Monday, July 8, 2019

MODERN SLAVER JEFF BEZOS AMAZON CELEBRATES 25 YEARS OF PARASITISM AND EXPLOITATION

Amazon’s 25th anniversary: A conglomerate based on parasitism and exploitation

8 July 2019
Last week, Amazon commemorated its 25th anniversary. From its beginnings in a garage in Seattle, Washington, Amazon has grown into a multinational technology conglomerate with a market capitalization of nearly one trillion dollars.
In 1994, future Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos left his job at hedge fund D.E. Shaw to get out in front of the possibilities opened up by the accelerating development of the internet, beginning with the modest idea of an online bookstore. Bezos went on to become the wealthiest man on the planet, his hoard by one estimate peaking at a record $157 billion before his assets were divided in a divorce earlier this year.
Now considered one of the “Big Four” technology monopolies alongside Apple, Google and Facebook, Amazon controls the largest marketplace on the Internet: Amazon.com. The conglomerate’s reach extends from Whole Foods Market, which Amazon purchased in 2017 for $13.4 billion, to consumer electronics such as the Kindle reader and the voice-controlled Alexa. Amazon subsidiary Kuiper Systems announced in April of this year that it will spend a decade launching 3,236 satellites into space to provide broadband internet.
Traditional book publishers were decimated by the arrival of Amazon, which aggressively pursued them, in the words of Bezos, “the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle.” Using its vast flows of cash, Amazon ruthlessly undercut its rivals, from neighborhood stores to diaper manufacturers, accepting losses in order to drive competitors out of its way. Meanwhile, Amazon demanded and obtained free money from state and local governments in the form of tax breaks and other concessions.
Amazon’s annual revenues reached $233 billion in 2018, on which the conglomerate is expected to pay zero federal income tax. To put this figure in perspective, these revenues are nearly at the level of the annual tax revenue of Russia, which amounted to $253.9 billion in US dollars in 2017. Amazon’s revenues are higher than the government revenues of Turkey ($173.9 billion), Austria ($197.8 billion), Poland ($90.8 billion) and Iran ($77.2 billion).
Nearly half of American households now have subscriptions to Amazon Prime. The click of a mouse on a personal computer, or the tap of a finger on a mobile device, now sets into motion the speedy delivery of commodities from around the world, or the instantaneous electronic transmission of a film, song or book. Behind these deceptively simple transactions lies Amazon’s vast and complex commercial, logistics, distribution and computing empire.
Promising advances have indeed been made in automation and artificial intelligence. These technological advances carry with them tremendous liberating potential for human civilization as a whole. Heavy and repetitive toil by humans can increasingly be mitigated by robots, and possibilities appear on the horizon for advanced levels of coordination and integration around the world, assisted by artificial intelligence.
But under capitalism, new advances in technology have made possible new techniques of exploitation. Amazon has become a watchword for a new kind of despotism in the workplace.
In Amazon “fulfillment centers,” workers are forbidden to carry cellphones or to talk to each other. They are searched coming in and out, and minute details of their activity throughout the workday are tracked. Amazon specializes in putting constant pressure on workers to move as fast as possible, with electronic devices constantly prompting and prodding them to complete the next task.
Workers are instructed to compete with each other to surpass each other’s rates, which they are admonished constitutes “fun.” Arbitrarily high rates are demanded, and then raised, and then raised again. A worker who takes a moment to rest, to drink water, or to go to the bathroom can be criticized for a diminished rate. The workers who are deemed too slow, or who simply tire out, are replaced.
Amazon is now the second-largest employer in the United States, and there are around 647,000 Amazon workers worldwide. Journalist John Cassidy, writing about Amazon in the New Yorker in 2015, commented: “Behind all the technological advances and product innovation, there is a good deal of old-fashioned labor discipline, wage repression, and exertion of management power.”
