Only six months behind schedule... thus far

 

Looking to hire 30,000, Amazon plans nationwide job fairs

https://www.yahoo.com/now/fill-30-000-jobs-amazon-101547388.html

https://www.geekwire.com/2019/walmart-oracle-secret-funders-reportedly-behind-grass-roots-campaign-blast-amazon/

 

Quote

Report: Walmart and Oracle among secret funders behind ‘grassroots’ campaign to blast Amazon

...

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday morning that those three companies are secret funders behind the campaign, which has blasted Amazon’s business practices — including its treatment of warehouse workers; its use of personal data; its lack of support for local communities; and more — since launching last year.

 

here is an amazon box i saw at a chase bank atm nook — it has a name.

 

Just heard a commercial for Amazon hiring for warehouse jobs. Starting at $15.00 and hour with no experience needed and no resume required.  Damn do they even require a criminal background check or drug screening? 

Amazon jobs at Euclid facility still up for grabs

https://fox8.com/2019/09/09/amazon-jobs-at-euclid-facility-still-up-for-grabs/

A ‘Grass Roots’ Campaign to Take Down Amazon Is Funded by Amazon’s Biggest Rivals

 

What the group did not say is that it received backing from some of Amazon’s chief corporate rivals. They include shopping mall owner Simon Property Group Inc., retailer Walmart Inc. and software giant Oracle Corp., according to people involved with and briefed on the project. Simon Property is fighting to keep shoppers who now prefer to buy what they need on Amazon; Walmart is competing with Amazon over retail sales; and Oracle is battling Amazon over a $10 billion Pentagon cloud-computing contract.

See, this is what happens in an environment where corporations and industry associations are allowed, nay, required to lobby politicians. The retail industry did nothing lobbying-wise to ensure that these profitless .coms that aren't even required by shareholders to turn a profit due to irrational attitudes about "tech" were put on a level playing field like there was with catalog sales. The B&Ms did nothing because they didn't want their own ecommerce sites to be regulated and they thought that they might be able profit from selling on Amazon themselves (little did anyone know at the time that when you stick the hand of an outside "tech" firm between the main company and the consumer the opportunity for profit completely vaporizes). By the time the retailers figured out that Amazon is a vampire it was too late.

 

So the lesson is that if your company is so blindingly Republican in philosophy that you oppose regulation over things that can murder you financially because you are afraid that "they'll come for you next" it can really backfire. It's the same principle for companies that oppose M4A or other single payer even though the companies are having to add 15-30% to everyone's payroll to feed the bloated health care racket -- when right now, companies are paying only 1.45% of payroll to cover EVERY senior citizen in this country. Seniors have doctor's appointments 3 days a week and constantly break hips yet it only takes 2.9% of the nation's payroll to cover them. Not capital gains, not appreciation, not dividends, not sales, just payroll.

 

Not doing anything to protect your industry from companies that don't need to turn a profit ever (because reasons) is like wanting to have murder legalized in case you want to murder someone one day.

Another big warehouse, this time just across the state line from the Youngstown-Warren area....

 

 

On ‎9‎/‎23‎/‎2019 at 5:23 PM, Toddguy said:

Just heard a commercial for Amazon hiring for warehouse jobs. Starting at $15.00 and hour with no experience needed and no resume required.  Damn do they even require a criminal background check or drug screening? 

 

When I worked at a proto-Amazon book distributor in 2001 they were raided by immigration and carted off 50+ people.  

 

They also cleverly allowed one person from each ethnic group into management/leads, but never two.  That way the Russians couldn't gang up on the Indians who couldn't gang up on the Mexicans who couldn't gang up on the Cubans.  It was crazy in that place.  

Kroger rival Amazon plans to open new chain of grocery stores around the country

 

 

Online retail giant Amazon.com Inc. is planning to add several retail grocery stores to its fast-growing roster of physical locations, stepping up the competition with Kroger and other supermarket operators.

 

Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) plans to open dozens of stores across the country, starting with Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia, according to a Wall Street Journal article.

