Amazon Reopens Affilliate Program After Brown Signs Deal

Is this demonstrable??? (3.50 / 2)

"That being said, buying in local, independent stores is still your best choice for economic development in your own community." - Brian

Considering that many of the items sold on Amazon can only be bought locally at big box retailers how does that really benefit local "economic development"???

If you save $20 buying on Amazon you can then spend that $20 at a Pizza parlor and help a small business stay profitable.

Conversely buying it at Best Buy really helps the Main Street of your community how???

The fact remains that Big Box retailers were the natural market evolution of buying consumer goods just as Amazon/Overstock are the next stage in that evolution.  Railing against them is an utter waste of time.  The dollar savings provided by these consumables providers will be spent elsewhere and businesses agile enough to market their products an services in this new dynamic will prosper.

The anecdotal evidence is that your side of the political spectrum has a constant urge to tell people how and where to spend their money in concurrence with what you think their (and their communities) best interests are.  That type of top down thinking is receding from public support/policy.

Hi. I'm Charles.  I worked my way from homelessness to a business owner.  Be what you have it in you to be!

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by: cjackson3 @ Mon Sep 26, 2011 at 18:10:45 PM UTC

"local, independent" does not include Best Buy (3.00 / 1)

it doesn't take any big leaps of logic to deduce that buying from a local, independent seller will mean it is more likely that the money will stay in the local economy. Notice I included the word independent, which would thereby exclude Best Buy and other companies that would ship the money back to Minnesota or some other location.  A local store would keep the money in its own community at a much higher rate.

obviously, this doesn't work well for everything. It is pretty hard to buy an iPad from a local reseller. However, if you like browsing books at your local bookshop, you should consider buying books there too.  Otherwise, well, we'll soon discover that we can no longer peruse books IRL at all. In other words, it is a good idea to pay for services that you are provided. Whether you do that in the form of tipping at the bookshop's coffee bar or buying the latest bestseller, we should all understand the decisions that we are making, and their ultimate consequences.

Now, if you read the bulk of the article, instead of just flaming the final sentence, I am hardly calling for a boycott of Amazon or Best Buy.  Just the opposite really. I merely advise people to be educated consumers.

Please read before flaming.

I think?

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by: Brian Leubitz @ Mon Sep 26, 2011 at 20:54:18 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Wasn't trying to flame you my man :-) (2.00 / 1)

Sorry if I came off as such...

However there are still some logical holes in your argument.  IE If you pay 20% over on an item by buying it local and that 20% equals say $20, you've not necessarily put that amount in that biz owners pocket.  Their costs as a brick and mortar store (higher wholesale price, rent, etc)eat up say $10 of that cost they only have $10 to "reinvest" in the community.  And you are relying on their option to do so after you have already bit the bullet of a higher price.

Now conversely if you bought on Amazon you now have $20 to invest in a local business (IE my Pizza Parlor thesis) by which you support the local economy AND gain a value benefit (Pizza, Yayyy! :-).

My point is it's not nearly as black and white as you on the left often make it out to be.  Even the Big Box retailers create job opportunities that small businesses could not (Those big buildings require a lot of maintenance work for HVAC people, plumbers, etc).  Free markets and trade will always mean change and a modicum of job instability, but the trade off is an ever increasing living standard for everyone.  As much as some may lament the passing of the corner bookstore the greater public has spoken.  Those business owners if they had any foresight will undoubtedly find new ventures and will continue to fuel our economy.  And I have no doubt many hipsters and coffee junkies will keep bookstores around in some form for a long time.

And remember for any small retailer that closes an office space opens at a lower rent and another enterprising individual will start another venture in it's place.  That's capitalism and it's done us all quite well.

Hi. I'm Charles.  I worked my way from homelessness to a business owner.  Be what you have it in you to be!

