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1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

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Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're comparing apples to oranges. Would you be able to buy a couch on Amazon? The #1 bestseller on Amazon currently says "Currently unavailable. We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock." so it doesn't work here the same way other retailers don't work. So you're saying you can't get a passport from the government but you're able to buy certain things on Amazon therefore Amazon is better?

Having had to get a passport recently, yes. At least better in the sense that you are actually receiving a service you've paid for. It is virtually impossible to get an appointment at the passport office in the US right now. Not a local passport office, ANY passport office. There were people outside the one I went to offering a Nintendo Switch to people to trade for a time slot. The shortest wait time I had on the ph…

I'm not sure what you are arguing here. You can buy things on Amazon but it's difficult to get a Passport right now. How is one thing related to the other?

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#42
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"1 in Y" is simpler than "X in 100". 100 introduces an irrelevant big number.

I think OP's intuition is probably wrong and that "1 in Y" is more effective than "X%". That being said, it is tricky to move the adjustment between the numerator and denominator, and there are cases where this choice can be key -- "25 miles per gallon" is indeed a far worse metric to use than "4 gallons per 100 miles".

It isn't if you know the capacity of your tank in gallons, and want to know how far you can drive on average before refilling it.

Or if you know the price of gasoline, and want to know how far you can drive for some amount of money.

In fact I'm struggling to come up with practical circumstances where gallons per 100 miles is what I'd want to know, could you explain why that seems better to you?

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#43

Now do it for: * US DoD * Walmart * McDonalds * USPS

Walmart, which has a presence in communities of all shapes and sizes, is the largest private employer in the nation with 1.5 million workers. Yet the number of Americans who rely on the corporate giant for their livelihoods is dwarfed by the number who rely on the federal government for their paychecks. The federal government employs nearly 9.1 million workers, comprising nearly 6 percent of total employment in the U…

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Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#44

Now do it for: * US DoD * Walmart * McDonalds * USPS

> While it's possible that more people work at a McDonald's than either Amazon or Walmart — the fast-food brand estimates more than 2 million globally — the company primarily operates on a franchise model, so it directly employs less than 50,000 in the US.

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#46

Rant time.... ;-) What's with these stupid "X in Y" numeric expressions that the dumb media insist on continuing to heap on the world ? Why not consistently use a standardised means of comparison. Like, I don't know .... percent. Or "X in 100" if you think your newspaper/blog/website readership are too dumb to know what the % symbol means. The clue's in the name FFS ... per... cent ... that's what its there for !

X in is just the inverse of in X. Each is appropriate at different times. 0.0004 is the same as 1 in 2500. I feel like 1 in 2500 is more intuitive, and that's generally the case for rare events, because it is oriented around answering the question "how rare is this?"

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#47
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't basically everyone an employee of one "company" in communist countries?

No, most “communist” countries (and I use the term loosely because really they were just state capitalist) owned many different companies, rather than being part of one mega government corporation.

Isn’t that like treating the divisions of a company separate?

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#48
Also consider that quite a lot of people work within Amazon's greater sphere, with degrees of dependence ranging from significant to absolute. Eg all the people employed in parts of the ecommerce industry where amazon wields most of the power. AWSland. Etc.

Since everyone is using government works as the comparison, government employees + government contractors, and those in the government contracting sphere.

so, yeah... they're big. At the very least, amazon jobs are now a standard of sorts. What they do and/or don't do as an employer is what's normal.

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With automation, they may not manage anybody anymore, just machinery.

Eventually, we'll need philosophers to sort it all out.

Luckily, there is no shortage of philosophers, especially on the internet.

Re: 1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee

#50

Also consider that quite a lot of people work within Amazon's greater sphere, with degrees of dependence ranging from significant to absolute. Eg all the people employed in parts of the ecommerce industry where amazon wields most of the power. AWSland. Etc. Since everyone is using government works as the comparison, government employees + government contractors, and those in the government contracting sphere. so, yea…

If you work in the book world, in a ton of small businesses that sell through or buy from amazon, they are a monster. Their delivery drivers seem to be everywhere these days (we have I think two deliveries per day in my area - one pass is as late as like 10PM - not your parents USPS).
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