand their customer base through the Internet. (Well, obviously that doesn't include things like gas stations, and there are vendors like Groupon that operate on the local level.) Not to mention a number of retailers are retailing partners with Amazon. Not to mention Amazon has steep shipping and handling costs and earns small profits given gross sales.
People seem to forget that the Constitution barred tariffs between states. Certainly Trump doesn't know the Constitution. Charging out-of-state retailer sales taxes is a variation of this principle. It's all but impossible for a retailer like Amazon to track tax policies for thousands of municipalities. Local merchants don't "own" my business. If and when I buy from Amazon, it's because of variety, price and/or convenience I'm not getting from local retailers. Retailers need to modify their business models and not resort to anti-competitive, anti-consumer measures which at most delays the day of reckoning.
Trump only knows real estate development (and with 6 bankruptcies, not very well). He knows a lot of malls are suffering and he's blaming Amazon. This is the same idiocy that fails to recognize that manufacturing has become more efficient, not because China is importing blue collar jobs.
Finally, Trump is an outright liar on the USPS. The USPS is earning profits on its package delivery service. It makes money on its contract with Amazon; in fact there's a 2006 law outlawing the USPS from cutting money-losing deals.
Inspirational
Stop Interventionism NOW!
Political Cartoon
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists
Taylor Dayne, "Heart of Stone". Although this song peaked at a respectful #12, it broke her streak of 7 Top 10 hits.
