To think Amazon is the future and should be bought by the state

[GoldfishParade]

This isnt meant to be a polarising discussion, more a debate. Theres lots of talk about supporting local businesses and not "feeding" Amazon. But in addition to the obvious advantages Amazon brings for people on low income, people living remotely, people who struggle to get out, doesnt Amazon also serve as a platform for small businesses to sell their stuff?

Instead of fighting Amazon, shouldn't we be embracing it as the future of retail, and instead think about how our high streets can be revolutionised to move away from retail and to be more about services and community spaces?

I even think Amazon should be franchised out to states so it becomes a public service. Or maybe ambitious states could copy Amazon's model and get rid of the post office and replace it with a kind of post office/Amazon hybrid.

I just cant help but think with shop owners that although I feel upset for them that they are struggling, we do also have to move with the times: and the times want 24h delivery and huge choice.

Maybe the old high street is dead and instead of trying to fight off the inevitable we should be looking at creative ways of bringing the high street back to life which totally break away from the old shop-focused model.

What do you think?

Sorry but I do wish it all into private hands. I think that the poorest should get it free though and the rest of us need insurance.

The NHS “lost” my mum’s cancer diagnosis due to crap systems. Social “care” received by my father in law is unspeakably appalling. It’s all broken and the sooner we admit it, rather than worshipping broken systems, the sooner we can fix it. We worship broken systems mistakenly in our effort to commend staff. But guess what: the NHS is shitting on doctors as well as killing patients. Education systems shit on teachers. We need to wake up. We won’t though, we’ll just keep drawing rainbows.

Amazon is bloody brilliant, why would you want to give it to the government so that they could fuck it up? Daft idea.

The future of Amazon is almost completely automated “fulfilment centres.” They won’t really need to employ any humans.

I don’t particularly like Jeff Bezos as where ever I have seen him interviewed he comes across as a twat. But I do respect what he has done. Don’t forget he is entirely self made having started amazon in his garage selling books.

Maybe he could pay more taxes but to which country or state?. He uses the tax laws to his advantage as all businesses do. Yes he employs a lot of low paid workers but then high street retail rarely pays over minimum wage and I don’t see anyone getting upset that Doris on till number 9 has to rely on tax credits to top up her wage.
Needing permission to leave your station/till/door is pretty standard in the service/retail industry as these posts can’t be left unmanned. You should read the posts on my nextdoor site when someone has to wait in Wilko as no one is manning the lottery ticket till.

So no I don’t think amazon should be state run for the great good. And even if by some really draconian laws were in place which forced Bezos to sell which state gets it? Amazon is a multi national so do we just get the uk bit or are we buying the lot?

@Daisymaze - I used to work in international tax. There are lots of uk tax provisions (eg BEPS) which prevents apportioning profits to a jurisdiction where they are not made. It’s a total myth that international companies are able to do this to any degree in the modern taxation environment.

What do you mean that the law hasn’t caught up with e-commerce? There are absolutely loads of taxation rules aimed at online businesses. What do you want to see changed? Please be specific.

@thedevilinablackdress - you “don’t know why HMRC haven’t enforced the law?” HMRC do enforce the law usually and you have no evidence at all that there has been any breach of the law by Amazon. So maybe you’re just incorrect that Amazon don’t pay their taxes. Particularly as tax computations of businesses in the U.K. are between them and HMRC and are not public.

@Proudboomer - Jeff bezos only owns about 10% of Amazon.

The topic aside, some of the posters have a worryingly poor grasp of facts as well and economic and financial principles.
Profits are paid on profit, not revenues, it you generate a billion in sales, spend the billion on buying more stuff for your business, what would you pay tax on.
Bezos owns only 13% of Amazon, you all own part of the rest of it - through your pension fund.
The point about toilet beams has been done to death - same in all retail work.
Amazon hourly pay is higher than almost all retail jobs, are those employers not worthy of your outrage?
As others have said, small businesses can thrive much easier on Amazon than they ever could on the high street.
Finally, small businesses don’t have a right to exist. If Tracy is baking cookies in her kitchen and only hand delivering them within a 5 mile radius, comes to MN to moan and when a customer asks for a refund for late delivery or poor product, refuses to work past 5pm or deliver on a weekend, then don’t be surprised that her business model won’t survive very long.