Over the past week, the World Socialist Web Site published an articleexposing the injury of 567 workers over a two-year period at Amazon’s DFW-7 fulfillment center near Fort Worth, Texas. In December of last year, the WSWS reported how Amazon had hired a private detective to spy on 27-year-old worker Michelle Quinones in an effort to block compensation for her injury.
Amazon has appeared in the “Dirty Dozen” list maintained by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) for two years in a row. The 2019 report highlights six worker deaths in seven months, 13 deaths since 2013, “a high incidence of suicide attempts, workers urinating in bottles and workers left without resources or income after on-the-job injuries.”
Amazon’s techniques are merely a refined expression of conditions being imposed on workers around the world. In March of this year, Ford Motor Company announced the hiring of its new chief financial officer, Tim Stone, who previously served as Amazon’s vice president of finance and the leader of the Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods. Stone was hired as Ford carries out brutal cost-cutting in the US, Europe and around the world.
There is no shortage of opposition among Amazon workers. On social media, current and former Amazon workers are contacting each other, looking for ways to fight back. In Poland, where Amazon workers make around $5 per hour, Amazon walked out of negotiations on July 2 with two unions over working conditions, setting the stage for a strike.
To fight for their interests, Amazon workers cannot allow their struggles to be corralled and smothered by the pro-capitalist trade unions, which are doing everything they can to block a fight against inequality and exploitation. The WSWS fights for the building of independent, rank-and-file workplace committees to unite Amazon workers throughout the world with all workers in a common counteroffensive.
The key to the struggle of Amazon workers is an understanding that the fight against Amazon is a fight against the capitalist system itself. In 25 years, Amazon produced the biggest individual fortune in history, and it did so on the backs of hundreds of thousands of workers. In the words of Karl Marx, Amazon’s trajectory represents an “accumulation of misery, corresponding with accumulation of capital.”
Not just Bezos, but many others have enriched themselves or stand to enrich themselves from Amazon’s rise. Wall Street has its fingers in the pie. The Vanguard Group currently owns $55 billion of Amazon stock, BlackRock owns $45 billion and FMR owns $30 billion.
The parasitic activities of Amazon, through which it has sought to appropriate for itself the surplus value accumulated by other companies, have been integrated with the financial parasitism of the American economy. Amazon’s own stock has been buoyed ever higher as part of the speculative mania on Wall Street.
Amazon is entangled not only with Wall Street, but also with the US military and intelligence apparatus. Amazon was awarded a $600 million contract with the CIA in 2013, followed by a $10 billion contract with the Department of Defense last year to move government data onto the cloud. Meanwhile, Amazon’s facial-identification software “Rekognition” is being marketed to federal and local police.
In 2013, Bezos personally purchased, and now operates, the Washington Post, which has been a main media voice for the Democratic Party’s anti-Russia campaign and the overall interests of American imperialism.
The increasing integration of Amazon with the repressive apparatus of the state, while its tentacles stretch into every corner of society, confirms the Marxist understanding of the relationship between capitalism and democracy in the modern epoch. “Finance capital does not want liberty, it wants domination,” wrote Austrian Marxist Rudolf Hilferding, in a passage quoted by Lenin in Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism.
Amazon must be placed under public ownership and democratic control. It must be taken out of the hands of the financial oligarchy and transformed into a public utility. The technology and infrastructure behind Amazon’s meteoric trajectory and the biggest individual fortune in modern history must be turned towards the needs and aspirations of the world’s population as a whole.
This program can only be achieved through the mobilization of the working class on an international scale on the basis of a fight to overthrow the capitalist system and establish a democratically-controlled socialist economy, run on the basis of social need, not private profit.


