What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks? • Hacker News Board

Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?

#281

Post by gruez » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 9:52 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #261

gruez wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Picking on Amazon for a moment, their original "innovation" was a sales and use tax dodge: based in Washington, they were able to sell books to California without having to charge the relevant sales tax upfront. That margin gave huge room to provide free shipping and other customer conveniences. Sales tax in california was 7.25%. While not having to charge tax was a competitive advantage, I'm skeptical that was the…

> Finally, the exemption isn't limited to e-commerce sites. It isn't really an exemption, anyway, it is a limitation under then-existing federal law on the power of states to impose taxes. > According to wikipedia, it includes "companies doing mail order, online shopping, and home shopping by phone". That's misleading. What it actually applied to, at the time, was companies without physical presence in the state into…

1. What changed with the internet? When amazon was started in the 90s, was the ubiquity of computer+internet access anywhere close to the ubiquity of the sears catalog?

2. I'm not really convinced that "the sales tax hack wasn't worthwhile". How expensive would it be to spin off your mail order division? Lawyers might be expensive, but 7.25% of your revenue is also a lot of money.

Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?

#282

Post by JumpCrisscross » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 9:52 PM UTC

WJW wrote: post #213

patrickyeon wrote: post #83

> Only founder led companies and family owned businesses can stand up to the immense pressure from the dogmas of modern finance. How about worker-owned companies, co-operatives, and collectives? I totally agree the problem is that with the finance people steering the ship there's incentives to push up your short-term performance and collect bonuses and watch your publically-traded stock value go up. So don't go publi…

The fact that there are so few of these types of company around probably means that they have trouble surviving in a world where the competition is supported by modern finance.

> they have trouble surviving in a world where the competition is supported by modern finance

The problem with coöperatives is longevity. We have white-collar coöps of sorts: partnerships. They tend to disintegrate after a generation or become quasi-corporations over time because immortal entities can make plans and promises on time scales that ones that grow old and change priorities and die can't.

Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?

#283

Post by throw0101a » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 9:54 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #205

ladyattis wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, the capital owning class just doesn't care if their businesses go into shock because they already have their cash in hand. They'll never go back to pre-ROE days because they'd have to live with less money and worse less control. While they still have personal reserves in the billions they can decide the fate of their ventures but if say 20% of their current cash was on the balance sheets of corporations with boa…

>Yep, the capital owning class just doesn't care if their businesses go into shock because they already have their cash in hand. You do realize when we talk about jeff bezos being a billionaire, it doesn't mean he has his billions in gold/cash in a vault somewhere? The overwhelming majority of his wealth is tied in various financial assets (eg. equities) that certainly do get affected when "businesses go into shock".…

> The overwhelming majority of his wealth is tied in various financial assets (eg. equities)

When the DotCom Bubble burst AMZN's stock when down 90%:

* https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/18/dotcom-bubble-amazon-stock-l...

He didn't seem to freak out then and kept chugging along.

Short of the (zombie) apocalypse happening, I doubt it will ever drop that much again, and so I doubt Bezos would care about any kind of draw down that could realistically happen.

Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?

#284

Post by wavefunction » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 9:54 PM UTC

darawk wrote: post #269

revolvingocelot wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's still in his best interest to ensure that the economy doesn't crash Technically, yeah! Functionally, though, if the Even Greater Depression arrived tomorrow? He'd still be the richest man alive, and probably even more powerful than he already is right now thanks to how Amazon and AWS would get to take over more failing social institutions. Sure, a falling tide lowers all boats, but Bezos will still comfortably…

None of this is the point, though. The point is that Amazon wouldn't have achieved what it has if Bezos was forced to slowly divest control of his company over the last two decades. Bezos does not have his cash in hand, for the most part. To the extent that he does have cash in hand, he has already paid taxes on that cash. To the extent that he has not paid taxes on his wealth, he is fully incentivized by the share p…

>The point is that Amazon wouldn't have achieved what it has

Sounds good to me.

Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?

#285

Post by xyzzyz » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 9:55 PM UTC

Swenrekcah wrote: post #271

xyzzyz wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they are “massive” by normal people’s standard, but they are usually minuscule relative to their equity holdings.

Which is kind of to the point, they have more money on hand than a small country’s budget and even if they lose it all it almost doesn’t make a dent in their net worth. In this situation it is almost reasonable to want a small crisis to shake out your upcoming competitors and buy some more land or other things of real value at a discount.

> Which is kind of to the point, they have more money on hand than a small country’s budget

They don’t, though, that’s the entire point.

> and even if they lose it all it almost doesn’t make a dent in their net worth. > In this situation it is almost reasonable to want a small crisis to shake out your upcoming competitors and buy some more land or other things of real value at a discount.

A small crisis will in fact not cause them to lose significant amount of cash, but will cause them to lose significant amount of their net worth. Nobody wants that.

Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?