 

Amazon has already signed more than a dozen leases in Los Angeles for the stores, the Journal reported, citing unnamed sources. Many of the stores are in suburban locations.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/10/07/kroger-rival-amazon-plans-to-open-new-chain-of.html

Covers wastefulness, extremely high return rates, environmental impact, counterfeits and of course workers peeing their pants due to the unprofitable nature of the service. Companies that make actual money don't have to treat their people like that.

 

4 Underreported Dark Secrets Of Buying Stuff Online

By

Mark Hill ·

November 15, 2019

 

Online shopping is such a staple of the season that you're probably reading this while working on an Amazon order in another tab. And hey, we have our own Amazon packages full of unspeakable perversions being delivered to us as we write this. But these services have a few glaring flaws that should really be addressed. So as you gear up for another round of holiday shopping, keep in mind that ...

 

https://www.cracked.com/article_26834_4-underreported-dark-secrets-buying-stuff-online.html

 

BBBBbbbbbbbut TaXeS aRe LoWeR In NoRtH dAkOtA

On 10/7/2019 at 4:02 PM, ColDayMan said:

Kroger rival Amazon plans to open new chain of grocery stores around the country

 

 

Online retail giant Amazon.com Inc. is planning to add several retail grocery stores to its fast-growing roster of physical locations, stepping up the competition with Kroger and other supermarket operators.

 

Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) plans to open dozens of stores across the country, starting with Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia, according to a Wall Street Journal article.

 

Amazon has already signed more than a dozen leases in Los Angeles for the stores, the Journal reported, citing unnamed sources. Many of the stores are in suburban locations.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/10/07/kroger-rival-amazon-plans-to-open-new-chain-of.html

 

I just noticed they've opened a location inside of Rock Center.

On 12/7/2019 at 5:22 PM, GCrites80s said:

BBBBbbbbbbbut TaXeS aRe LoWeR In NoRtH dAkOtA

 

Civic leaders across the country should be looking at Amazon's HQ2 debacle and learning a lot of lessons from it. If you want to attract the big name tech companies, which need to be able to attract the best and brightest employees, you can't cut your tax rate to prosperity. You need to actually build a place with a good quality of life that has the amenities those prospective employees want. The HQ2 "competition" was a clever way to pit cities against eachother to see what types of tax breaks they could yet, but clearly Amazon knew all along they were going to locate their offices in cities where can attract the workforce that they want to attract. Naturally that is going to be "high-tax" places, because those are the types of places that many of their prospective employees want to live. No matter how crazy of a tax break North Dakota or Kansas gave Amazon, they were never going to pick those locations because people aren't going to relocate to those places to work for Amazon!

20 hours ago, taestell said:

 

Civic leaders across the country should be looking at Amazon's HQ2 debacle and learning a lot of lessons from it. If you want to attract the big name tech companies, which need to be able to attract the best and brightest employees, you can't cut your tax rate to prosperity. You need to actually build a place with a good quality of life that has the amenities those prospective employees want. The HQ2 "competition" was a clever way to pit cities against eachother to see what types of tax breaks they could yet, but clearly Amazon knew all along they were going to locate their offices in cities where can attract the workforce that they want to attract. Naturally that is going to be "high-tax" places, because those are the types of places that many of their prospective employees want to live. No matter how crazy of a tax break North Dakota or Kansas gave Amazon, they were never going to pick those locations because people aren't going to relocate to those places to work for Amazon!

 

I would be interested to hear a contrarian view to this, The lesson seems pretty cut-and-dried that the titans of the new economy are, by-and-large, only going to look at high-amenity, high-tax cities to locate their high-paying jobs. Low taxes can get you jobs, but primarily only low-wage jobs, which hardly seems like a formula for a healthy local economy.

Tennessee doesn't have an income tax or a municipal earnings tax.  They also have no state capital gains tax and are in the process of eliminating the "Hall Tax", a tax on interest and dividends: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall_income_tax

 

They also have an ultra-high sales tax (roughly 10% in Nashville) and even charge a 5% sales tax on groceries, which "high tax" Ohio does not.  Do some napkin math -- it's a huge amount of money quite literally swiped out of the mouths of the lower class.  