Amazon, the multinational online retail conglomerate, is importing more foreign workers to the United States to take coveted tech industry jobs than Facebook and Google combined. JOHN BINDER

"Today, each of the top 5 billionaires owns as much as 750 million people, more than the total population of Latin America and double the population of the US."


AMAZON’S JEFF BEZOS IS THE FACE OF MODERN SLAVERY! 
The gains for employees are a novel pain for the investors and employers who have been able to hold down wages for decades because the federal government is trying to grow the economy via cheap-labor legal immigration.

“INVESTORS” HAVE AND WILL DESTROY THIS NATION IF IT WOULD IMPACT THE NEXT QUARTER’S EARNINGS!

Amazon, the multinational online retail conglomerate, is importing more foreign workers to the United States to take coveted tech industry jobs than Facebook and Google combined. JOHN BINDER

"Amazon is a massive wrecking machine consuming American retail. It's looting the economy and leaving behind rubble. " --- DANIEL GREENFIELD FRONTPAGE MAG

Europe Considering Massive Tax Hikes on Amazon, Facebook, Google

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives at the European Parliament, prior to his audition on the data privacy scandal on May 22, 2018 at the European Union headquarters in Brussels. (Photo by JOHN THYS / AFP) (Photo credit should read JOHN THYS/AFP/Getty Images)
JOHN THYS/AFP/Getty Images
TOM CICCOTTA
 11
1:38

European countries including France are making a push for massive tax increases on technology giants like Amazon, Facebook, and Google.

This week, legislators in France approved a bill that will ensure that Internet technology companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Google cannot operate in Europe without paying taxes. Until now, Silicon Valley companies have avoided paying taxes in companies like France by exploiting a loophole that allowed them to reroute their sales through countries with lower corporate tax rates like Ireland.
The bill includes a three percent tax on Internet technology companies that have global revenues of more than $847 million. French officials estimate that the tax will bring in $566 million in its first year.
The bill, which was adopted by France’s National Assembly, now needs approval from the French Senate.
Lawmakers in the United Kingdom are considering a similar tax on Internet technology companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Google on all revenues that are generated by British citizens.
Boris Johnson, who is likely to be the next prime minister, expressed approval for the new tax. “It’s deeply unfair that high street businesses are paying tax through the nose … whereas the internet giants, the FAANGs — Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google — are paying virtually nothing,” Johnson said in a comment.
Stay tuned to Breitbart News for more technology updates.

BARACK OBAMA POSITIONS MARK ZUCKERBERG of FAKEBOOK to be his global controller of propaganda for the Obama bankster funded third term for life.

http://globalistbarackobama.blogspot.com/2018/09/fakebooks-mark-zuckerberg-will-be.html

The Alt-Tech Revolutionaries Standing Up to the Masters of the Universe

The Associated Press
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
LUCAS NOLAN
  3
8:34

As people across America celebrate freedom and independence on the Fourth of July, Breitbart Tech has compiled a list of the Alt-Tech revolutionaries fighting to secure independence from the Silicon Valley Masters of the Universe.

Americans across the country will spend this Fourth of July celebrating this great country, thankful for the many freedoms and liberties afforded to them. But some in America are attempting to take those freedoms away, with privacy scandals and political bias plaguing Silicon Valley tech firms as free speech is continually restricted online. Breitbart News has made a list of some of the Alt-Tech firms working to protect online freedoms for Americans and people around the world.
1: Parler
The free speech focused social media platform Parler is aiming to not only provide a social media platform with a clear and concise set of rules, but to bring this platform to other websites via an integrated commenting platform. Breitbart News sat down with John Matze, the CEO and co-founder of Parler (pronounced par-lay), which describes itself as a “non-biased free speech-driven entity.” Parler has a very clear aim and set of goals, stating:
Parler provides a Commenting and Social News platform for digital publishers, influencers, bloggers, writers, politicians and social users to share news, opinions and content in real time. Additionally, we provide enterprise tools to enhance online blogs, media and websites with direct social integrations and monetization capabilities.
The goal is to offer the world a tool where everyone can be their own media outlet, filter their own content, and the established influencers and digital publishers can enhance their own brands and communities.
Matze explained, “We want users to come to Parler to share their opinions and follow the personalities they want to see content from without fear of shadowbanning and other Silicon Valley tricks designed to stop the spread of ideas the Masters of the Universe find distasteful.” Matze insists that Parler is a truly “neutral platform” open to all political viewpoints.
2: Gab
Gab.com takes an even more hardline free-speech angle, offering a completely open platform with minimal rules centered on illegal activity and practically no restrictions on free speech. The site recently rebranded itself from Gab.ai to Gab.com, Breitbart News spoke with founder and CEO Andrew Torba about his plans for the company. Torba stated that Gab wants to create a platform where all ideas can be expressed, saying: “We are in the process of building out free speech-friendly infrastructure so that one day, other liberty-minded tech startups can build using our tools and avoid any connection at all to Silicon Valley.”


