Why Does Amazon Get Corporate Welfare?
Published on
Wednesday, November 01, 2017
by
Creators.com
Why Does Amazon Get Corporate Welfare?
Not satisfied with just taking your money, Bezos is coming after your tax
dollars as well.
by
Jim Hightower
"Uber-rich Amazon doesn't need and certainly doesn't deserve this giveaway,
but officials in 238 cities have prostrated themselves in front of the
welfare queen in an embarrassing bid to win her nod."
Canonicalized/flickr/cc)
Jeffrey Preston Bezos is the man of unbounded ambition who founded Amazon,
the online retailing colossus that trumpets itself as "Earth's most
customer-centric company." He's considered a model of tech wizardry for
having totally reinvented retail marketing for our smart-phone,
globally-linked age. Amazon peddles a cornucopia of goods through a
convenient "1-click" ordering system, rapidly delivering the goods right to
your doorstep.
No one has imagined corporate domination more expansively nor pushed it
harder or further than Bezos, and his Amazon stands today as the most
advanced and the most ambitious model of a future under oligarchic control,
including control of markets, work, information, consumerism, media and
beyond. He doesn't merely see himself remaking commerce with his vast
electronic networks, algorithms and metrics - but rebooting America itself,
including changing our society's concept of a job, the definition of
community, and even our basic values of fairness and justice. It amounts to
a breathtaking aspiration to transform our culture's democratic paradigm
into a corporate imperium, led by Amazon.
Amazon's most recent announcement is that it wants to get inside your home -
and, ironically, it's using "security" as its rationale. Rather than Amazon
leaving products you order on your doorstep, the corporation wants a key to
unlock your door so its delivery crews can do you the favor of placing the
products you order inside your abode.
Would you give your house key to a complete stranger, letting that person -
whose name you don't even know - walk right into your home when you're not
there? What could possibly go wrong with that? Other than your being robbed,
of course, either by rogue Amazon employees or by hackers who will certainly
gain access to the corporation's computerized key codes. Or maybe "Crusher,"
your Pitbull, mauls the Amazon intruder and you get sued.
Need I mention that Bezos expects you to pay for the privilege of having his
employees enter your home? First, his dicey, open-sesame program, which he
calls "Amazon Key," is available only to customers who shell out $99 a year
to be "Amazon Prime" members.
Second, you must buy a special internet-unlocking gizmo and a particular
camera to join his corporate key club. And guess where you must go to buy
this entry technology? Yes, Amazon - where prices for the system start at
$250.
What a deal! For Amazon, that is. Bezos' real goal (indeed, his only goal,
always) is not to get inside your home, but inside your wallet.
Not satisfied with just taking your money, Bezos is coming after your tax
dollars as well.
Many politicians across the country piously rant against giving a few bucks
worth of jobless benefits to the needy, then turn around and shove billions
of our tax dollars into corporate welfare for the greedy!
And with Amazon, here we go again. We're presently witnessing the most
disgusting spectacle yet of the politico-corporate cabal extracting money
from the People's wallets to enrich themselves. The $136-billion-a-year
internet colossus, has haughtily generated a shameful public bidding war
over the location of its new corporate headquarters. The "winner"
essentially will be the city and state that offers the most bribe money from
their treasury.
Uber-rich Amazon doesn't need and certainly doesn't deserve this giveaway,
but officials in 238 cities have prostrated themselves in front of the
welfare queen in an embarrassing bid to win her nod. In fact, their offers
have been based on Amazon's very specific demands, including a
"business-friendly environment and tax structure," plus free land, payment
of its capital and operational costs, tax breaks, relocation grants for
executives and workforce, reduced utility bills and construction fees and...
oh yeah, also give us first-rate schools and an educated labor pool.
As one analyst of Amazon's one-sided scams noted, "these incentives aren't
free. There's no fairy godmother paying for them." The usual result of
corporate giveaways is that the public cost exceeds any benefits we get
back. Ironically, by demanding such corporate spoils, Amazon brands itself a
common thief, stealing public trust in the fairness of the system and
widening inequality in our society.
C 2015 Creators Syndicate
Jim Hightower
Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and
author of the book, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With
The Flow. Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on
behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families,
environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.