 

They also have terrible bus service, no sidewalks or curbs almost anywhere in the state, and dirt/gravel roads galore.  They even have minimal school bus service, with zero school bus service to Catholic and private K-12 schools, which Ohio has.  

So irony of irony - Amazon is using abandoned mall parking lots for its delivery vans.  So they've got about 100 of the vans in front of the old Guitar Center at Forest Fair Mall...including these two.  

The best part is that these facilities are all transit-accessible. So while an Amazon warehouse job isn't the best job in the world, it is a job with some benefits and they're accessible. And there's going to be a lot more of them....

 

Wave of Northeast Ohio leasing may be growing for Amazon

 

Online retailer Amazon, as part of its drive to cement a hold on the last mile of home delivery, may be about to work another round of magic in Northeast Ohio's industrial property landscape.

 

Amazon is looking at leasing a total of more than 700,000 square feet of recently completed, 40-foot-ceilinged warehouse space in Northeast Ohio, according to three sources familiar with the situation. The sources asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to discuss individual buildings, and Amazon typically requires people working on fulfilling its real estate needs to sign nondisclosure agreements.

 

The upshot is that within a year, Amazon may be operating at 10801 Madison Ave., the nearly 170,000- square-foot building that Weston Inc. of Warrensville Heights completed last year in Cleveland; at what's now a 130,000-square-foot building in Bedford Heights plan-ned by Indianapolis-based Scannell Properties at 24700 Miles Road; and even the 400,000-square-foot building finished last year by Chicago-based Westminster Capital at 43000 Victory Parkway in Glenwillow Village.

 

https://www.crainscleveland.com/real-estate/wave-northeast-ohio-leasing-may-be-growing-amazon 

Amazon plans to add 3,500 jobs across six U.S. cities

PUBLISHED TUE, AUG 18 20207:40 AM EDTUPDATED AN HOUR AGO

 

Amazon announced Tuesday that it is planning to create 3,500 new tech and corporate jobs across six major U.S. cities. 

 

The e-commerce giant said it will expand its tech hubs and corporate offices in Dallas, Detroit, Denver, New York (Manhattan), Phoenix, and San Diego. 

 

Amazon said it expects to invest $1.4 billion in the offices and add more square feet to each location. 

 

MORE:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/18/amazon-3500-jobs-6-us-cities.html

2k new amazon jobs coming to the old lord & taylor dept store bldg -- they bought it from wework in march:

 

 

 

E-commerce behemoth Amazon will open a 2,000-person office at the former Lord & Taylor flagship on Fifth Avenue, the company announced this morning.

 

The Lord & Taylor office is part of Amazon’s plans to spend more than $1.4 billion to create 3,500 new tech and corporate jobs in New York, Dallas, Detroit, Denver, Phoenix and San Diego, The Wall Street Journal first reported.

 

more:

https://commercialobserver.com/2020/08/what-amazons-lord-taylor-move-means-for-nyc-and-office-work/

 

Bbbut WFH means cities are unimportant 

^ I suspect that the reason for building another mini-HQ in Bellevue is to spread their eggs into multiple baskets, to show Seattle that it should proceed carefully with its "head tax" and other policies that target large corporations. Also, Amazon is such a big regional employer, it would probably be more convenient for many of its employees living east of Lake Washington to commute into Bellevue or Redmond than downtown Seattle. (BTW, all three cities are relatively walkable urban places, not suburbs/exurbs. In fact, all three cities will be connected by the new East Link light rail line that starts running in 2023.)

Edited September 21, 20204 yr by taestell

12 minutes ago, taestell said:

to show Seattle

 

This all reminds me of Cambridge city councilmen going to war with MIT and Harvard over petty, petty stuff.  Somehow two of the world's top 5 universities ended up in tiny Cambridge, MA, pop. 90,000, and the local politicians pandered endlessly to sentiments that Cambridge would be better off without them.  

