In a move that is being widely attributed to pressure from activists and Bernie Sanders' famous Stop BEZOS Act, Amazon has announced a pay increase for all workers inside the US to $15 an hour as of next month.
Which is of course a good thing. It is a good thing that the aggressively anti-union Amazon, which is owned and operated by the planet's wealthiest man Jeff Bezos, is finally taking a step in the direction of treating its workers like human beings after the sound of sharpening guillotine blades began to echo off the walls of its warehouses. But that isn't something people should be grateful for, let alone something that causes them to ease up the intensity of the fight against plutocracy. You don't thank a man for ceasing to punch you in the face, especially not while he's still stabbing you in the chest.
Institute for Local Self-Reliance co-director Stacy Mitchell has as usual provided some useful insights into this new development in Bezos' master plan, pointing out how Amazon is now slashing stock options for some workers, how Amazon workers in Australia already make 18.26 USD per hour, how this concession is largely being made out of fear of an antitrust case which could break up the massive corporation, how this won't pose much of a challenge for Amazon as it is steadily increasing its automation of jobs, and how this is ultimately just a small band-aid on a gaping wound because no company should ever have this much power. Mitchell described last year how Amazon is not merely working to kill off competition and dominate online product sales, but is actively working to control the underlying infrastructure of the economy itself.
In an article titled "Bezos’ Decision to Raise Wages is Largely a Machiavellian Distraction", political blogger Michael Krieger observes that Bezos is also calling for a nationwide wage hike, which Amazon would be far more capable of absorbing than its competitors. Amazon can move into automation at a speed other companies won't be able to afford to keep up with, and can thereby use this maneuver to shore up its domination even further.
"You really think Bezos is advocating for a national minimum wage increase because he’s suddenly a Bernie Sanders populist?" Krieger writes. "Don’t be stupid."
Yes, please don't be stupid. Jeff Bezos is an extremely dangerous plutocrat who is forming extensive ties with secretive government agencies while buying up media influence and working to control the way money itself moves and operates in the world. He is most certainly nowhere near anything like a Bernie Sanders populist, and his plans for our species include shipping all heavy industry along with a trillion humans off of our planet's surface to inhabit the greater solar system. He wants a trillion human beings out in space toiling to fuel his insatiable capitalist empire while his heirs continue to inhabit the beautiful home for which our species is evolutionarily adapted.
Seriously, check it out: Bezos has openly described this as his grand plan for our species, and said this is why he sees his private space program as the most important work that he is doing currently. He wants a trillion humans working in space colonies while perhaps a lucky billion (0.1 percent) of them get to inhabit our beautiful blue planet, and you can be damn certain that he has no intention for his heirs to be among the 99.9 percent.
That's it. That's his whole vision. That's the best possible future we can hope for if we leave control of our species in the hands of the plutocratic class. Not a future in which humanity learns to peacefully coexist with itself and the ecosystem on its home world, but a future in which a trillion of us are bred to turn the gears of the Amazon empire in outer space. Personally I think a much better vision would include shipping Bezos off to space right now, by himself, never to return.
We mustn't ease off the revolt against the plutocracy just because the richest man in the world decided to give his workers what only amounts to a living wage in some parts of America. The fact that a plutocrat made a small concession is not a sign that it's time to stop fighting, it's a sign that fighting works. That fight must be continued until the plutocratic class no longer controls the fate of our species and our beautiful blue planet, until such time as humanity is able to control its own fate in the interests of all living creatures.
Don't turn our fate over to depraved oligarchs for the price of a few dimes. Keep pushing these sociopathic bastards. Keep pushing them right off the stage.
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Great article, well argued, as usual. I largely disagree.
First, I'm no fan of Jeff bezos, so none of what I say should be construed as an endorsement of him, and I am also worried about his ties to the intelligence agencies.
I agree with the article you cited which is that Bezos is pushing for a $15 minimum wage because it will help consolidate the market in his favor. A minimum reduces jobs, and makes it difficult to find entry level employment. Most people are not making minimum wage. Those that are are mostly people who are just trying to enter the job market for the first time. For them, getting job experience - any job experience - is crucial. Raising the minimum wage takes away that opportunity.
Of course, that being said, when you're talking about careers, rather than relatovely short term employment, it is sometimes necessary for people to collectively negotiate with their employers. I do not agree with the special rights many states give to unions. Business owners are not slaves. You should not leverage the state against them to force them to run their business in a certain way. But it's entirely valid for people to negotiate as a group.
As far as us going to space. It's highly important that we become a multi-planetary species. I'm not sure I'd want Bezos to be in charge of that, but it's crucially important that we do that as quickly as possible. If humanity is confined to earth it will lose its enterprising spirit and succumb to tyranny. And if anything then happens to planet Earth, that could mean the end of humanity. We need to pass the birth canal and cut the umbilical cord.
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No, I read your comment earlier but didn't have time to respond. That empty comment was made by mistake.
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Scarcity of jobs is great for Bezos. It's terrible for people seeking employment. If businesses have to shut down because they can't afford to hire people, then Bezos consolidates marketshare. Of course, this also means that there are fewer opportunities. When there are more jobs than there are workers, wages rise as a consequence. When wages are artificially raised, this creates a barrier for entry for entry level work. This means that employment rates decrease, which means that the economy shrinks overall, since people have no money to buy things at all, thus further damaging the job market. What typically happens then, is that the government borrows vast amounts of money to fund benefit programs. This artificially stimulates the economy, but it doesn't make people more productive, and thus, the growth is fuelled by debt, while the unemployed remain unemployed and become gradually less employable, as they become less and less desirable as employees. What's worse, this creates inflation, which reduces the buying power of the dollar. So, ultimately, that raise you forced businesses to give to everyone now means nothing, because the value of the dollar has decreased. So now, there are fewer people working, and the people that are still working are not actually better off, and you've also blown up the national debt.
