Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The list of businesses it has killed by engaging in the practices I noted above in response to Adder would go on forever.

So it should be easy for you to name one competitor that Amazon has killed.

No. But the govt can intervene where WalMart is throwing around its immense weight to force suppliers to sell to it at prices that will put them out of business, thereby creating a market in which only a handful of manufacturers and wholesalers who grow large enough to be able to sell to them in volume at such low prices, or have somehow diversified their pools of buyers enough to offset the thin margins provided by WalMart with reasonable profits from other purchasers, can survive.

WalMart's lovely folks in Bentonville offer, after making people wait for hours in its shitty corporate office, the following:

This is what we'll pay, and you can take it or leave it. And if you leave it, good luck finding someone else who'll buy as much from you as we do.

Again, that is technically, in the weakest sense, defensible as competition. (A situation in which "competition" ceases to have any real meaning.) But it's a competition in which WalMart is admitting it is a monopsony. And it uses its profits, accrued in large part from its purchasing power, to put competition out of business, which, wait for it... increases its monopsony. And so it goes...

Maybe that's not a black and white classic antitrust issue, but it's definitely anti-competitive in the fairest plain reading of that term.

So, in your world, Amazon and Wal-Mart are both monopsonists as they bargain with the same businesses. Are you aware that "mono" means one?

This is not defensible as competition "in the weakest sense." It's competition driving prices down. Not everyone deals with Wal-Mart. If you don't want to deal with them, you find another channel (because the idea that they are a monopsonist, generally speaking, is silly). Wal-Mart demands low price, because that's what they promise consumers. That's how they compete. That is competition. And consumers like it, which is why they keep going back.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Still, even while eating, they won't worry about the monopolies that manufacture that food....

Once you're sitting at the table, the restaurant's kitchen usually has a monopoly on making your food, unless you make like Spicolli in Mr. Hand's class.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Perhaps in some instances that defense holds. But if I am selling Widget X on AMZN platform, without use of which I cannot really enter the online marketplace, and AMZN intentionally:

1. Sells the same thing at a loss on its platform, to undercut my ability to sell; and/or,

If you can show that, you might have a case. As far as I know, no one has shown that and, in fact, the underlying assumption is that it can sell at a lower price do to lower costs, not selling below cost.

2. Seeks to divert customers from me to another seller with which AMZN has a better deal (or of which AMZN is a part owner),

Self-preferencing where there are positive network effects is a really tricky question! There used to be complicated regulations about how the old Computer Reservation Systems displayed results when they were owned by the airlines. We should definitely be considering them for tech.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

You assume your conclusion when you say "without use of which I cannot really enter the online marketplace". That's just completely wrong. Amazon is one of many channels. It's a good channel, but there are many others online.

It is, in fact, one channel that manufacturers actively try to avoid.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

This is not defensible as competition "in the weakest sense." It's competition driving prices down. Not everyone deals with Wal-Mart. If you don't want to deal with them, you find another channel (because the idea that they are a monopsonist, generally speaking, is silly). Wal-Mart demands low price, because that's what they promise consumers. That's how they compete. That is competition. And consumers like it, which is why they keep going back.

I don't shop at Walmart, so I'm really struggling to think about what products over which they might exercise monopsony.

[LessinSF]

So, there are at least (or only) 47 Republicans who actually understand what liberty/freedom via the 5th and 14th Amendments (and the Declaration of Independence, although it has no legal authority) mean and embody - https://www.politico.com/news/2022/0...e-law-00046682 Unfortunately, I doubt there are enough Senate Republicans with the moral fortitude to pass the bill. I suspect even so-called "libertarians" like Rand Paul will oppose it.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by lessinsf

so, there are at least (or only) 47 republicans who actually understand what liberty/freedom via the 5th and 14th amendments (and the declaration of independence, although it has no legal authority) mean and embody - https://www.politico.com/news/2022/0...e-law-00046682 unfortunately, i doubt there are enough senate republicans with the moral fortitude to pass the bill. I suspect even so-called "libertarians" like rand paul will oppose it.

2

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

So, there are at least (or only) 47 Republicans who actually understand what liberty/freedom via the 5th and 14th Amendments (and the Declaration of Independence, although it has no legal authority) mean and embody - https://www.politico.com/news/2022/0...e-law-00046682 Unfortunately, I doubt there are enough Senate Republicans with the moral fortitude to pass the bill. I suspect even so-called "libertarians" like Rand Paul will oppose it.

I was pleased that many Republicans would vote to protect marriages.

A lot fewer of them were ready protect contraception.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

I know Rishi Sunak has been the leader in the Conservative PM race throughout, but I had a hard time believing that the party of Brexit would be will willing to be led by a dark-skinned non-Christian, and so it is no surprise to me to see that now that the field has narrowed to two, Liz Truss is polling ahead. Oddly, I haven't seen anyone point out that it might be an issue.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I was pleased that many Republicans would vote to protect marriages.

A lot fewer of them were ready protect contraception.

Same sex marriage is easy because everyone knows what it is. No one has to sit in a biology class or understand the reproductive cycle and ovulation and monthly blood and all that icky stuff.

Once they start going into the actual real world, their house starts falling apart. So that's why no rape and incest. That's why a woman has to be dying before they'll agree she's worth saving. (Meaning the abortions that DO happen will be late term abortions that NO ONE WANTS but are sometimes necessary, because these motherfuckers are the most ghoulish assholes on the planet.) They do not want any gray area at all. No abortions, ever, at all.

And we'll fucking kill you if you try.

Including the political careers of spineless Republican assholes who are so beholden to these crazy people they have to agree with the insanity.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

I just got a call from someone who seemed to think I have some ownership interest in a self-storage facility in Oxnard and who said they wanted to buy it. They had my name and number, but I have never heard of said self-storage area. Can't quite figure out what the scam is.

[Hank Chinaski]

In a FB chat with a artist friend who felt the presenter in the Jan 6 hearing was too monotone. I said maybe that was because she was trying to convince SOME Trumpers, and they would tune out if it appeared to be theater. Led into a convo about what the purpose of the hearings was.

I thought:

1 make a record for history of how vile and evil this man is; and

2 maybe convince some small percentage of Trumpers of 1.

He seemed to think the purpose was to satisfy his notion, that he already had, that Trump was double bad.

What was the purpose of the hearings?

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I just got a call from someone who seemed to think I have some ownership interest in a self-storage facility in Oxnard and who said they wanted to buy it. They had my name and number, but I have never heard of said self-storage area. Can't quite figure out what the scam is.

Does it matter? Ask for an offer and take it, after disclaiming ownership to prevent a claim of fraud.

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

In a FB chat with a artist friend who felt the presenter in the Jan 6 hearing was too monotone. I said maybe that was because she was trying to convince SOME Trumpers, and they would tune out if it appeared to be theater. Led into a convo about what the purpose of the hearings was.

I thought:

1 make a record for history of how vile and evil this man is; and

2 maybe convince some small percentage of Trumpers of 1.

He seemed to think the purpose was to satisfy his notion, that he already had, that Trump was double bad.

What was the purpose of the hearings?

!. Exposure of Trump's actions;

2. Outrage thereat;

3. Political advantage due to 1 and 2, above;
;
4. Political advantage due to 1 and 2, above; and

5. Political advantage due to 1 and 2, above.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

!. Exposure of Trump's actions;

2. Outrage thereat;

3. Political advantage due to 1 and 2, above;
;
4. Political advantage due to 1 and 2, above; and

5. Political advantage due to 1 and 2, above.

Well of course, but outrage in what block? Political advantage with what block?