 

 

Hidden cameras and secret trackers reveal where Amazon returns end up

 

Marketplace tracked items such as a backpack, which was tossed in the garbage

 

 

A Marketplace investigation into Amazon Canada has found that perfectly good items are being liquidated by the truckload — and even destroyed or sent to landfill. Experts say hundreds of thousands of returns don't end up back on the e-commerce giant's website for resale, as customers might think...

 

...Kevin Lyons, an associate professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey who specializes in supply chain management and environmental policy, says that 30 to 40 per cent of all online purchases are sent back. That number drops to less than ten per cent for merchandise bought at bricks and mortar stores. 

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/marketplace-amazon-returns-1.5753714?utm_source=pocket-newtab

 

 

Outrageous return rates are one reason why Amazon struggles to profit from retail operations while selling things at MSRP. At least the Wolfes closed their shoe stores once they bought the Columbus Dispatch.

Edited October 14, 20204 yr by GCrites80s
forgot link

On 9/4/2020 at 12:52 PM, DarkandStormy said:

 

I despise Amazon now and that "search" for a new location was just bullsh#t.  I am beginning to think that AOC was right in driving them out of LIC. NYC will be fine without them and has way too much going on to really care about this horrible company.

Edited October 14, 20204 yr by Toddguy

You mean it's almost like a trillion-dollar company doesn't want to be at the mercy of a socialist city council that views that trillion dollars as its money instead of the company's or shareholders' money.

 

Amazon is getting a tax incentive to locate in Bellevue: Avoiding Seattle taxes.

On 9/21/2020 at 4:02 PM, taestell said:

^ I suspect that the reason for building another mini-HQ in Bellevue is to spread their eggs into multiple baskets, to show Seattle that it should proceed carefully with its "head tax" and other policies that target large corporations. Also, Amazon is such a big regional employer, it would probably be more convenient for many of its employees living east of Lake Washington to commute into Bellevue or Redmond than downtown Seattle. (BTW, all three cities are relatively walkable urban places, not suburbs/exurbs. In fact, all three cities will be connected by the new East Link light rail line that starts running in 2023.)

I would think this is correct. Convenience as a regional employer. Just like Nationwide has downtown and also Grandview Yard. 

Amazon Offers New Blank Box Upcharge For Progressive Members To Discreetly Receive Prime Orders

 

https://www.theonion.com/amazon-offers-new-blank-box-upcharge-for-progressive-me-1845359214

 

Too embarrassed to admit that you bought something on Amazon? Have it sent in a plain box like it's porno or something. ?

 

You wouldn't have seen this kind of "story" ten years ago. Online retailers cannot become uncool when hundreds of competitors are only a click away rather than there being a competitor 15 miles away like with B&M.

2 hours ago, GCrites80s said:

Outrageous return rates are one reason why Amazon struggles to profit from retail operations while selling things at MSRP.

 

If you've ever worked at a distributor and done returns you'll know why Amazon just trashes the stuff.  It's incredibly time-consuming to deal with the return of durable goods, let alone non-durables like clothing.  

Right, when it comes back to the store itself it can be usable but in a warehouse it's worth much less than it is in a store.

6 hours ago, Gramarye said:

You mean it's almost like a trillion-dollar company doesn't want to be at the mercy of a socialist city council that views that trillion dollars as its money instead of the company's or shareholders' money.

 

The so-called "head tax" that Seattle passed is expected to raise about $200 million/year for the city. Amazon specifically will pay about $12.4 million. If City Council was truly socialist and believed that Amazon's money belonged to them, the amount would be much higher.

 

The tax applies to companies with an annual payroll of $7 million or more, and ranges from 0.7% to 2.4% of the company's total payroll. Interestingly, the "progressiveness" of the tax is not based on the amount of the payroll, but on the number of employees making $150k or more. It is specifically designed to hit companies with both a large payroll and a large number of high paid employees -- such as tech companies.