“Approximately 150,000 of our users have joined from Brazil after intense censorship by Silicon Valley during their ongoing Presidential election. We are also seeing explosive growth from India and Sweeden after a recent wave of censorship aimed at major influencers on the right,” said Torba.
The free-speech social media platform successfully raised $280,000 in 24 hours when the company offered users a chance to invest. “Our users can invest in the company, own stock, and join us on our journey to build the home of free speech online. This is also sending a powerful message to Silicon Valley: The People can fund, power, and build our own platforms, you will be replaced,” Torba stated.
Gab has unveiled a new version of its site to celebrate the holiday, which includes a wide variety of compatible mobile apps for Android and iPhone smartphones. Gab’s apps have previously been blocked on both platforms, with Apple banning their developer account altogether. Gab is innovating in a variety of technologies, including launching a privacy-based web browser named “Dissenter.”
3: Minds
The open social network Minds.com doesn’t just allow its users to remain anonymous but takes it a step further actively providing end-to-end encryption for all users ensuring that their identity is kept safe. Breitbart News interviewed Minds founder Bill Ottman who described the site and its aims stating:
Minds uses free and open source software to provide its community with complete transparency and control over social media decisions. Minds is also anonymous and encrypted end-to-end to protect user privacy. Minds users earn points just by using the app to spend boosting their content, and Minds users make money by exchanging cash for subscriptions and sharing content. In addition, Minds does not filter content and delivers 100% of subscribed content to all newsfeeds. Minds creators establish exclusive content available by paid subscription and generate revenue for fan engagement on the network. Minds maintains a free speech policy based on US law.
Ottman did warn that alt-tech would have to work to avoid the same pitfalls as major social media firms, stating:
Alternative technology platforms only have a chance if they don’t fall into the same traps as big social. These traps include politicization, centralization, proprietary software (closed-source), censorship, secrecy, surveillance, and lack of revenue sharing and cooperative infrastructure. Many alt-tech platforms also fall into some of these traps, so it isn’t as simple as putting us all into one bucket because we align on a single component.
Ottman stated that Minds aims to include “users from all across the political spectrum” and creat a space for “constructive dialogue.” Ottman added, “and thus far we have been successful in doing so.”
4: DuckDuckGo
Google is one of the biggest monopolies online, absolutely dominating certain areas such as Internet search. Using Google’s search product opens users up to tracking from a number of services and advertisers, as well as Google itself, not to mention Google’s bias and habit of blacklisting search terms. One of the best alternatives to Google’s search monopoly is DuckDuckGo, a search engine which promises never to track its users’ actions and values user privacy.
In August of 2018, DuckDuckGo received $10 million in funding from Canada’s Omers’ venture capital fund as people grew suspicious of Silicon Valley tech giants plagued by scandals.
“With one of the fastest growing user bases in the segment, DuckDuckGo’s search engine offers users the opportunity to benefit from high-quality search results, with total peace of mind that they can maintain their confidentiality and anonymity,” wrote the Omers in a blog post following the investment. “Over the last five years, issues of privacy and security in the digital world have become increasingly topical and controversial. In 2018, these concerns have risen to the forefront of public consciousness. Users are becoming more aware of their personal data and are increasingly concerned with protecting it.”
In October of 2018, the site reached 30,602,556 daily searches using the service, a huge milestone for the website. DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg wrote in an op-ed for CNBC: “To make any real progress in advancing data privacy this year, we have to start doing something about Google and Facebook. Not doing so would be like trying to lose weight without changing your diet. Simply ineffective. The impact these two companies have on our privacy cannot be understated.”
5: Signal
Instant messaging has continued to be largely dominated by Facebook, with the company’s Messenger app being one of the most popular, and its WhatsApp messenger extremely popular outside the U.S. But another independent app has attempted to enter the world of online messaging, this time focusing on keeping users safe and anonymous via end-to-end encryption. That app is Signal, a popular messaging app that has made privacy its main priority.
In 2018, Brian Acton, the co-founder of the now Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp, called on Internet users to delete the app following the recent user data scandal. After it was revealed that the user data of approximately 50 million Facebook accounts were allegedly compromised via a personality quiz, Facebook is now facing calls for regulation across the U.S. and UK, and a lawsuit from investors.
Acton tweeted at the time that users should “#DeleteFacebook”:


