Right, their stock price is lowest it’s been in… 2 months. Big whoop.
I’m sure there are some great companies out of Moscow who would be happy to do the Pentagon’s web hosting. I bet they’d be cheaper too. Hell, I bet they’d do it for free!
To save money in a new subdivision they don’t deliver mail to each house. They set up cluster mailboxes that have 10 boxes in one location and each person gets a key to their box.
What’s really ironic is that the people who depend the most on the Post Office are all reliably Republican demographics. Rural areas where UPS and FedEx won’t bother to set up distribution centers, the elderly who don’t use computers and rely on the mail for their bills and correspondence, big businesses who send out advertising flyers.
And, the USPS’ operating costs are necessarily higher than a private firm’s because it is required by law to provide service to all those remote areas. That also makes a delivery deal with USPS an attractive proposition to the likes of Amazon, FedEx, and UPS. There’s money to be made in it for everyone.
I know this is the wrong forum, but let’s not forget that the Postal Service gave us one pretty great album.
And now back on the forum topic, it won’t take Bezos more than a few minutes to decide that if he is going to lose money because of Trump, he may as well lose it funding a super PAC. And Bezos can make it a truly huge PAC. I wonder if he’ll fund it in 2018 or 2020?
I don’t think Bezos is going to lose anything in the medium or long term, and barely a blip in the short term. The “Trump effect” that scared companies at the beginning of his term has become an empty vessel.
Retaliation turns this from “Trump’s personal war against a perceived enemy” to “consensual feud between two billionaires.” I don’t expect he’ll do anything overt - the dip in Amazon shares isn’t great but it’s hardly a nightmare scenario.
I’ve been doing some reading and have learned that the USPS Board of Governors only has two members out of a potential 11, and those two (the post master and deputy post master) are not appointed positions - they serve at the pleasure of the currently non-existent board. Of the nine vacant positions, five could be Republicans.
Back in October, Trump announced three upcoming nominations, but so far as I can tell he never went through with it.
The President doesn’t have direct control of the USPS, but Trump personally has the power to pack the board with whomever he wants - he only needs the Senate to go along. Easy, right?
A couple of points I didn’t see addressed…
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Bezos is, very likely, moving to the DC area with HQ2. Looking long-term, he could become Trump’s biggest adversary in a “this town isn’t big enough for the two of us” sort of way.
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The USPS does a hell of a lot more than merely delivering packages: those companies that have their own delivery systems are still reliant on the USPS for street locating, proper addressing, and more via the USPS’s Coding Accuracy Support System. The USPS is the only approved “clearinghouse”, for want of a better word, for the entire nations addressing system and losing this function, or worse, privatizing it, would truly screw up this country in ways that are fundamental to both our personal and professional lives.
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Interesting how a direct order in the Constitution is considered anathema to many conservatives, but an addendum to the same, the second amendment, is considered sacred. God works via Amendments to flawed documents, does he? Interesting theology, that.
To be quite fair, the postal clause isn’t an order - it establishes the authority of Congress to establish post offices.
The 2nd Amendment establishes a right. To many conservatives, it establishes a natural right - that is, a right provided not by the government but by virtue of our humanity. Just like other incredibly important, foundational rights.
You know - things like freedom (after January 31, 1865) and universal suffrage (after August 6, 1965).
[quote=“JohnT, post:111, topic:811583”]
A couple of points I didn’t see addressed…
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2. The USPS does a hell of a lot more than merely delivering packages: those companies that have their own delivery systems are still reliant on the USPS for street locating, proper addressing, and more via the USPS’s Coding Accuracy Support System. The USPS is the only approved “clearinghouse”, for want of a better word, for the entire nations addressing system and losing this function, or worse, privatizing it, would truly screw up this country in ways that are fundamental to both our personal and professional lives.
Uh… Yes and no. In the County I work for (GIS department) we do ALL of our own addressing (we use USPS standards). Now it’s true that they are the clearing house. And they give data to the Census, which in turn for this coming census, the census sends the data to us at the County and we correct it and send it back.
Some current numbers - I had beers with a buddy who is an Amazon manager. He pointed out that while AMZN is down 11% since its recent high - it is still up 20% for the year and up 79% since Trump was elected.
That means Bezos has lost $14B in the last few weeks - he is up $19B for the year and $49B once Nov 8, 2016 - just in Amazon stock alone.
That has to burn, compared to Trump’s $3B…
He is basically a real estate focused businessman (he isn’t all that great even in his specialty, at least not IMHO). Consider that for a moment. Then consider the current meme that seems to be going around that Amazon has put various brick and mortar businesses out of business, and is in the process of doing the same with others. That directly impacts Trump and his cronies in real estate. The thing about the post office giving Amazon a better deal just plays into the current populist thought about fat cats getting something for nothing off of the backs of hard working class Americans, and could have come from a liberal in the past without batting an eye. The irony is that this seems to be what the Republican Party has shifted to, as they have with so much else. I’m getting a bit dizzy with all of the shifts lately.
Trump really isn’t ‘for capitalism’, at least he’s not a free market capitalist. You can see that in the tariffs he is trying to enact. He also doesn’t seem to have a lot of working knowledge about international business and trade. He is pretty much focused on what he thinks is a threat to his own vertical business and that of others like him. And, of course, he’s wrong on this as he has been on so much else. That’s the one thing he seems to excel at…being wrong.
To a Trump supporter, that is simply more proof of how smart Trump is. Isn’t it wonderful? All the excuses are built right in. Either he’s smart, or he’s speaking figuratively this time not literally, or yadda yadda yadda.
And I’m guessing that the five where Amazon doesn’t pay sales tax are states without any sales tax at all.
Exactly right. As the article points out, the 5 states that have no sales tax are Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon. According to Amazon, those are the 5 states where they don’t collect sales tax.
The Huffpost article also points out that Amazon is under no obligation to collect sales tax in a state where they have no physical presence or employees.
Amazing that our President is misinformed on this topic.
Seriously. WE ALL KNOW that asshole is selling stuff for his own gain. This is unconstitutional WTF?? It’s rather funny that he is placing tariffs on the shit he sells that is made in China.
I usually consider my vote. But not ONE asshole republican will get my vote. Perhaps never again. They have shown what a bunch or craven hypocritical assholes they are.