Funny the impact our toy president is having on jobsâŚ
âWe worked as hard and as long as we could to turn over every rock,â Brandon told employees. He put much of the blame on its woes on the media, saying negative stories about the companyâs prospects scared customers and vendors.
Yes, no doubt it is the mediaâs fault that Brandon led his company into bankruptcy. Do we need to even ask about Brandonâs political leaning?
Bain Capital, Willard âMittâ Romneyâs old buddiesâhonestly, Mitt hates dogs, children and workersâperfect senatorial candidate for Utah.
Meh. This is a longer term trend that isnât affected much by who is in the WH. Retail is collapsing in this country. Which is a huge problem.
One of the main concerns in the City Council election I just ran, is what to do about the local mall, which is basically a ghost town, and has been for years (and steadily getting worse). The reality is, there isnât much that can be done if it stays a mall. They have lost two big anchors, have no replacements on the horizon. The food court has more shuttered businesses than open ones.
Honestly, the fact that Toys âĐŻâ Us survived for nearly a full decade past the great recession is kind of shocking to me. David Brandon is an incompetent toad, but I donât think Christ Himself could have kept the company afloat.
This is a tale of two Minecrafts. The video game is going strong, the Chinamade plastic âMinecraftâ shit sold at Toys R Us would break on the car ride home from the store. Canât say Iâm sorry to see the store go.
Back in the old days, we would learn about toys through the Sears catalog. Now kids watch toy reviews on you tube, which gives you a much greater feel for what the toy is about. At Christmastime, we order much of our toys through Amazon because of this. Thereâs no need for a toy store.
However, it isnât all about Amazon. They need to keep up with the times and branch out a bit. They need to improve their electronics selection and their outdoor toy/sports department. Also, our local store is pretty dingy. I can think of ten ways to improve the âshopping experienceâ at my local store, but it would involve investment and would leave less money for the shareholders. And we all know THAT is the purpose of not just Toys R Us, but lots of other businesses as well.
Yep, first book stores, then electronic stores, now toy stores. Bummer though. One thing I knowâŚI will never go the route of buying my groceries online. Maybe some obscure condimentâŚbut thatâs it.
I notice some real estate at the malls around me are now having stores that made themselves big online, now becoming bricks and mortar entities. Thatâs also a weird transition happening. Its like a double reverse.
Part of the problem we are having, is that malls still charge outrageous rents. So nobody is interested in moving in, especially because there is literally no foot traffic anymore to justify higher rents.
Mitt Romney destroys everything he touches.
When state law in MI changed the tax thingy regarding Amazon and other online businesses, I think it did have some effect on how Amazon got away with the no tax thing. For so long, Amazon got away with an un-level playing field. Not anymore. Had they and other states done this sooner, I think a lot of those bricks and mortar places may have survived. I hated when MI changed its law because it added to the purchase obviously, but its probably for the better as it adds revenues that otherwise wouldnât have happened. Unfortunately, I had to be made to pay for those taxes I would have ignored otherwise.
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/michigan-internet-sales-tax.html
Not a problem to Jeff Bezos. His wealth increased by about 50 billion from last year. Last I looked on March 6th, he was worth 127 billion. Forbes had him worth about 70 billion on their list last year. He is now the richest person in the world by a healthy margin. We will never see an article critical of Amazon in the Washington Post. I will never pay to read his paper. He wants to dominate everything. He is looking into supplying drug prescriptions now. He owns the biggest online retailer for books, he is into movie streaming and has his eye on Netflix. He bought whole Foods and sells just about anything you could want to buy on Amazon.
I remember reading this article in Mother Jones back in 2012: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave â Mother Jones
He started paying better wages now and is collecting sales tax in most states, but he fought the sales tax tooth and nail. He still goes to great lengths to avoid paying corporate taxes in the US and UK.
As far as charity goes, he is one of the cheapest. I will occasionally order books I canât get from the library from Amazon, but Iâm pretty much done with ordering anything else. He sells the book reader to sell more books via Amazon. He is entering the smartphone business, his phone will make shopping on Amazon so much easier.
Do you think the stores were the problem?
Same stores in every mall in the country and only 10 miles or so from each other.
Genius at work.
Also, I was listening to MI Public Radio the other day and they were talking about the Amazon operation lottery of where it still wants to put a corporate office. Funny thing is that MI was ruled out but in getting that information for Grand Rapids and Detroit, both municipalities were forced to have Non-disclosure agreements in the works to avoid any FOIA requests by any public interested parties. It was a weird discussion of how NDAs are being used to thwart FOIA requests now with regards to businessesâŚand protected their bottom line over the publicâs interest to know how these deals are being made. Most of it has to do with tax forgiveness (abatement) which is huge. The amount offered by these municipalities without any public input was astonishing. Multi-millions in tax breaks offered to get an Amazon corporate building and no one is supposed to know?? Outrageous.
As soon as I read the paragraph about how Bain and other vulture capitalists saddled them with inescapable debt, I knew how this happened. Itâs just a repeat of thousands of companies around the world sucked dry by venture capitalists who collect their fees and disappear when everything collapses.
We subsidize free shipping by Amazon. For every package the USPS delivers for Amazon, they lose $1.46:
I couldnât believe my eyes the other day when I saw a USPS truck pull up last Sunday to deliver an Amazon package to my neighborâs front door. Iâd never seen that from the post office on a Sunday. Nothing is sacred anymore. Whatâs next? Delivering for Amazon on Labor Day?
I miss record stores.