 

Another reason that this tax is structured in such an unusual way is that income tax is unconstitutional per the Washington state constitution. Revenue can only be raised through sales tax, property tax, and fees. If that weren't the case, Seattle probably would have just passed a normal progressive income tax. But they can't, so that had to structure it as a fee on the employer's payroll, rather than a tax on the employee's paycheck.

 

6 hours ago, Gramarye said:

Amazon is getting a tax incentive to locate in Bellevue: Avoiding Seattle taxes.

 

There isn't really a big difference between the sales or property tax rates of the two cities. The only major difference is Seattle's head tax which costs them $12.4 million/year, quite frankly a drop in the bucket for a company with an annual revenue of over $300 billion.

 

Which is why I speculated, Amazon isn't too upset about the current tax, they primarily just want to make a statement, "don't go too much further."

7 minutes ago, taestell said:

Another reason that this tax is structured in such an unusual way is that income tax is unconstitutional per the Washington state constitution. 

 

Nevada gets away with not having an income tax because the state government collects an incredible 23% of its income from casinos, hotels, and restaurants.  Texas gets all sorts of revenue from oil, including a huge annual subsidy to the University of Texas system and the Texas A&M system.   The 2010's fracking boom doubled the endowment for these schools from $10 billion to $20 billion.   

 

But the other states attempting this game are tying themselves in knots to keep things "low tax".  Tennessee has a constitutional amendment banning state and municipal income taxes.  It has put Nashville in a particularly difficult spot and they resorted to raising already-high property taxes 30% in order to cover their precipitous drop in sales tax and hotel tax revenue thanks to the pandemic.  The tax increase motivated a recall effort against Nashville's mayor.  

 

Cincinnati slithered through this mess unscathed by selling bonds on future Cincinnati Southern Railroad revenue, but Cincinnati probably would have been okay anyway since it has broad revenue sources including the railroad's annual income, which is significant and enables the city to have the lowest tax rates in Ohio.   

 

 

2 hours ago, GCrites80s said:

Right, when it comes back to the store itself it can be usable but in a warehouse it's worth much less than it is in a store.

 

Also the big problem with returns is you need a pretty intelligent person to handle returns - someone at least as good if not better than your receiving guys and as good as the inventory control guys.  The grunts are doing the packing and the one-step-up-from-grunts do the picking.  

 

It's hard enough to find someone who can pass a drug test and show up to work.  Now you need someone who can read and write and gives a damn.  

 

21 minutes ago, taestell said:

 

The so-called "head tax" that Seattle passed is expected to raise about $200 million/year for the city. Amazon specifically will pay about $12.4 million. If City Council was truly socialist and believed that Amazon's money belonged to them, the amount would be much higher.

 

The tax applies to companies with an annual payroll of $7 million or more, and ranges from 0.7% to 2.4% of the company's total payroll. Interestingly, the "progressiveness" of the tax is not based on the amount of the payroll, but on the number of employees making $150k or more. It is specifically designed to hit companies with both a large payroll and a large number of high paid employees -- such as tech companies.

 

Another reason that this tax is structured in such an unusual way is that income tax is unconstitutional per the Washington state constitution. Revenue can only be raised through sales tax, property tax, and fees. If that weren't the case, Seattle probably would have just passed a normal progressive income tax. But they can't, so that had to structure it as a fee on the employer's payroll, rather than a tax on the employee's paycheck.

 

 

There isn't really a big different between the sales or property tax rates of the two cities. The only major different is the head tax which costs them $12.4 million/year, quite frankly a drop in the bucket for a company with an annual revenue of over $300 billion.

 

Which is why I speculated, Amazon isn't too upset about the current tax, they primarily just want to make a statement, "don't go too much further."

 

I wouldn't be surprised if Columbus' overall tax rate when everything is added together (including property tax) is higher than Seattle's.

6 hours ago, GCrites80s said:

 

I wouldn't be surprised if Columbus' overall tax rate when everything is added together (including property tax) is higher than Seattle's.

