#1217 The monopoly that ate our economy (Amazon)
Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democracy
Jay Tomlinson
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 9 October 2018
⏱️ 72 minutes
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Summary
Air Date: 10/9/2018
Today we take a look at the monopolistic practices of Amazon with a focus on their effects on labor and wages in America
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SHOW NOTES
Amazon is a radically new kind of monopoly that seeks to control all of online commerce. Stacy Mitchell says it’s time for anti-trust action to separate the Amazon Marketplace from Amazon’s own retail operations.
Ch. 2: How Amazon Drives Down Wages - Senator Bernie Sanders - Air Date 9-19-18
A video from the Bernie Sanders YouTube channel explaining how Amazon drives down wages
Ch. 3: Monopoly, Monopsony and highly concentrated labor markets - Building Local Power - Air Date 3-22-18
Stacy Mitchell interviews the Roosevelt Institute’s Marshall Steinbaum about why American wages aren’t rising while our economy goes through a strong “recovery.”
Journalist James Bloodworth, who spent a month working undercover as a “picker” in an Amazon order fulfillment center and found workers were urinating in bottles because they were discouraged from taking bathroom breaks.
Ch. 5: Striking Amazon warehouse workers - Belabored (@DissentMag) - Air Date 7-27-18
On Amazon Prime Day warehouse workers around the world took action against the company.
Ch. 6: Amazon Is Hurting Small Businesses -Senator Bernie Sanders - Air Date 9-26-18
Listen to this small business owner who sees firsthand the effect of Amazon's power over our economy. We should all be concerned about Jeff Bezos' greed.
Ch. 7: Neil DeMause on Amazon - CounterSpin (@FAIRmediawatch) - Air Date 10-4-18
Where do we have the conversation about the impact of Amazon‘s size, its influence and its values, on community?
VOICEMAILS
Ch. 8: Pushing the needle on universal health care - Zach from Atlanta
Ch. 9: Final comments on why Joe Manchin can help progressives even while being a terrible Democrat
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Today's episode is sponsored by News Voice. As you know, monopolies of all kinds, but |
| 0:08.3 | especially media consolidation pose an enormous threat to democracy. So while we all continue |
| 0:14.0 | to push for effective anti-trust enforcement, News Voice has come up with an immediate |
| 0:18.5 | response to the problem. News Voice is a website and app for iOS and Android that gives you |
| 0:23.8 | a personalized news feed by aggregating the mix of mainstream, international, and independent |
| 0:29.0 | media sources. The whole site is fueled by crowd sourcing and is meant to be a completely |
| 0:33.6 | open and democratized source of news that lets you get every side of every story, which means |
| 0:38.8 | you can help make the news better for others while you use it. Check it out for yourself, |
| 0:43.4 | download the app for free by going to newsvoice.com slash best. And now, welcome to this episode of the |
| 0:50.7 | award-winning best-of-the-left podcast in which we shall learn about the monopolistic practices of |
| 0:55.6 | Amazon with a focus on their effects on labor and wages in America. Clipsidae come from |
| 1:01.4 | Start Making Sense, Senator Bernie Sanders' YouTube channel, Building Local Power, Democracy Now, |
| 1:07.6 | Belabered and Counterspin. |
| 1:16.2 | Isn't Jeff Bezos doing with Amazon what every retailer tries to do? |
| 1:23.3 | Undercut the competition with lower prices to get their customers. |
| 1:28.9 | Amazon grows because they are really good at selling stuff, at being retailers. Isn't that true? |
| 1:37.8 | One thing I would say is that Amazon isn't really a retailer, that its ambitions are much deeper |
| 1:42.5 | than that. And we should talk about that. But the other thing specifically in response to your |
| 1:47.3 | question is that Amazon has grown not just by being better at what it does, but often by using |
| 1:53.0 | very anti-competitive tactics. By being able to use, for example, its deep pockets to sell goods |
| 1:59.1 | at a loss. So, for example, when Zappos, the shoe online shoe retailer started up and was growing |
| 2:06.4 | in popularity and offering a service that people really liked, Amazon responded by selling shoes at a |
... |
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