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by: cjackson3 @ Mon Sep 26, 2011 at 23:30:42 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I'm always (0.00 / 0)

a bit amused when Charles comes and responds to someone urging people to take a certain approach and declares that the left is always imposing and coercing and then turns around and announces that something that jibes with his personal sense is natural or makes statements like " Free markets and trade will always mean change and a modicum of job instability, but the trade off is an ever increasing living standard for everyone" which is simply not true historically (leaving aside the fact that there has never been any institution as "free" markets and "free" trade if you mean unregulated).  It is simply not true that, say, deregulation has improved "everyone's" lives.  When you accuse others of trying to coerce and then announce that something is "natural" and "simply true" I think you protest too much.

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by: call me ishmael @ Mon Sep 26, 2011 at 23:58:51 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

The facts refute you :-) (0.00 / 0)

One worldwide living standards are higher than at anytime in human history.  This does not mean that people aren't still underprivileged (odd word though...  When is privilege is a right?) but by any measure people have more than ever, especially in the west.  If you disagree present facts to the contrary.  And I'm not talking about so-called poverty statistics which are measured in dollars as opposed to purchasing power.  The world is in better shape than it's ever been.  Many Indians and Chinese who would have starved under the old regimes are now sustaining themselves through the work provided by international trade.

Now as with many you also lack an understanding of what a free market represents.  The very fact that it is a "market" in a macro-economic sense means their is some form of regulation in currency exchange, etc.  What most would hold it to mean is that if I want to sell shoes next to your shoe store there are no institutional barriers against it.  Likewise if I wish to sell them at a lower price than you their is no barrier.  As to my issues with coercion, I make no apologies.  I want everyone to have the maximum amount of freedom possible.

As to referring to "truths" the arguments I'm presenting (which are far more nuanced than you seem to perceive) I post factual links whenever I can.  But let's take something as subjective as standard of living.  Americans have more personal property than ever.  Now the dollar worth of said property is lower thanks to globalization but the value remains.  The poorest among us have CPUs and automobiles...  Think about that for a second.

Even in developing nations they have moved from agrarian based societies to industrial ones.  In a few generations most hard labor will probably be done by AI machines.  Capitalism has brought us "The great Leap Forward" many times over.  This is a "simple truth" and has been the "natural" course of human events as no Centralized Plan or Permission of King was required.

Please refute me with some challenge-able hypothesis as I do love a good debate! :-)

Hi. I'm Charles.  I worked my way from homelessness to a business owner.  Be what you have it in you to be!

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by: cjackson3 @ Tue Sep 27, 2011 at 00:26:53 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

But here (0.00 / 0)

you go again.  You say that it is simply true that the world is better.  But earlier you said that "everyone" is better.  Those are two different things.  Are you speaking in the aggregate in terms of the amount of material commodities?  But if you are doing that then you are already getting into a decision about whether it is better for there to be aggregate increase even if it is more unevenly distributed and if some people have to work much harder to make ends meet than they did say 50 years ago.  I doubt very much that people living on 2 dollars a day in places where community structures have been decimated by the forces of capital are "really better off" than people in the same places 50 years ago.  The point that I have been making repeatedly in our discussions is that your definition of what makes a better system is a very narrow one and one that is focused on aggregates which is actually quite odd for a libertarian.  

And I am not even sure if your supposed facts are so clear cut--African society was as a whole lot more wealthy before the intrusion of European empires and capital.  Native American populations were much greater than they ever will be again and some of their cities far in advance of European capitalist ones.  The slave trade was a quintessential capitalist enterprise. etc  It simply isn't so clear cut especially when you act as if there aren't incredible inequalities of power that have caused the shape of capitalism--after all it is because of the power of large corporations that so many people have had to compensate for their depressed real wages by going into deep debt--we've seen what great things that has done to the world economy.  And your "natural" course of capitalism has been supported throughout almost all of its modern history by the violent power of the state.  So much for your "simple truth."

