On Sun, 21 Jan 2018 10:45:39 -0500
woodchucker wrote:

Side issue: Amazon is ending the America that I knew. They are in
effect becoming a monopoly, and forcing many stores to close. While I
am not a shopper, nor is my wife, all these empty stores are very
noticeable. This will have repercussions in the building industry.


not disagreeing with the symptoms and retail across the board is
hurting badly

we are heading into a major correction

i think many of the empty stores would have become empty without
amazon

some questions to ponder

who let them operate with out charging sales tax for so long
i think they charge sales tax now

who let them ship for free
someone has to pay for the cost to ship
maybe amazon absorbed some of it but usps and others must have been
bullied into absorbing the costs too

not a level playing field for sure and the small business cannot
compete when the competition gets subsidized to ship free and gets
sweetheart deals to open new warehouses or new hqs