#286

Post by throw0101a » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 9:57 PM UTC

darawk wrote: post #269

revolvingocelot wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's still in his best interest to ensure that the economy doesn't crash Technically, yeah! Functionally, though, if the Even Greater Depression arrived tomorrow? He'd still be the richest man alive, and probably even more powerful than he already is right now thanks to how Amazon and AWS would get to take over more failing social institutions. Sure, a falling tide lowers all boats, but Bezos will still comfortably…

None of this is the point, though. The point is that Amazon wouldn't have achieved what it has if Bezos was forced to slowly divest control of his company over the last two decades. Bezos does not have his cash in hand, for the most part. To the extent that he does have cash in hand, he has already paid taxes on that cash. To the extent that he has not paid taxes on his wealth, he is fully incentivized by the share p…

> Bezos does not have his cash in hand, for the most part. To the extent that he does have cash in hand, he has already paid taxes on that cash.

What a lot of high wealthy individuals are doing is using their portfolios as collateral against lines of credit. The LOCs give them cash to fund their lifestyle, and they don't have to liquidate their portfolios and take the capital gains charges (at least in the short-term).

Someone can have both holdings and cash in this situation.

This has been possible lately because rates are so low, so the interest doesn't cost borrowers that much.

Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?

#287

Post by ethbr0 » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 9:58 PM UTC

revolvingocelot wrote: post #255

gruez wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yep, the capital owning class just doesn't care if their businesses go into shock because they already have their cash in hand. You do realize when we talk about jeff bezos being a billionaire, it doesn't mean he has his billions in gold/cash in a vault somewhere? The overwhelming majority of his wealth is tied in various financial assets (eg. equities) that certainly do get affected when "businesses go into shock".…

>it's still in his best interest to ensure that the economy doesn't crash Technically, yeah! Functionally, though, if the Even Greater Depression arrived tomorrow? He'd still be the richest man alive, and probably even more powerful than he already is right now thanks to how Amazon and AWS would get to take over more failing social institutions. Sure, a falling tide lowers all boats, but Bezos will still comfortably…

> He'd still be the richest man alive, and probably even more powerful than he already is right now thanks to how Amazon and AWS would get to take over more failing social institutions.

Bezos isn't even the richest person alive today. That would be Musk.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/elon-musk-is-now-n...

Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?

#288

Post by Swenrekcah » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 9:58 PM UTC

tharkun__ wrote: post #277

Swenrekcah wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relatively little can apparently be $10B: “ In 2014, for example, Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison disclosed he had used 250 million of his Oracle shares as collateral to secure a $9.7 billion personal line of credit.” Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/american-billionaires-tax-av...

I would not call that 'cash in hand'. I get why you see it that way but to compare it to the little guy: A credit card with a $5000 limit is not $5000 cash in hand. It's a 'line of credit' for $5000 and whether I actually have the cash to pay that back is a different story. I might actually have $0 cash in hand to pay that back and many people don't until their next paycheck arrives. Any guesses how far the Oracle sh…

It is true that it’s not cash in the wallet but it’s there available if you want it. It is in no way comparable to paycheck to paycheck living.

This practice also comes with all sorts of tax benefits as well.

If they really need to pay some of it back then the company might decide to buy back some shares.

And realistically, like the old adage says: If you owe the bank $1M it owns you, if you owe the bank $1B you own the bank.

Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?

#289

Post by zamadatix » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 10:01 PM UTC

allturtles wrote: post #128

zamadatix wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking about it from the perspective of someone who thinks the shutdowns were net good but reviewing the comment in good faith: Lessened demand in large sections of the economy can itself create shortages in the parts that take on the load or at least stress on the supply chain to redirect to those places now in extreme demand. Take restaurants for example, people didn't stop eating but vast swaths of food supply c…

Much of the problem with understanding what GP means is that 'the shutdowns' is a very hazy term. Implicit in the comment seems to be the idea that there was some small set of authority figures who decided to shut down the global economy and if only they hadn't done that things would be better. e.g., The induced demand from work from home you mention I wouldn't count as part of any 'shutdown' at all. It has been larg…

I'm not sure the comment is implicit of who did the shutdowns but even taking it as so the widget orders by the 10s of thousands I referenced were mostly public school systems receiving mandates and associated COVID relief funding to compl,y not private enterprises. Particularly younger grades weren't normally assigned personal hardware and not every child had internet access at home. Though like you say the private sector remote work shift certainly happened too and exacerbated the ordering situation.

Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?

#290

Post by xyzzyz » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 10:01 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #284

darawk wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this is the point, though. The point is that Amazon wouldn't have achieved what it has if Bezos was forced to slowly divest control of his company over the last two decades. Bezos does not have his cash in hand, for the most part. To the extent that he does have cash in hand, he has already paid taxes on that cash. To the extent that he has not paid taxes on his wealth, he is fully incentivized by the share p…

>The point is that Amazon wouldn't have achieved what it has Sounds good to me.

Fortunately, you don’t get to decide that. Contrary to popular sentiment on HN, Amazon is one of the most favorably perceived brand by Americans, ranked top 4 in 2020. When you go against Amazon, you go against something that Americans like more than Netflix.