Editorials & Other Articles

Uncle Joe

(58,363 posts) Tue Sep 18, 2018, 02:56 PM Sep 2018

Taibbi: Bernie Sanders' Anti-Amazon Bill Is an Indictment of the Media, Too

(snip)

Sanders has always been intensely interested in the media. I remember years ago, he called a bunch of reporters he knew to his office and essentially chewed us out for not covering issues like income inequality aggressively enough. I left that meeting feeling like I had a D+ report card plastered to my forehead.

(snip)

Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos is worth $160 billion, and, according to one infuriating study, earns the median salary of an Amazon employee every nine seconds. If you go by net worth in stock holdings, Bezos earns about $277 million a day.

(snip)

It is true that there are other ways to address this problem, like raising the minimum wage, enhancing protections for workers trying to unionize, and making better use of anti-trust laws, so that monopolist firms don’t have such an easy time dictating low wages. Sanders is in favor of all of those things, too. A traditional politician would be content to eke out a few victories on those fronts.

(snip)

With respect to Klein, I don’t think he fully grasps the symbolism here, which is intended as an indictment of people like him and me, too. If journalists like us spent less time fawning over people like Bezos and more time drumming up outrage over his exploitative practices, maybe Sanders isn’t sponsoring this bill. But we didn’t, and so here we are. Can we finally start calling these people the names they deserve?

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/bernie-sanders-amazon-bezos-725282/

9 seconds to make the median salary of an Amazon employee!

This is a good read.

6 replies

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Highlight:

Taibbi: Bernie Sanders' Anti-Amazon Bill Is an Indictment of the Media, Too (Original Post) Uncle Joe Sep 2018 OP

They should take a principled stand and refuse to market, sell, and lapucelle Sep 2018 #1

You got to be kidding Gothmog Sep 2018 #2

There is no doubt in my mind that Bezos donated big bucks toward the homeless issue BeckyDem Sep 2018 #3

I agree BeckyDem. Uncle Joe Sep 2018 #5

+1000 Power 2 the People Sep 2018 #6

Typical Taibbi B.S. He doesn't like the opinions of other reports, so that makes it an indictment still_one Sep 2018 #4

lapucelle

(18,265 posts)

1. They should take a principled stand and refuse to market, sell, and

Reply to Uncle Joe (Original post)

Tue Sep 18, 2018, 03:25 PM

Sep 2018

distribute their products via Amazon. Walk the walk, Matt.

Gothmog

(145,275 posts)

2. You got to be kidding

Reply to Uncle Joe (Original post)

Tue Sep 18, 2018, 03:27 PM

Sep 2018

This article was dreck. I still agree with Jared Bernstein over this amusing piece of dreck

BeckyDem

(8,361 posts)

3. There is no doubt in my mind that Bezos donated big bucks toward the homeless issue

Reply to Uncle Joe (Original post)

Tue Sep 18, 2018, 03:32 PM

Sep 2018

recently to get voters seeing him in a better light. He wants more than anything to avoid unions forming, avoid higher taxes for Amazon.

Jeff Bezos ranks last in charitable giving among top 10 billionaires in US
7:53 AM ET Wed, 20 Sept 2017 https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/09/20/jeff-bezos-ranks-last-in-charitable-giving-among-top-10-billionaires-in-us.html

This is in large part to Sanders and Ro Khanna heat, which they're applying exceptionally well!

Uncle Joe

(58,363 posts)

5. I agree BeckyDem.

Reply to BeckyDem (Reply #3)

Tue Sep 18, 2018, 03:44 PM

Sep 2018

Power 2 the People

(2,437 posts)

6. +1000

Reply to BeckyDem (Reply #3)

Tue Sep 18, 2018, 05:11 PM

Sep 2018

still_one

(92,195 posts)

4. Typical Taibbi B.S. He doesn't like the opinions of other reports, so that makes it an indictment

Reply to Uncle Joe (Original post)

Tue Sep 18, 2018, 03:39 PM

Sep 2018

of the Media

How about you Matt when you spewed out not that long ago how it was very likely Russia was highly unlikely not involved in our election, and then started to push the Greenwald McCarthy accusations against poor "mother Russia", where he used as his "evidence", because the U.S. lied about the Iraq, that proves it. It was one of the most convoluted pieces of logic I read at the time. Unlike Greenwald, at least Taibbi has stopped pushing that nonesense.

While there are issues with Bezzo and monopolistic and anti-competitive practices, that isn't what they are going for.

Whether companies with greater than 500 or more employees are paying a fair wage or not, is not as straight forward, or the remedy suggested by this bill.

A software engineer, manager, etc. is not going to make the same salary as someone who works in the warehouse

Amazon pays its warehouse workers an average hourly wage of about $13.50. In addition, its employees get full benefits which include health insurance, and stock awards that add to that base pay. They also offer to reimburse up to 95% of tuition for courses for its workers, whether the courses are relevant to Amazon or not.

Its software engineers make north of 100K.

The argument that the "media is carrying water for Amazon" is false. There were plenty of news outlets arguing that Amazon under pays its employees. CNN was one of them

Probably not oblivious to Taibbi is that Bezzo owns the Washington Post. In fact he not only saved the paper from the financial burdens he has, unlike the murdock, sinclair media which impose their right wing bias, Bezzo's makes it a point to have a hands OFF approach to how the paper is run.

Here is what the WP wrote regarding Amazon's compensation:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/amazon-is-defined-by-billions-median-salary-is-28446-gadfly/2018/04/19/3c51c316-43e8-11e8-b2dc-b0a403e4720a_story.html?utm_term=.3e5a3ede31fb

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