Let businesses offer the wages that they are willing to offer, and remove barriers to entry for entrepreneurship. That maximizes the potential for job growth. When you do that, wages rise, because now there are more jobs than there are workers.
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Minimum wage increases without fiat (that is, with a commodities backed currency) create consequences that are more immediate and pronounced, because the creation of welfare programs to compensate for the decrease in demand for labor is not possible without government debt instruments, and if the government devalues its currency, people demand the commodity over the currency, and the currency loses its backing and collapses. The same thing happens with fiat; it just takes a little longer, because it's a little more difficult (but certainly not impossible) to exchange the fiat for a stable form of value.
Demand for entry level jobs will always be there, but the higher the barrier for creating those jobs, the fewer there will be, which means that some people just won't be able to get jobs at all. This is not merely my opinion:
https://www.epionline.org/studies/r129/
http://thefederalist.com/2017/05/03/harvard-study-minimum-wage-hikes-cut-entry-level-jobs-harm-poor-minorities/
Those are the top two links on Google (which is a heavily left-leaning search engine).
There is another study I found in the top five that I can't share here, but it's a PDF that says the same thing. The other two links in the top five claim that minimum wage hikes don't have an effect on job growth, but, firstly, they are editorials, not scientific papers (which tend to supporty point), and they also fail to mention that, yes, it's true that minimum wages don't ALWAYS kill job growth - but only if they aren't OUTPACING job growth. But if the job market is growing relative to the pool of employment seekers, then wages will rise anyway. So minimum wage hikes don't cause overall wages to rise, and they certainly can cause job growth to stall - especially if they are raised dramatically (and a $15 minimum wage would be a dramatic increase).
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Amazon is going to be making some insane crypto plays in the near future. If any corporation has a chance of becoming "The Company" featured in the Aliens sci-fi movie series, it's Amazon.
They've already have created a digital currency by buying Twitch and creating Twitch Bits. They are one small step away from creating their own cryptocurrency and bringing their worldwide influence up to an entirely new level.
This IS easing off the plutocracy!
Minimum wage is a tool of the manipulators!! .....you know - the ones you wrote against only a few days ago!
Leftist ideology is corrupt, illogical, and dying. Wake up.
You're ideology is blinding you to your own intelligence...
if you are subsidized by the governments you are part of the manipulators - any transfer of wealth has already begun from the taxpayer.
Minimum wage is a manipulation of an economy - which is just varying degrees leading to socialism /communism.
Anti trust laws are an extension of allowing monopolies in the first place, which is a result of corruption via government and business - it all leads back to the banks either way.
Standard oil for example.
No corruption via regulation = no monopolies.
....I Agree
....so a minimum wage is not manipulation (control), how?
Central banks control the money supply - and the value of money.
Dress up the propaganda to fool the masses s much as you like, this is a fact.
If you control the money supply and it's value (communism), you control everything else.
You control minimum wage - and how much it's worth - you control social unrest and social success. You control governments and the redistribution of wealth.
You control everything.
'They' give nothing away - ever - they just play a longer game to acquiring more assets.
See the bigger picture, and not the details you are told to look at, and then where to focus all your attentions (wasted energies?) on..
...If you're at a poker table and you don't know who the 'donkey' is, it's probably you...
https://steemit.com/blog/@lucylin/session-2-fixing-your-own-mental-illness-know-thyself
Oh, on a total side note - did I mention you've been mentioned in dispatches?
You seem to be the only officer who knows what he's doing.. lol
https://steemit.com/blog/@lucylin/quantico-campaign-underway-kind-of-the-forces-part-1-ulog-4
From my article "How to Avoid Funding the American Deep State":
'In addition to all the closed-source alternatives there are to Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, etc., there's OpenBazaar. It's open source and peer-to-peer, and there are no fees. You can only pay with cryptocurrencies though.
There's also BriskSale.
"We have been considering making BriskSale open-source. There’s a chance we will in the future, but for now it’s private." - Ryan Speier, founder of BriskSale
BriskSale doesn't charge sellers listing or sales fees. You can offer a commission though, in which case BriskSale and BriskSellers will race to find a buyer. But, at the moment, there's a catch:
"To ensure maximum visibility, every item listed on BriskSale is automatically uploaded to the Google Shopping network."
BriskSale pays Google for that, so: https://www.brisksale.com/contact-us'
Yes, the fight must continue! Let's see how many of his employees are actually getting $15 an hour a year from now. Healthcare benefits???
dsfsd
Great article - thank you for calling out greedy billionaires like Jeff Bezos & his poor treatment towards workers whose hard work help his company to be a success.
I wonder if you could take the time to read my article on Seven & her court case win in UK in 2006 against numerous TV networks who stole her Intellectual Property for shows like Strictly Come Dancing, Dancing on Ice, Dancing with the Stars, who've yet to pay her compensation or give her back her Intellectual Property Rights. They have also & still are to this day engaged in acts of terrorising Seven for the last 15 years, attempts on her life because of her landmark court case win.
I would appreciate it if you could report on her case which includes Virgin Media & Richard Branson using stolen money from other people including Seven to buy parts of the NHS and privatise it.
Here is my article on her case: https://steemit.com/strictlycomedancing/@scribendocogito/strictly-secret-the-creation-of-strictly-come-dancing
It's included in the article but here is Seven's court case evidence: http://thefarrellreport.net