Acton worked as an engineer and executive at Yahoo before co-founding WhatsApp in 2009, the app was purchased by Facebook in 2014 for the sum of €16.83 billion. Acton is now the head of the Signal Foundation, a direct competitor to WhatsApp despite WhatsApp using Signal’s open-source, end-to-end encryption technology for some time. Signal founder Moxie Marlinspike announced the launch of the Signal Foundation, which is a non-profit partly funded by Acton who has invested €44.29million in the foundation.
“Brian left WhatsApp and Facebook last year, and has been thinking about how to best focus his future time and energy on building nonprofit technology for public good,” Marlinspike said when launching the foundation. “The addition of Brian brings an incredibly talented engineer and visionary with decades of experience building successful products to our team.”
All of these alt-tech platforms are attempting to break up the online monopoly generated by the Masters of the Universe, this Fourth of July consider performing your own act of rebellion by supporting one of these independent platforms over the Silicon Valley elite.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com

TRUMP’S CRAP ON BORDERS AND HIS PRETEND WALL IS ONLY ONE MORE TRUMP HOAX!
Only a complete fool would believe that Trump is any more for American Legal workers than the Democrat Party for Billionaires and Banksters!
“Trump Administration Betrays Low-Skilled American Workers.”
The latest ad from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) asks Trump to reject the mass illegal and legal immigration policies supported by Wall Street, corporate executives, and most specifically, the GOP mega-donor Koch brothers.
Efforts by the big business lobby, Chamber of Commerce, Koch brothers, and George W. Bush Center include increasing employment-based legal immigration that would likely crush the historic wage gains that Trump has delivered for America’s blue collar and working class citizens.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Silicon Valley investors 

are uniting with the Koch network’s consumer

and industrial investors to demand a 

huge DACA amnesty

A handful of Republican and Democrat lawmakers are continuing to tout a plan that gives amnesty to nearly a million illegal aliens in exchange for some amount of funding for President Trump’s proposed border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.



THE BILLIONAIRE CLASS WAGES WAR ON AMERICA!



"GOP estb. is using the $5 billion border-wall fight to hide up to four blue/white-



collar cheap-labor programs in lame-duck DHS budget. Donors are worried that



salaries are too damn high, & estb. media does not want to know." 

 TOP EVIL CORPORATIONS LOOTING AMERICA

Goldman Sachs TRUMP CRONIES – CLINTON CRONIES


JPMorgan Chase OBAMA 


CRONIES

ExxonMobil
Halliburton BUSH CRIME FAMILY CRONIES
British American Tobacco
Dow Chemical
DuPont
Bayer
Microsoft
Google CLINTON CRONIES
Facebook OBAMA CRONIES
Amazon
Walmart






Europe Considering Massive Tax Hikes on Amazon, Facebook, Google

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives at the European Parliament, prior to his audition on the data privacy scandal on May 22, 2018 at the European Union headquarters in Brussels. (Photo by JOHN THYS / AFP) (Photo credit should read JOHN THYS/AFP/Getty Images)
JOHN THYS/AFP/Getty Images
TOM CICCOTTA
  11
1:38

European countries including France are making a push for massive tax increases on technology giants like Amazon, Facebook, and Google.

