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Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

nytimes.com

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Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#81

Post by asdfman123 »

joncrane wrote: post #61
supahfly_remix wrote: post #7

Does the Hasidic community have any advantages in the reseller market? With some of their traditional businesses, such as the diamond trade they do: evaluating gems, connections for sourcing stones, etc.

It's not so much an advantage as a drawback; big families led by people with no formal (in the what society expects sense; Talmudic study is quite formal) education and strict gender roles. They also have to drop everything and pray three times per day so I don't know how well that jives with "normal" career. What I got out of it is they spend a lot of time doing intensive Talmud studies, and perhaps that teaches dis…

Yeah, a lot of people locked out of traditional careers turn to running small businesses. I'm sure it helps though if everyone around you tends to run small businesses as well -- cultural expectations probably push you towards it, and you have a wide support network.

Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#82

Post by toasterlovin »

GhettoMaestro wrote: post #78
CydeWeys wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely. The credit card only charges when it ships.

I never thought about that. I figured Amazon was just being a middle-man for some insane amount of money and making a nice spread off of it.

Amazon seller here. Amazon doesn't make funds available for disbursement until 7 days after delivery. At that point funds are available for disbursement, but they aren't necessarily disbursed. Seller accounts created before 2011 have what are called daily disbursements: the seller has a button they can click once every 24 hours that will disburse all available funds. Most sellers accounts opened since then have bi-weekly disbursements, though, so all available funds get disbursed every 14 days.

Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#83

Post by joecool1029 »

tdfx wrote: post #68
joecool1029 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Understand that the way Buzzfeed covered it obscures the very real fact that there's a huge amount of controversy regarding this specific Satmar Hasidic community. This is not a question of Antisemitism, there have been very real issues directly caused by prominent rabbis within this community. These controversies are known to pretty much anyone in the NY metro area, so it makes sense that the NYTimes (being located…

I think anyone who is not familiar with these particular communities in Lakewood and Brooklyn will see warning flags of anti-semitism in a lot of related comments about them. I would just like to voice some support for the people speaking up about them, because this is not a problem with Jews, or even Orthodox Jews. It is specific to these particular Hasidic communities and the fraud is rampant and expanding.

Thanks, I believe it's really important to call out and charge the leadership inside these communities. They know full well what is and isn't legal. If you shut down discussion on these sorts of issues, I believe you allow for abuses to happen and rage to grow against the larger community who are often innocent.

As others have mentioned, the Hasidic community is an insular community. I have interacted numerous times in business and I've never had an issue professionally. In matters of business they learn how to behave with customers and run things efficiently. It was why, until the discrimination charges were announced, I kept going back to B&H to spend thousands of dollars on gear over the years. When I was a kid I thought of them like Amish, but instead of farming and barn raising they just happened to sell stuff.

Unfortunately, just like other groups that rely on propaganda to hide abuses, the good rabbis inside it that act as whistleblowers end up attacked. This sickening NSFW/NSFL article [1] is about a rabbi inside the community that decided to speak out against child abuse. He was rewarded with chemical burns after bleach was tossed in his face.

[1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qbe8bp/the-child-rape-ass...

Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#84

Post by klank »

ars wrote: post #72
joecool1029 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Understand that the way Buzzfeed covered it obscures the very real fact that there's a huge amount of controversy regarding this specific Satmar Hasidic community. This is not a question of Antisemitism, there have been very real issues directly caused by prominent rabbis within this community. These controversies are known to pretty much anyone in the NY metro area, so it makes sense that the NYTimes (being located…

> this commitment translates into a 28% poverty rate The table used to calculate federal poverty level doesn't scale correctly to high numbers of children. You can make rather a lot of money, yet be considered poor if you have lots of children. Additional children don't cost as much as the federal government thinks.

Can you back that up with some additional data?

According to this: https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/federal-poverty-level-fp...

A family of 8 is under the poverty level if they make less than $43,430. I'd not consider that to be a "rather a lot of money" if raising 8 children is involved.

Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#85

Post by lb1lf »

knicholes wrote: post #35
shoes_for_thee wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That'd be pretty to think so, but the wide majority of the Satmar community lives in poverty and is dependent on government benefits. The tendency towards entrepreneurship -- if there is one -- is more likely to be the result of being unwilling or unable to assimilate into a non-religious society. I can't speak for the LDSs, since I don't know them.

I grew up LDS my whole pre-adult life. There's a big focus on self-reliance. Also, the men are supposed to serve missions for two years (go teach about Jesus and the church). I imagine the skillset required to go door-to-door teaching people about something is very transferrable to other sales, which is very important when being an entrepreneur.

-Just out of curiosity, doesn't that same obligation to serve missions apply to women? I used to live right next to an apartment owned by the Mormon church in a small Norwegian town; on two occasions the missionaries were female.

Oddly enough, the most efficient mission they did (whether they were male or female!) was to simply not make such a big deal of it; being a rather devout Lutheran myself, we quickly agreed there was no need to attempt converting each other - though they were always good conversation partners and with a seemingly genuine desire to be of assistance any way they possibly could.

Apparently, the incoming ones were to an extent briefed on the locals by the departing ones - I had a chuckle being playfully greeted by a new pair of missionaries as "Oh, so you are that stubborn heathen we've been hearing about..."

Missionaries with a well-developed sense of humour.

Brilliant.

Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#86

Post by ghostly_s »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #74

Amazon is great yet I wish there were more sites like Amazon and eBay so healthy competition between them would stimulate further improvement. BTW why people won't use OpenBazaar instead?

> BTW why people won't use OpenBazaar instead?

I strongly dispute your "Amazon is great" statement but I digress. I think I heard about OpenBazaar when it launched but just checked it out again and having no web frontend for a marketplace is total crazysauce. People who are looking to buy something elsewhere from Amazon find those storefronts through search.

Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#88

Post by lazyasciiart »

lb1lf wrote: post #85
knicholes wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up LDS my whole pre-adult life. There's a big focus on self-reliance. Also, the men are supposed to serve missions for two years (go teach about Jesus and the church). I imagine the skillset required to go door-to-door teaching people about something is very transferrable to other sales, which is very important when being an entrepreneur.

-Just out of curiosity, doesn't that same obligation to serve missions apply to women? I used to live right next to an apartment owned by the Mormon church in a small Norwegian town; on two occasions the missionaries were female. Oddly enough, the most efficient mission they did (whether they were male or female!) was to simply not make such a big deal of it; being a rather devout Lutheran myself, we quickly agreed t…

Women aren't required to, but they can choose to.

Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#89

Post by toasterlovin »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #74

Amazon is great yet I wish there were more sites like Amazon and eBay so healthy competition between them would stimulate further improvement. BTW why people won't use OpenBazaar instead?

Buyers go where there are sellers. Sellers go where there are buyers. This is the classic network effect.

Re: Amazon Has Transformed the Hasidic Economy

#90

Post by wbronitsky »

electriclove wrote: post #45
gbear605 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s interesting that a extremely disproportionate number of Orthodox Jews sell on Amazon. The mesh (as opposed to clash) of religion and modern technology and culture makes the article meaningful.

This type of article panders to a couple audiences: - 'Gee, those super religious Jews who I though are technologically deficient.. well they are really quite capable and successful selling on Amazon' - 'Those Jews are making a lot of money selling on Amazon' I have issues with both of those responses

There seem to be quite a few people on this forum that both find this article interesting, and don't fall into the enumerated thought buckets.

I, a Jew, don't think either of those things and do think this article is interesting and has merit.

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