E-commerce and tech giant Amazon alleges that the company is being unfairly targeted by a proposed U.S. antitrust bill. According to the Masters of the Universe, the bill “jeopardizes two of the things American consumers love most about Amazon: the vast selection and low prices made possible by opening our store to third-party selling partners, and the promise of fast, free shipping through Amazon Prime.”
Reuters reports that Amazon is criticizing a bill in Congress that would prevent tech giants from giving preference to their own businesses on their platforms. Amazon alleges that the bill is unfairly targeting the company while failing to subject rivals to similar rules.
Jeff Bezos/Instagram
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) (Photo by Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images)
The bill could be voted on in the Senate this month according to reports. The measure was passed b the Senate Judiciary Committee in January despite lobbying from tech executes such as Apple CEO Tim Cook. The bill passed the House Judiciary Committee in 2021.
In a recent blog post , the company claimed that the bill “jeopardizes two of the things American consumers love most about Amazon: the vast selection and low prices made possible by opening our store to third-party selling partners, and the promise of fast, free shipping through Amazon Prime.”
The Seattle-based internet giant claims that the bill solely targets Amazon by requiring a market value of at least $550 billion to qualify to be regulated and that rivals such as Walmart, Target, and CVS were excluded. The company stated: “In 2021, Walmart had annual revenues of $559 billion, nearly $90 billion more than Amazon. But Walmart is excluded despite also being a large retailer that allows small businesses to sell in its online marketplace.”
Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) who co-sponsored the bill, named the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, claim that the measure is aimed to protect small businesses. Amazon has argued that the bill could harm hundreds of thousands of small businesses selling on its websites and that the large fines for violations “would make it difficult to justify the risk of Amazon offering a marketplace in which selling partners can participate.”
Amazon claims that the bill would mandate that “Amazon allow other logistics providers to fulfill Prime orders.” The company argued that this could make it “potentially impossible in practice, for Amazon and our selling partners to offer products with Prime’s” free two-day shipping.
Read more at Reuters here. er @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com
Democrats, Big Tech Billionaires Unite to Keep DACA Illegal Aliens in U.S.
Jobs
Frazer Harrison/JIM WATSON/JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images
JOHN BINDER
1 Dec 2021 0
4:07
Democrats and billionaire executives for giant tech corporations are urging the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to keep illegal aliens, enrolled in former President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, in American jobs.
In July, Judge Andrew Hanen ordered President Joe Biden’s administration to shut down the DACA program by blocking the federal government from allowing new applicants, illegal aliens who have not previously been enrolled, onto the program’s rolls.
Months later, in September, Biden’s DHS issued a draft regulation that would effectively preserve the DACA program that has allowed more than 800,000 illegal aliens to remain in the United States and hold American jobs since 2012.
In a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Senate Democrats including Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Alex Padilla (D-CA), and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), along with a number of House Democrats, urged the Biden administration to move forward with the regulation and expand the program to include more illegal aliens.
The Democrats write :
To preserve family unity, we urge you to update the DACA threshold criteria to include individuals who had lawful status on June 15, 2012. One of the threshold criteria in the proposed rule is that DACA applicants must have “had no lawful immigration status on June 15, 2012, as well as at the time of filing of the request for DACA.” We ask that DHS to update these criteria to allow individuals who had lawful status in the United States on June 15, 2012, but subsequently lost such status by the time of their request, to qualify for DACA . This update could be accomplished by changing the above criterium to read: “had no lawful status at the time of filing of the request for DACA.” [Emphasis added]
…
We also encourage you to consider adopting additional changes to DACA eligibility requirements that would enable more Documented Dreamers to utilize the protection this program offers if the unlawful status requirement were revoked. Specifically, we urge you to consider removing the threshold criteria that require requestors to have continuously resided in the United States from June 15, 2007 to the time of filing of the request. We also support adjusting the dates in the threshold criteria to provide relief for individuals who arrived in the United States after 2007. These adjustments would help a greater number of Documented Dreamers access relief and avoid accruing unlawful status. [Emphasis added]
Likewise, executives at Amazon, Google, Cisco, the Intel Corporation, IBM, and Meta Platforms have sent a letter to DHS asking that DACA work permits be preserved and that Congress grant amnesty to DACA illegal aliens.
“DACA recipients help us innovate on behalf of customers and are a critical part of our diverse workforce,” the executives wrote. “… DACA recipients enrich our companies and the economy in different ways.”
Already, current immigration levels put downward pressure on U.S. wages while redistributing about $500 billion in wealth away from America’s working and middle class and towards employers and new arrivals, research by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine has found.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has repeatedly found that amnesty for illegal aliens would be a net fiscal drain for American taxpayers while driving down U.S. wages.
Every year, 1.2 million legal immigrants receive green cards to permanently resettle in the U.S. In addition, 1.4 million foreign nationals are given visas to take American jobs, while hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens enter the U.S. annually.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here .
In the United States, migration curbs Americans’ productivity , shrinks their political clout , and widens regional wealth gaps . It radicalizes their democratic, compromise-promoting civic culture , and allows elites to ignore despairing Americans at the bottom of society .