As for the question of whether or not I understand markets once again you are playing a little fast and loose.  My point is that once you acknowledge that there is some regulation then the question is what is the best regulation.  You can't simply say "free market vs. coercion."  You have to recognize that there are debates about which ways markets should be regulated.  I suppose you would want a market where you could sell foodstuffs cheaper.  But would you want a market where you were able to sell foodstuffs cheaper because there was no control over whether or not there were high pesticide levels?  Or whether or not there was shoddy leather that could cause injury.  I haven't heard anyone at calitics say that there should be a law that says that business A can charge one price but Business B has to charge a higher price.  I have heard people at calitics say that people might want to consider spending money at business a for the following reasons rather than business b.  But that is providing reasons not commanding them.  And I have heard people at calitics say why give specific tax breaks to companies that don't return anything to the community.  But I don't see how that takes anyone's choice away either.

You miss my point about coercion.  You accuse others Brian and others of trying to coerce when they are simply making arguments.  That seems to me such overkill as to be curious.  Especially when you seem unable to acknowledge the coercions that are written into the capitalist form from labor law, to property law, to the history of state violence in support of corporations and the imposition of "market economies."

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by: call me ishmael @ Tue Sep 27, 2011 at 00:51:33 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Now we're going somewhere! (0.00 / 0)

"...some people have to work much harder to make ends meet than they did say 50 years ago...  ...I doubt very much that people living on 2 dollars a day in places where community structures have been decimated by the forces of capital are "really better off" than people in the same places 50 years ago."

On the making ends meet argument, this is partially a result of women entering the workforce and the decimating effects of inflation.  Two income households now being the norm you have more $ chasing many of the same resources.  This combined with the grand welfare/warfare state being supported mostly on the credit card has created the problems you describe.  A reduction in wage should cause a commensurate reduction in asset prices, cost of living etc.  But if the money supply is exponentially increased beyond population growth the working person not holding appreciable assets gets F'd.  But my question to you is what does this have to do with free market capitalism???  Milton Friedman and the Austrian school abhorred the inflationary policies of big government.  And I do think over consumption has a lot to do with it.  If people lived like they did in your golden era of the 50's with 1 car, 1 TV and clothes they kept for years they would not find themselves as overextended as some do.

"The slave trade was a quintessential capitalist enterprise."

In the academic sense yes.  In the scope of free market libertarianism absolutely not.  You are obviously on the left end of the American political spectrum, but I wouldn't compare you to Stalin or Mao.  You're trying to score cheap points.  And when you refer to the standard of living of Africans before colonialism are you endorsing the slave labor of their African brothers they employed???

"You can't simply say "free market vs. coercion."

I didn't, you did.  When I speak of coercion it's in the context of "Tyranny of the majority."  Considering the Proposition 8 detractors here I would expect some level of sympathy on this position.  It has nothing to do with markets.  It's the principle of a bare majority of the populace using the political process to impose it's will on the minority.  That is dangerous to all of us.

"But would you want a market where you were able to sell foodstuffs cheaper because there was no control over whether or not there were high pesticide levels?"

You're going a little apples and oranges here.  Amazon is selling the exact same products as local retailers.  Amazon is portrayed as the bad guy here and I'm making the counter argument that in an open economy they are neither good nor bad, they just are.  Further they benefit individuals an communities in a real way by lowering the cost of goods and that allows individuals to spend more money in whatever way they see fit.  Their are some legitimate beefs with Walmart and Co for breaking labor laws but Amazon should not be placed with them.  In fact Amazon acts as a check on Walmart.  And Amazon's warehouse jobs pay well in relation to the cost of living in the communities they reside and the work being performed.

"...might want to consider spending money at business a for the following reasons rather than business b.  But that is providing reasons not commanding"

Never said they were commanding.  But I did provide a mathematical argument of why it could easily be seen as a net negative.  And ultimately it will not change things the market is changing and the consumer has spoken.  And Amazon is not receiving a subsidy mind you.  The federal law (and you guys are generally for a strong federal govt) as written does not require them to collect a tax.  Now I think they probably should collect some type of tax but it should be implemented fairly and while technically it should require a Const Amdt, I realize that's not practical.

As I've often said I enjoy debating here as you learn much by speaking with those you disagree with.  I still encourage you to an optimistic look at the vastness and diversity of the world economy and the people in it.  Do you really think things were somehow better in days gone by?  I certainly don't.