@Whatisapension

Public sector organizations are riddled with inefficiency, politics, entitled attitudes, fear of change, heirarchy, pointless posturing, the list goes on

I work in public sector procurement, and this resonates with me. If there’s a way to over complicate, slow down the process, waste resources and avoid changing for the better, public sector will do it.

What we should do is have business taxes that are based on turnover, not the legal fiction of business rates and corporation tax that can be dodged by transnational companies. There should also be stricter rules on delivery drivers so they are paid a real living wage and so the cost of delivery is transparent.

[quote CayrolBaaaskin]@Proudboomer - Jeff bezos only owns about 10% of Amazon.[/quote]
10% of a company worth billions and he is still the largest shareholder.
It is his concept that he started. There are many articles online that explain how amazon is structured so I won’t bother linking to them as anyone interested can google.

It would be a good idea IF the state could make sure workers had rights , they paid their taxes and the whole thing was just run efficiently and most of all treat people as human beings with bonuses each year and facilitates such as toilets etc they could access whoever they needed to etc.
It could become a sort of public service that worked for and with the community and not just for the CEOs or whoever else gets the money they make. It could work well.
None of this will happen though of course , but it's a nice idea and I can see why people use them as it serves a need and they do deliver on time.
It's just a shame the employees are treated so appallingly.

If this happens, how long before I get my check and how will the amount I'm owed be calculated?

I support local, independent shops. I am lucky enough to earn enough to choose where I spend my money, and I choose to pay more to give it to people who value their communities and give something back. I like shops with individuality, personality, some sort of quality control. I like shops that value their staff, suppliers and customers, oh and pay their fair share of tax.

Amazon is just a soulless selling platform designed to make Bezos as much money as possible. It is riddled with totally crap, and sometimes fake, products. They have no social or environmental conscience. Their range is not curated in any way and often stock dangerous and illegal products. They just want you to buy as much crap as possible and think you're lucky to get it so quickly and so cheaply. If it's the future, it's a bleak future we have ahead of us. As a nation we've been conditioned to just buy, buy, buy, without thinking about the wider cost, and we're much poorer because of it.

The idea of having IT infrastructure - the platform for small businesses - in the public domain is absolutely sound. It's something I've been arguing for years. It's something that a lot of IT specialists have been moving towards for years and are starting to call for. However just a slight gesture towards it, towards state-provided broadband infrastructure, from the only real Labour party we had for years is still being mocked.

The UK has moved far too far to the right now to even remember the principle that essential infrastructure is always better off in the public domain: and too scared of and uninterested in IT to recognise that it is no different from requiring transport, such as motorways and railway tracks, or other communications such as telephone wires, to be in the public domain. Without a public domain we're just another 3rd world dump and tinpot dictatorship.

Not every amazon warehouse picker/packer thinks they are being exploited.
We have a Amazon Warehouse not far from me. I know several people who work there. Starting pay is over £10 per hour, overtime can be as much as £20 per hour for unsocial shifts. All way above local retail rates.

The idea of having IT infrastructure - the platform for small businesses - in the public domain is absolutely sound.

There’s absolutely nothing stopping the government from building one of their own - and they’ve all that tax payer money to play with.

But we all know that if they did, it would have a fraction of the useability of Amazon’s.

@PorridgeOaf

I support local, independent shops. I am lucky enough to earn enough to choose where I spend my money, and I choose to pay more to give it to people who value their communities and give something back. I like shops with individuality, personality, some sort of quality control. I like shops that value their staff, suppliers and customers, oh and pay their fair share of tax.

