1 out of every 153 American workers is an Amazon employee • Hacker News Board

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

#501

Post by scoopertrooper » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 12:04 PM UTC

anovikov wrote: post #485

goodcanadian wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep saying that but we are no closer than we were 50 years ago. People have been saying it for far longer than 50 years: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite The trouble is, both sides of the argument are correct. When disruption occurs, many people are badly disadvantaged even if society as a whole moves forward. It would be best to find ways to reduce the impact on the affected people without holding up…

And luddites were right because pre-industrial level of worker compensation, in real terms, was only achieved by the early XX century.

Actually compensation for most workers went up dramatically from the outset of the industrial revolution. There just wasn't that much wealth to go around prior to industrialisation.

http://nws-sa.com/rr/Inequality/Lindert.pdf

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

#502

Post by codeddesign » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 12:25 PM UTC

heavyset_go wrote: post #443

kortilla wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're heading towards a world where most work is done by machines, and only a handful of people will own, control and profit from them People keep saying that but we are no closer than we were 50 years ago. A lot of jobs have been replaced but new jobs have been created and society has absorbed the increased productivity (cheaper goods, foods, and much more complex high end goods (iPhone, airplanes, etc).

> A lot of jobs have been replaced but new jobs have been created and society has absorbed the increased productivity. Not in every case. You can look at workers in the Rust Belt. Their well paying jobs with benefits were "replaced" and new jobs never came, unless you think working at Walmart for close to minimum wage is one of those new jobs. Even when, say, manufacturers come back and produce domestically, they've…

I think your source is just bad here. Productivity hasn’t increased, process streamlining has. This is usually thought up, created, and managed by the same higher earners that your “source” is saying is the cause of all of the worlds problems.

With wages the minimum wage in 1980 was $3.10, while the last increase from 2009 rose from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour

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

#503

Post by shawnz » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 1:14 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #475

shawnz wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One upside for companies is that the unions are better able to represent the interests of the employees than, for example, the HR department would be able to, simply because of the incentives at play. This could attract more talent to the company, improve retention, and give the company more insight into the employees' needs.

only in theory. in practice unions become just like other orgs where leaders concentrate power for themselves and fail to represent anyone at all. making the situation worse for the employee and the employees.

If that's the inevitable fate of all orgs then why bother creating any kind of society at all?

I can agree that unions concentrate power in imperfect ways, but personally I still think they are an overall improvement on the non-union status quo.

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

#504

Post by XorNot » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:18 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #488

michaelmrose wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if you tax Bob who makes 24 bucks an hour to feed Sam who is making 12 then Sam is in effect working for below market wages because in a functional market Sam would never work for less money than he required to eat. This arrangement is a transfer of wealth between the middle class and Walmart regardless of whether they opt to shop at Walmart.

In a world where Bob makes $24/hr and Sam doesn’t work (because he won’t take the $12/hr job), Bob’s probably not going to pay less taxes or be better off.

In a world where Walmart didn't post a gross profit of 24.3% for 2020[1], you might have a point.

But in a world where Walmart posted that much profit on it's $559 billion 2020 revenues[2], somehow Walmart is being allowed to tax me, not a Walmart shopper, via my taxes, and transfer it to Walmart's owners and shareholders, by forcing me to pay for part of their employees wages.

Which they clearly have the money to actually pay for.

Unless Walmart is a break-even business, there is no excuse, period, for them to not be paying a living wage and getting sponsored by the government for it.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/269414/gross-profit-marg...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/shelleykohan/2021/02/18/walmart...

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

#505

Post by greedo » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

kevinmchugh wrote: post #181

echelon wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Book stores (which were pretty awesome, actually) - Open source - Concentration of compute resources - American cinema (well, I suppose Disney has a hand in this too)

I don't know that bookstorez are dying, in the US. Amazon killed Borders, sure, and Barnes and Noble isn't as focused on books anymore. But independent bookstores have been doing okay afaict, though having to make changes. Here's data from the American Booksellers Association: https://www.statista.com/statistics/282808/number-of-indepen... It's possible that the bookstores are increasingly in big cities or something,…

I think if you look at the number of bookstores that were in the US before Amazon, and compare that to now, you'll see that they're in a steep decline. Not all of this is due to Amazon, since much of the consolidation was from competition from Borders and B&N. But today's B&N is a far cry from what it used to be, Borders is gone, and Amazon is the 800lb gorilla.