This week, legislators in France approved a bill that will ensure that Internet technology companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Google cannot operate in Europe without paying taxes. Until now, Silicon Valley companies have avoided paying taxes in companies like France by exploiting a loophole that allowed them to reroute their sales through countries with lower corporate tax rates like Ireland.
The bill includes a three percent tax on Internet technology companies that have global revenues of more than $847 million. French officials estimate that the tax will bring in $566 million in its first year.
The bill, which was adopted by France’s National Assembly, now needs approval from the French Senate.
Lawmakers in the United Kingdom are considering a similar tax on Internet technology companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Google on all revenues that are generated by British citizens.
Boris Johnson, who is likely to be the next prime minister, expressed approval for the new tax. “It’s deeply unfair that high street businesses are paying tax through the nose … whereas the internet giants, the FAANGs — Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google — are paying virtually nothing,” Johnson said in a comment.
Stay tuned to Breitbart News for more technology updates.


JEFF BEZOS of AMAZON DECLARES THAT AMERICAN-BORN SLAVES ARE NOT CHEAP ENOUGH. CHINA MUST DELIVER THE REAL SLAVE LABOR!
“A comprehensive new report released Sunday by the New York-based labor rights watchdog China Labor Watch (CLW) has shed new light on the barbaric and illegal practices that Amazon employs to boost its profits by driving down production costs on the backs of factory workers at the company’s electronics assembly plants in China.”
Amazon, the multinational online retail conglomerate, is importing more foreign workers to the United States to take coveted tech industry jobs than Facebook and Google combined. JOHN BINDER

"Amazon is a massive wrecking machine consuming American retail. It's looting the economy and leaving behind rubble. " --- DANIEL GREENFIELD FRONTPAGE MAG



"Amazon is a massive wrecking machine consuming American retail. It's looting the economy and leaving behind rubble. " --- DANIEL GREENFIELD FRONTPAGE MAG


AMAZON’S ASSAULT ON AMERICA CONTINUES
Amazon, the multinational online retail conglomerate, is importing more foreign workers to the United States to take coveted tech industry jobs than Facebook and Google combined. JOHN BINDER
"Amazon is a massive wrecking machine consuming American retail. It's looting the economy and leaving behind rubble. " --- DANIEL GREENFIELD FRONTPAGE MAG

"Today, each of the top 5 billionaires owns as much as 750 million people, more than the total population of Latin America and double the population of the US."

“A comprehensive new report released Sunday by the New York-based labor rights watchdog China Labor Watch (CLW) has shed new light on the barbaric and illegal practices that Amazon employs to boost its profits by driving down production costs on the backs of factory workers at the company’s electronics assembly plants in China.”

Amazon’s Plans for World Domination Slowed Down by UK Government
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos
Alex Wong/Getty
LUCAS NOLAN
 133
2:00

Amazon’s investment in British food delivery startup Deliveroo has been halted by Britain’s competition regulator in a rare loss for the Masters of the Universe.

Business Insider reports that Amazon’s $575 million investment in British food delivery startup Deliveroo has been put on hold by the U.K.’s antitrust regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The CMA has stepped in to pause the deal and prevent any integration attempts between the two companies as it considers launching a full investigation. The CMA said that the initial enforcement orders were served to the companies on June 24.
The CMA referred to Amazon’s investment as “a minority shareholding,” and stated that it had reasonable grounds for suspecting that Amazon and Deliveroo “have ceased to be distinct,” or were considering business arrangements that would result in the companies “ceasing to be distinct.” The current halt of the investment gives the CMA time to decide whether or not to launch a “Phase 1” competition probe.
A Deliveroo spokesperson commented on the issue stating: “There are a number of major companies within the restaurant food delivery sector and this investment will enable Deliveroo to expand, innovate and, we believe, will enhance competition.” Amazon commented on the issue stating: “We believe this minority investment will enable Deliveroo to expand its services, benefiting consumers through increased choice and creating new jobs as more restaurants gain access to the service.”
If the CMA decides to open an investigation, the companies could suggest ways to address issues raised by the CMA. If the companies had already merged financially, this process would be much harder.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com