Hi. I'm Charles.  I worked my way from homelessness to a business owner.  Be what you have it in you to be!

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by: cjackson3 @ Tue Sep 27, 2011 at 01:37:28 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Academic? (0.00 / 0)

"The slave trade was a quintessential capitalist enterprise."

In the academic sense yes.  In the scope of free market libertarianism absolutely not.  You are obviously on the left end of the American political spectrum, but I wouldn't compare you to Stalin or Mao.  You're trying to score cheap points.  And when you refer to the standard of living of Africans before colonialism are you endorsing the slave labor of their African brothers they employed???

Academic?  No, I think that you are the one engaging in "academic" discussion if you mean that in a dismissive way.  I am talking about the actual history of capitalism not the ideological arguments by thinkers like Friedman and the Austrians describing a fantasy world that has never existed.  As for the nature of slavery in pre-colonial Africa it actually was a fairly complex and people were not necessarily trapped in it permanently and it was not inheritable so if you are asking whether or not individuals suffering under what modern scholars refer to as African slavery suffered from less oppression than did those caught up in the slave trade then I would say yes.  "Free Market Libertarianism" is far more academic than is the actual history of capitalism and in the works of people like Friedman smuggle in all sorts of assumptions (as does contemporary economics) about the transparency of information the omniscience of actors, etc that have never existed. Nor is there any evidence that given the choice between capitalism and democracy Friedman (or Hayek for that matter) would have chosen democracy (and as the Chileans proved it is a real choice sometimes).  And no I am not comparing you to Pinochet.

Von Hayek couldn't figure out the distinction between welfare capitalism and totalitarianism which is why his followers seem to think that the New Deal was a road to serfdom.

You speak of mathematical formulae but as Yves Smith pointed out once again (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/09/economists-defending-the-use-of-models.html) part of the problem with mathematical formula for economics is that they confuse the purpose of formulas.  If you read out all of the social issues like power then your formula distorts and doesn't clarify.

You can't simply say "free market vs. coercion."

I didn't, you did.  When I speak of coercion it's in the context of "Tyranny of the majority."  Considering the Proposition 8 detractors here I would expect some level of sympathy on this position.  It has nothing to do with markets.  It's the principle of a bare majority of the populace using the political process to impose it's will on the minority.  That is dangerous to all of us.

The problem here is what is the alternative in an economy where there is nothing so simple as the private use of resources.  You point to Prop 8 and that is an interesting counter-example.  The question is whether or not they are actually comparable (I don't think they are. I don't know if you do since I can't imagine that you support Prop 8 either).  But the notion that the economy is always collective in some sense changes the equation it seems to me.

And as for not saying free markets vs. coercion that may have been my take on your larger point but it was in response to your insisting that an effort to persuade was "top down" and implicitly coercive:

The anecdotal evidence is that your side of the political spectrum has a constant urge to tell people how and where to spend their money in concurrence with what you think their (and their communities) best interests are.  That type of top down thinking is receding from public support/policy.

But you never seem to think that the arguments for your sort of market operation can be top down despite the fact that the historical record suggests otherwise.

I have to check out now.  Don't know when I will get back.  But it has been interesting.

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by: call me ishmael @ Tue Sep 27, 2011 at 03:16:06 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Definitely Fun :-) (0.00 / 0)

Perhaps we can continue in a future thread.

I would enjoy reading more of your views on Hayek and Friedman from a left perspective as you seem to have some knowledge of them beyond the typical demonetization they receive from your side of the political spectrum.

And regarding the "power of the people" part of your theorem, I find the whole of governments inherently corrupt and feel that the argument that it is far easier to influence business and private markets than public officials and would like to read your counter points :-)  

Hi. I'm Charles.  I worked my way from homelessness to a business owner.  Be what you have it in you to be!

