HOW DOES SHOPPNG AT AMAZON AFFECT LOCAL BUSINESSES?
HOW DOES SHOPPING AT AMAZON AFFECT LOCAL BUSINESSES
Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon is one of the the richest men in
the world and he is on track on becoming a trillionaire in a few years. If you
want to visualize how much money that is think about how long it would take to
dig a million holes and fill each one with a million dollars! His company
became the second company in history to reach a market cap of a trillion in
2018. He has been described as a “cold
Not
only did he not pay any taxes, whatsoever, last year, (2019) but through a
series of tax loop holes with complete disregard for the survival of the
American economy , this self- serving CEO , readily collected 129 million dollars back from the US government.
While making an
astounding 4 million, 465 dollars
per hour!
His
employees make a measly $ 28, 465 per
year!
In the year 2020, with an alarming pandemic raging around the world, Jeff Bezos has amassed an additional 24 billion dollars due to surge in demand from households due to Covid-19 lockdown. Jeff Bezos’s aim is to achieve market dominance and his mantra is “Get Big Fast”.
Are you aware how much of the
North American economy Jeff Bezos now controls shutting out all kinds of small
businesses?
Many trucking companies, unable to compete with this behemoth, have been forced
into bankruptcies.
Some
people might point out that he has created all kind of employment, but the
reality is, that for every job he has created, two, often much better jobs, are lost in existing businesses. (Institute
for Local Self-Reliance)
Right
now Amazon actually controls 50% of the on-line market and about 30% of the
cloud service.
99%
of all Canadian businesses are SME, (small to medium enterprises) contributing
one third of Canada’s Gross Domestic Product.
In Canada there are over 829, 000
entrepreneurs who actually operate small businesses. SME also provide 70% of
all jobs in Canada!
Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, 81%
have been negatively impacted by the virus and 32% worry about the viability of
their businesses in the coming months.
54%
report a drop in their businesses while 28% temporarily have had to shut down.
About 29 % are convinced it might take 1-2 years for their businesses to return
to pre-Covid business volumes.
One
would think that a company, that has
amassed billions of dollars making its owner the richest in the world, would
have a superior track record for its employees such as, implementing state-of- the art
working condition, good wages, and
benefits for its employees.
Unfortunately, that is not the case!
Jeff
Bezos has had a long reputation
for treating his employees with contempt by paying them poverty -triggering
wages with a minimum of benefits, while forcing them to endure miserable
working conditions resulting in injury and death.
The
Atlantic noted in 2018 that Amazon’s warehouses had twice the number of injuries on average than any other
warehouse floors in the US.
The
New York Times reported that a lot of workers at Amazon are suffering from depression
due to the “bruising” work environment.
It was also reported that the neck-breaking
speed that was strictly demanded of the workers was impossible to maintain.
Amazon
has been forcibly cracking down on unionization, to prevent workers from unionizing
so they can improve their brutal working conditions,
The New York Times reported in 2019, at least
10 people including children, have been killed by undertrained truck drivers
trying desperately to fulfill speedy shipping promises.
One would hope that Jeff Bezos who has children
of his own would do the right thing! Seeing that he earns over 4 million
dollars an hour, all he has to do is make proper restitution to his families by
donating the money he earns in just one day! But, alas that is not the case!
Incredibly, Amazon has been able to dodge legal responsibility since the
drivers are not considered employees.
The more trucks, Amazon spills out on the roads,
the more there will be an unnecessary increase in health damaging pollutants spewing
into the environment, thereby increases green house gases, and at the same
producing traffic jams, and destroying roads.
If
you regularly buy from Amazon you cannot rightly complain about traffic jams
–you are part of the problem!
Every year the return rate of items
bought from Amazon is between 5-15 %. – more trucks, more congestion, more
pollution!
As well,
an astounding 50 million package bought from Amazon are stolen every single
year! It is quite mind -boggling to
imagine how many more trucks unnecessarily end up clogging our highways and byways
when replacing these stolen items.
If
we consumers keep supporting this monstrous oligopoly that is steadily buying
up the supply chains and swallowing up small businesses, in no time at all we
will have very little choice when looking for items to purchase.
As businesses close down due to vastly reduced
customer demand, all levels of government will need to looks elsewhere for
their tax base.
The
disastrous consequence of neglecting to buy locally is that your neighbours
will lose their businesses and they will exert extra pressure on all government
services and your property and consumer taxes will rise accordingly.
On September 18, Jeff Bezos was the only top 5
billionaires who had not
signed the “Giving Pledge” an initiative created by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren
Buffet.
Although
he added an extra 34 billion dollars to his coffers during Covid-19, (2020) all
he managed to contribute to Food Banks during Covid was a measly 100 million
which represents less than 0.1 % of his quickly increasing fortune.
If
you relied on the convenience of Amazon, now more than ever, is the time to
make all purchases from local businesses; thereby, supporting the economy of
your own the country and local economy.
So, in a nutshell, l when you buy
locally -everyone wins, including Mother Earth!
NOW MORE THAN EVER IS THE TIME TO BOYCOTT AMAZON AND BUY FROM YOUR LOCAL BUSINESSES!
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