Amazon is just a soulless selling platform designed to make Bezos as much money as possible. It is riddled with totally crap, and sometimes fake, products. They have no social or environmental conscience. Their range is not curated in any way and often stock dangerous and illegal products. They just want you to buy as much crap as possible and think you're lucky to get it so quickly and so cheaply. If it's the future, it's a bleak future we have ahead of us. As a nation we've been conditioned to just buy, buy, buy, without thinking about the wider cost, and we're much poorer because of it.

You do realise that "local, independent shops" also sell via Amazon?

You do realise that "local, independent shops" can also indulge in tax evasion, such as not declaring all their takings, not paying their staff via payroll, pretending turnover is less to avoid VAT registration etc??

The topic aside, some of the posters have a worryingly poor grasp of facts as well and economic and financial principles.

Well quite. The thing that surprises me the most is what people think Bezos’ motivation in selling it would be?

Or do they think it should be ‘seized’ in a left wing coup style manoeuvre?

This

They just want you to buy as much crap as possible and think you're lucky to get it so quickly and so cheaply.

Well yes, that is capitalism.

It’s what your much vaunted local shops are doing too.

Amazon’s defining feature is being very good at it.

It would now, in the context of a society that wants a two-level system of the most basic services for the poor and everything else paid for. We still have motorways that are paid for by the state. We used to have a telephone system that worked, for everyone. We used to have a postal system - that's probably the best equivalent - that worked for everyone no matter where they were in the country. We used to have an NHS system that worked. Now all these things have been run down in the name of privatisation, and that is where the decline in quality stems back to.

All of our taxes? How much of our taxes have gone straight back into the private purses, via tax breaks for rich companies, housing benefit paid to private landlords, utilities and bus companies all put back into private hands, train companies put into private hands, bailouts for the banks? Private companies in Britain = private profit, public losses. It's been impoverishing the state as a whole for years and now there really isn't much left.

@nosswith

What we should do is have business taxes that are based on turnover, not the legal fiction of business rates and corporation tax that can be dodged by transnational companies. There should also be stricter rules on delivery drivers so they are paid a real living wage and so the cost of delivery is transparent.

Ridiculous idea. Profit margins/mark ups are different for each type of product. The cost of an item of clothing could be £10 with a selling price of £100 but the cost of a DVD could be £9 that's sold for £10. A tax based on turnover alone would cause massive inflation on low value/low profit goods.

What we have is a hybrid. We have VAT which is a turnover tax, AND corporation tax, a tax on profits, AND payroll taxes, a tax on wages, etc.

We used to have a telephone system that worked, for everyone.

No, we really didn't. I remember the old BT (ex Post Office Telecommunications) where you had to wait several months for them to deem you worthy of allowing you to have a phone, and of course, you had to rent one of their phones, the only choice being which colour of bakelite you wanted.

The telephone system that actually worked was when everyone had to use kiosks on street corners. If one was out of order or had a queue, you'd just walk to the next one on the next street corner!

I understand what people are saying, but this of course depends on Amazon management wanting to 'sell to the state'. The state cannot force someone to sell their business just because it's successful, surely?

@MayYouLiveInInterestingTimes

It would now, in the context of a society that wants a two-level system of the most basic services for the poor and everything else paid for. We still have motorways that are paid for by the state. We used to have a telephone system that worked, for everyone. We used to have a postal system - that's probably the best equivalent - that worked for everyone no matter where they were in the country. We used to have an NHS system that worked. Now all these things have been run down in the name of privatisation, and that is where the decline in quality stems back to.

All of our taxes? How much of our taxes have gone straight back into the private purses, via tax breaks for rich companies, housing benefit paid to private landlords, utilities and bus companies all put back into private hands, train companies put into private hands, bailouts for the banks? Private companies in Britain = private profit, public losses. It's been impoverishing the state as a whole for years and now there really isn't much left.

So many words, so little fact or meaning.