Giant US healthcare corporations fear hostile takeover by high-tech companies

UnitedHealth Group Inc. brought a lawsuit earlier this year against a former information technology executive, David Smith, accusing him of stealing trade secrets and taking them to his new employer. This was the still unnamed joint venture known as ABC, a healthcare initiative that was launched in 2018 by Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase that supposedly intends to address the bloated health industry’s inefficiencies and high costs.
In a brief presented in a Boston federal courtroom by attorneys representing United’s Optum unit, they stated, “On the same day that he [David Smith] talked with ABC, and just one minute before printing his resume, Smith printed an Optum document marked ‘confidential’ that contains, among other things, Optum’s highly confidential information including an in-depth market analysis of the healthcare industry.”
Smith denied these charges and argued that he and ABC are not competing with UnitedHealth and are partnering in a not for profit with the intent to reduce healthcare costs among the three companies’ employees. Presently, Optum is providing healthcare services for Berkshire and JPMorgan. In his new position at ABC, Mr. David Smith will be director of Product Strategy and Research.
US District Judge Mark Wolf rejected UnitedHealth Group’s effort to block their former employees from joining ABC and ordered the case to be moved to arbitration as requested by ABC and Smith’s legal team.
That UnitedHealth Group, the largest healthcare company in the world by revenue (earning $226.2 billion in 2018) and ranked sixth in the 2019 Fortune 500, views this initiative by ABC with trepidation suggests a major shift is taking place in the healthcare market, in which high-tech companies are considered direct hostile competitors.
Given the rapid developments in digital technology over the last two decades these fears are warranted as capital seeks to channel financial transactions through more efficiently exploitive channels. These unfolding legal maneuvers are the initiation of volleys in a rapidly developing turf war.
American businesses and Wall Street corporations remain quite attentive to developments in the three corporate giants’ venture into the health industry. Approximately 46 percent of all Americans get their health insurance through an employer. Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase have nearly 1.2 million employees combined.
To comprehend what’s gnawing at the psyche of these corporate conglomerates, it helps to appreciate the enormous crisis facing the healthcare industry.

Soaring healthcare costs

A Kaiser Family Foundation 2017 employer survey found annual premiums for employer-sponsored family health coverage reached an average of $18,764, up 3 percent from the previous year, with workers contributing $5,714 towards the cost of their coverage. Though wages have barely kept up with inflation, with a paltry 26 percent rise since 2008, annual deductibles are rising eight times faster, with a 212 percent increase in the same period.
Startling statistics indicate that though the US population has expanded by 75 percent since 1960 to approximately 325 million people, healthcare expenditures, in constant dollars, have risen approximately 2000 percent.
US healthcare spending grew 3.9 percent in 2017, reaching $3.5 trillion, or $10,739 per person. As a share of the gross domestic product (GDP), health spending accounted for 17.9 percent, up from 6.9 percent in 1970. Spending is projected to grow at an average rate of 5.5 percent annually, reaching over $6 trillion by 2027 (19.4 percent of GDP). Healthcare expenditures continue to outpace GDP.
This spike in spending is not being driven by demand but by price hikes, despite evidence that these expenditures are not leading to improvements in health outcome measures. Since 2000, drug prices have risen 69 percent, hospital costs 60 percent, and physician/clinical services 23 percent.
The US population is facing a serious health calamity which is fueling these dire economic statistics. Though healthcare spending had historically been skewed toward the eldest in the population, recent analysis finds health spending has become less concentrated among the elderly, with healthcare dollars shifting across a broader swath of the population.
Whereas 56 percent of spending was concentrated among the top 5 percent in 1987, this group accounted for just under half of spending in 2009. Similarly, the spending share for the top 1 percent fell from 28 percent in 1987 to about 22 percent in 2009.
Credit: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The explanation for this flattening is primarily driven by the obesity epidemic. Younger age groups which used to be healthier are now experiencing rising prevalence of chronic diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol. These, in turn, contribute to increased risks of heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, immobility from joint ailments, and even malignancies.
Incredulously, one-third of healthcare spending isn’t helping anyone. The administrative burden in the US health markets is unique in creating glaring inefficiencies. There are hundreds of health insurance plans all charging different prices for the same surgeries and diagnostic studies. For every three doctors there are two administrative staffers to handle the paperwork. Over $765 billion is wasted each year, with $210 billion being charged in unnecessary services, $190 billion in high administrative costs, $130 billion in inefficiently delivered services, $105 billion in exorbitantly high prices, $75 billion in fraud and $55 billion in missed prevention opportunities.
The profit potential in health dollars has not been missed on high-tech companies. A JPMorgan Chase Institute study from 2015 cited that the number of people who earn income through online platforms has increased 47-fold in three years. In 2014, 24.9 million individuals filed tax returns indicating that they were the owners of a sole proprietorship. This represented a 34 percent increase in self-employment since 2001.
According to John Boitnott writing for Inc., when the Affordable Care Act went into effect in 2014, 1.4 million or 1 in 5 purchasing coverage were considered self-employed or small business proprietors. By 2020, independently employed persons are expected to comprise 40 percent of the economy. Initiatives and coalitions by these high-tech companies to capture these “clients” have been underway.
What the ABC health initiative may demonstrate is that, by selling their own workers marginally less costly “comprehensive health insurance,” companies could potentially redirect billions back into their own pockets. Rather than providing their workers with the healthcare they deserve, they would shift the burden further on the backs of workers by garnering their wages for healthcare services promised. These developments are reminiscent of the exploitation workers faced in traditional company towns. Current experiences by Amazon workers and the outcomes of their on-the-job injuries should be a stark lesson.
Since the 2018 health initiative, Amazon has gone on to purchase the online pharmacy startup PillPack for $1 billion while also planning to develop and sell software that will read medical records. PillPack is a full-service ePharmacy that fills prescriptions and ships drugs packaged in pre-sorted doses. Stock prices for traditional drugstore operators like CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens fell on news of this deal.