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by: cjackson3 @ Tue Sep 27, 2011 at 17:23:01 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Let's go to an actual professor of economics on this one (5.00 / 1)

On the making ends meet argument, this is partially a result of women entering the workforce and the decimating effects of inflation.  Two income households now being the norm you have more $ chasing many of the same resources.  This combined with the grand welfare/warfare state being supported mostly on the credit card has created the problems you describe.

The first trend amounts to looting the US working class (the media softens that to "disappearing middle class"). Since the 1970s, real wages have been flat to declining, while productivity per worker has risen steadily. What employers give workers (wages) has remained the same while what workers produce for their employers (profits) rose. Workers and their families responded by working ever more hours and borrowing ever more money to get or keep the "American dream." By 2007, they were physically exhausted, families emotionally stressed and deeply anxious about the debts that their flat real wages could no longer sustain. When the system crashed, zooming unemployment, further wage and benefit reductions and home foreclosures made everything still worse for most Americans.

Please note nothing here about "inflation".

(Prof Richard D. Wolff, http://rdwolff.com/content/tal...

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by: cenobite @ Tue Sep 27, 2011 at 14:39:50 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Your close... (0.00 / 0)

"...while what workers produce for their employers (profits) rose.".

This is a for of inflation itself.  Corporate profits are far outpacing productivity gains.  If they are not increasing somewhat synchronously where is the money coming from?

Inflationary monetary policy.

Lower wages in the absence of monetary expansion has to lead to a lower cost of goods and assets in the long run as less $ are chasing these resources.  But if the system is gamed and the access to credit continually expanded the market doesn't correct and you get the housing (credit) bubble we just experienced and which really hasn't ended.

Hi. I'm Charles.  I worked my way from homelessness to a business owner.  Be what you have it in you to be!

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by: cjackson3 @ Tue Sep 27, 2011 at 15:24:38 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I'm with Brian (8.00 / 1)

A lot of local businesses have gone under around here. Not all have been replaced. And not all have been replaced by something similar. So, while we have a lot of used clothing stores, we have no book or music stores within 20 miles of where I live. Nobody opened a new health food cafe when the one we had went under.

It can be expensive to have to drive 20 miles or more for the services you need. It can be hard for some people to go that far for jobs. Especially after the county had to cut back bus service around here.

So I do try to patronize local stores whenever I can because I want those services to stay around. I don't want to have to drive for hours for the things I need. I do want tax revenues to stay local so the county can afford to add back bus routes and library hours--and maybe fix a few roads. And I want local people to have jobs. Spending my money in my town is the best way I know to do all that.

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by: cfinnie @ Mon Sep 26, 2011 at 23:45:55 PM UTC

Over (0.00 / 0)

6 years back San Bernardino County passed Measure I for road construction projects and It's popular, As It was on the ballot again to be renewed, It's an add on to the local sales tax of 0.50%, which makes the sales tax 7.75%, instead of 7.25%, It repaves roads, patches cracks in old roads until they can be repaved & makes new roads.

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by: SuperJoker @ Tue Sep 27, 2011 at 03:24:48 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

"No new taxes without voter approval." (0.00 / 0)

Wasn't that what Jerry used to say at the end of all his campaign ads?

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by: Nox Ninox @ Tue Sep 27, 2011 at 14:09:18 PM UTC

There are way better horse books out there (0.00 / 0)

Sorry, I just couldn't resist a little heckle on that point.

Fry, don't be a hero! It's not covered by our health plan!

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by: elfling @ Tue Sep 27, 2011 at 21:47:29 PM UTC

The Virtue of Sales Taxes (3.50 / 2)

Where I live, the Inland empire, stores are shuttered, and I have to drive 20 miles to buy a serious magazine or book or some music.  I have five Walmarts that are closer than that, and basically, if I want something they don't sell, I'm out of luck.  We seem to have gotten things backwards: I have to go on line to buy things I want and use frequently, and I don't see that amazon or other on-line retailers are offering any bargains, after shipping. I'd much rather support my local retailers, and only shop on line for truly unusual items.  Let's support our communities!

Jim Sylvester
Menifee, California

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by: organgrinder @ Tue Sep 27, 2011 at 23:37:16 PM UTC