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

#506

Post by e12e » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:37 PM UTC

AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #359

e12e wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not?

Long ago, there were 2 companies - one welcomed unions and the other stopped unions. The one which welcomed unions lost it's profit margin and the other "predatory" company kept it's profit margins and grew more aggressively and put the "good" company out of business. After that entrepreneurs learned that you need to be ruthless to win in capitalism. Don't get me wrong, I support fair wages for all employees, no matt…

I'm not sure GOOGL is any less ruthless, they where certainly not above illegal wage fixing.

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

#507

Post by fakedang » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #364

eplanit wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same feelings. I'm really fine with Amazon -- but I'd be much more fine by seeing them reduced via antitrust actions, with the goal of seeing more competition. First, I'd like to separate AWS from Amazon the Bazaar. It's just too much control over _both_ the Internet (including all other e-commerce) and retail merchandise commerce. It's like they own the railroads, the ports, the trucks, and the stores --…

I understand if we hoped antitrust action on Kindle (since they fought dirty and illegal against Barnes and Noble.) But both AMZN "bazaar" and AWS are novel concepts invented by AMZN, and they have worked really hard to make them reality on such unbelievable scales. Nobody thought of AWS for decades, until AMZN faced the systems problem and came up with cloud computing via AWS. I understand taking action on AMZN acqu…

So what's the damage for AMZN if it were split? The shareholders are going to be massively rewarded by that (including Bezos).

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

#508

Post by sokoloff » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

XorNot wrote: post #504

sokoloff wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a world where Bob makes $24/hr and Sam doesn’t work (because he won’t take the $12/hr job), Bob’s probably not going to pay less taxes or be better off.

In a world where Walmart didn't post a gross profit of 24.3% for 2020[1], you might have a point. But in a world where Walmart posted that much profit on it's $559 billion 2020 revenues[2], somehow Walmart is being allowed to tax me, not a Walmart shopper, via my taxes, and transfer it to Walmart's owners and shareholders, by forcing me to pay for part of their employees wages. Which they clearly have the money to ac…

Gross profit is profit before paying their employees, so saying they have a gross profit percentage of X is certainly not dispositive (and is close to meaningless) in terms of supporting whether they could pay their employees more than currently.

You need to look at an operating income figure to make such a conclusion. (Or another financial measure that’s “after” labor, but OI is probably the standard one.)

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

#509

Post by gruez » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

XorNot wrote: post #504

sokoloff wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a world where Bob makes $24/hr and Sam doesn’t work (because he won’t take the $12/hr job), Bob’s probably not going to pay less taxes or be better off.

In a world where Walmart didn't post a gross profit of 24.3% for 2020[1], you might have a point. But in a world where Walmart posted that much profit on it's $559 billion 2020 revenues[2], somehow Walmart is being allowed to tax me, not a Walmart shopper, via my taxes, and transfer it to Walmart's owners and shareholders, by forcing me to pay for part of their employees wages. Which they clearly have the money to ac…

>somehow Walmart is being allowed to tax me, not a Walmart shopper, via my taxes, and transfer it to Walmart's owners and shareholders, by forcing me to pay for part of their employees wages.

How is it a transfer to walmart? The people who get paid the benefit are eligible for it regardless of whether they're employed by walmart or not. Suppose walmart automated their jobs and replaced them with robots, you'll still be on the hook for paying those benefits.

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

#510

Post by annoyingnoob » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #392

annoyingnoob wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is putting in a new warehouse near where I live. They bought up farm land and are converting into a crazy large building that spans the distance between to major roads. Its going to impact traffic on both of those roads, construction already has. We'll probably need a bigger bridge on one of those roads too. It will also have a huge parking lot for the people that will work there. This building is bigger than…

>Its going to impact traffic on both of those roads, construction already has. You think that big box stores and/or malls don't impact traffic on nearby roads?

Right, so how is the Amazon warehouse better?