Tech companies’ forays into healthcare

Apple updated its Apple Health app in 2018, allowing it access to medical records from 39 hospitals. It also has received clearance from the FDA for various cardiac rhythm monitor apps that allows users to track their heart status. They have also opened an on-site clinic for their employees and are delving into online medical records initiatives.
Uber, the ride-sharing company, has ventured into the $3 billion medical transit market, offering non-medical-emergency transportation to the sick and elderly who often can’t drive. Most of the money comes through Medicare and Medicaid providers who foot the bill for their patients. It is estimated that 3.6 million people miss their healthcare appointments every year due to unreliable transportation, with an estimated $150 billion impact on healthcare expenditure.
Alphabet is the parent company of Google and is focusing on health research by incorporating technology in assisting physicians to take notes, assisting the elderly in nursing homes, and creating algorithms for predicting heart disease by looking into the patient’s eyes. They are also partnering with Walgreens to create technology addressing medical noncompliance and misuse of medications.
Last month, during President Trump’s State Visit to London, he included in his remarks that access to British public health system’s data should be part of trade talks after Brexit had taken effect. The UK National Health System has been a “free to use” entity for seven decades and attempts to monetize and privatize its massive data banks has been deeply unpopular. Despite the public’s deep opposition to any privatization of their national healthcare, Prime Minister Theresa May could only feebly add that “the point of making trade deals is both sides negotiate.” Under developing circumstances, the UK will be hard pressed as the much smaller and disadvantaged negotiating partner.
Polls indicate that three-quarters of the British public is in favor of the use of artificial intelligence to develop and improve diagnostic tools for treatment and prevention of illness. But there is healthy mistrust of big tech companies and multinationals that stand to amass fortunes should they be given access to the national database that has detailed information on 65 million lives.
According to the Guardian, “While other countries’ datasets are more fragmented, the NHS database has comprehensive patient records that go back decades. This treasure trove is priceless to technology giants such as Google’s parent Alphabet as well as smaller healthcare firms, which are vying to develop health mobile phone apps that perform a host of tasks from monitoring vital organs to carrying out an initial diagnosis.”

These maneuvers by Amazon and high-tech companies are intended to wedge themselves, through monopoly practices, into these traditional industries where inefficiencies mean lucrative opportunities at the cost of improvements in real health measures for working people. The working class must wrest these technological developments created by their own hands out of the clutches of the financial sector and redirect them for the real benefit of mankind.

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