 

It is: https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/fun-facts/cities-with-the-highest-tax-rates/L2WEdS802

(I've seen Columbus as high as #2 or #3 on later lists)

 

A lot of these city studies that make L.A. and NY look bad ignore property taxes. With Columbus' sales tax rate of 7.5%, property tax rate of 3.57% (the highest of any city, remember this is 3.57% of your property's value every year -- not your income -- and they keep going up as Columbus-area land continues to appreciate very quickly) earnings rate of 2.5% and state rate of 2.85 to 4.8% And there is no way to get out of high property taxes by making or spending less money.

 

Yet all the money is leaving lower tax areas such as NE and Appalachian Ohio for Columbus.

 

Using a "head tax" that is not levied on people making less that $150K as an instrument in a city with a housing crisis as bad as Seattle's is wise as compared to bluntly raising property taxes when income taxes are not available. Raising property taxes would only make things worse for low-income individuals since they pay property taxes somehow no matter what unless they are homeless.

 

Edited October 15, 20204 yr by GCrites80s

^ just for the record, nyc actually lowered property tax rates:

 

Last night the New York City Council passed the property tax rates for fiscal year 2020/2021. Tax Class 2 (apartment buildings) decreased 1.65% to 12.267% - the lowest rate in 13 years. Tax Class 4 (commercial) increased 1.48% to 10.694% - the highest rate in 14 years.

 

no doubt going forward that will change, ugh.

That rate is based on the entire building though, which, on average, has many more people living in it than a Columbus building.

I've ordered almost nothing from Amazon in my life (about 10 orders in the past 20 years it has existed) but I just had packages stolen off my front porch two weeks in a row.  The delivery guys take photos of where they put the boxes and they're putting them right at the top of the steps, in full view of everyone walking past to the bus stop.  Are these delivery guys that flipping stupid or are they under so much time pressure that they can't take five more steps to put packages ON the porch, behind the front railing, and so out of view of people walking on the sidewalk?  

Probably too much of a time crunch. I've read that the goals Amazon sets for delivery people are ridiculous.

mixed emotions in lic 2yrs after the amazon loss for the neighborhood:

 

 

https://nypost.com/2020/12/13/queens-biz-owners-haunted-by-amazon-loss-amid-pandemic/

Jeff Bezos will step down as Amazon CEO later this year.

 

https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/02/jeff-bezos-will-no-longer-be-ceo-of-amazon-as-of-later-this-year/

On 10/30/2020 at 1:49 PM, jmecklenborg said:

I've ordered almost nothing from Amazon in my life (about 10 orders in the past 20 years it has existed) but I just had packages stolen off my front porch two weeks in a row.  The delivery guys take photos of where they put the boxes and they're putting them right at the top of the steps, in full view of everyone walking past to the bus stop.  Are these delivery guys that flipping stupid or are they under so much time pressure that they can't take five more steps to put packages ON the porch, behind the front railing, and so out of view of people walking on the sidewalk?  

They're called 'Porch Pirates." People are housing glitter bombs and poop bombs inside Amazon packages as bait, that they sit on their front porch to teach them a lesson. 

On 10/30/2020 at 1:49 PM, jmecklenborg said:

I've ordered almost nothing from Amazon in my life (about 10 orders in the past 20 years it has existed) but I just had packages stolen off my front porch two weeks in a row.  The delivery guys take photos of where they put the boxes and they're putting them right at the top of the steps, in full view of everyone walking past to the bus stop.  Are these delivery guys that flipping stupid or are they under so much time pressure that they can't take five more steps to put packages ON the porch, behind the front railing, and so out of view of people walking on the sidewalk?  

 

I'd like to know this answer as well. 

 

Additionally, I've almost been hit while driving several times by those Amazon drivers--are they are just horrible drivers (and/)or just reading their phones instead hurrying to find the next address---again, under significant time pressure that Amazon puts on them or are they just a little dim themselves? Either way Amazon abuses them by making them contractors, not employees, so if they do kill someone with their dangerous driving, Amazon can say, 'hey, its not us---he's now our employee, he's simply a contractor'.  As you can tell, I don't support Amazon either, and since Bezos bought Whole Foods, stopped going there as well even though I had like that store.