AMAZON HAS MADE MASSIVE PROFITS DURING THE PANDEMIC, PAID NO TAXES AND YET DEMANDS EVER CHEAPER LABOR. THAT'S WHERE OPEN BORDERS JOE BIDEN COMES IN!
Amazon, this year alone, petitioned for nearly 3,000 employment-based green cards for their foreign visa workers and foreign nationals seeking to take high-paying white collar jobs. Microsoft and Google, likewise, petitioned for more than 3,300 employment-based green cards.
More than one million white-collar American jobs today are held by foreign visa workers.
WSJ: Amazon Wins by ‘Steamrolling’ Smaller Rivals LUCAS NOLAN
In a recent article, the Wall Street Journal outlines how e-commerce giant Amazon gains an advantage over smaller competitors, “steamrolling” their business with similar products and services on its massive platform.
In an article titled “How Amazon Wins: By Steamrolling Rivals and Partners,” the Wall Street Journal outlines how the e-commerce giant Amazon uses its vast influence to push out competitors and rivals. The company often does this by targeting items that are selling well and creating their own version of the product, selling it at a cheaper price and undercutting the original manufacturer.
The Wall Street Journal writes:
No competitor is too small to draw Amazon’s sights. It cloned a line of camera tripods that a small outside company sold on Amazon’s site, hurting the vendor’s sales so badly it is now a fraction of its original size, the little firm’s owner said. Amazon said it didn’t violate the company’s intellectual-property rights.
When Amazon decided to compete with furniture retailer Wayfair Inc. , Mr. Bezos’s deputies created what they called the Wayfair Parity Team, which studied how Wayfair procured, sold and delivered bulky furniture, eventually replicating a majority of its offerings, said people who worked on the team. Amazon and Wayfair declined to comment on the matter.
Amazon set its sights on Allbirds Inc., the maker of popular shoes using natural and recycled materials, and last year launched a shoe called Galen that looks nearly identical to Allbirds’ bestseller —without the environmentally friendly materials and selling for less than half the price.
Allbirds Co-CEO Joey Zwillinger commented on the situation stating: “You can’t help but look at a trillion-dollar company putting their muscle and their pockets and their machinations of their algorithms and reviewers and private-label machine all behind something that you’ve put your career against. You have this giant machine creating all these headwinds for us.”
As multiple tech companies such as Facebook and Google face antitrust lawsuits , Amazon pushing out competitors could see the company in the sights of the Justice Department next.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.c
Delingpole: German Economist Says ‘Great Reset Will Cause a Crash Worse than 1930s’ MARK RALSTON/AFP via Getty Images
JAMES DELINGPOLE
26 Dec 2020 181
4:22
The Great Reset is real, it’s happening now and will lead to devastation worse — “much, much worse” — than the Weimar Republic, a German economist has warned.
Dr Antony Mueller, Professor of Economics at the Federal University of Sergipe in Brazil, says that the Chinese coronavirus ‘pandemic’ is being used as cover by the globalist elite to destroy small businesses and hasten a new world order based on “expertocracy, climate green religion, and brutal depopulation”.
This globalist elite — inspired by the World Economic Forum’s ‘Build Back Better’ campaign for a ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ and by the United Nations’ Agenda 2030 — are killing Main Street, together with thousands of jobs, by keeping economies across the Western World in near-permanent lockdown.
“Most people have not noticed yet because at the moment governments can afford to give them subsidies and welfare payments. But the question is: ‘For how long?’ We know this money is coming to an end and that it will soon be over. Next you will see massive unemployment all over Europe as one country pulls down another country.”
The coming economic crisis will be worse than any the world has seen before because all the countries in the Western world will become impoverished simultaneously and be unable to help one another.
“We are seeing the destruction of the economy in all Western countries — from the U.S. and Canada to New Zealand and Western Europe. 2020 as been a big catastrophe in the making. It’s just not here yet but it will be worse — much, much worse — than Weimar.”
It was the decline of Germany’s Weimar Republic — a period of high unemployment, deprivation, and hyperinflation — which led to the rise of Hitler. But however bad it might have been, the coming depression is going to be much worse because society is more atomised and less family-oriented and religious.
“In Weimar you still had large parts of the population who were religious — which gave them a sense of community and mutual help. They also had strong families. Now from Spain to Ireland, you have single households, which is going to make it much harder for people to survive.”
The other factor which is going to make this depression almost uniquely horrible is that because all the small businesses are being methodically and deliberately wiped out by government fiat, there will be nothing to make ordinary life bearable.
“We know, for example, that Argentina has had economic crashes. But they were always survivable because there were always small businesses — you could get your car repaired, go to the butcher for meat, the bars and cafes stayed open. In this new crash the bars and cafes will be all closed.”
This has nothing to do with the virus, says Professor Mueller, and everything to do with government policy: “The real pandemic will be the effect of the lockdown.”
“We had a foretaste in 2008. You remember the pictures of lines of people waiting to draw their cash from the bank? This could well happen because you will have a collapse of credit… Unemployment will come. The government will have no funds. It will be mega inflation or a major contraction.
“It was not the virus that did this. It was the lockdown. Most people cannot comprehend it because the dimension explodes anything we are used to.
“History has many examples where we ask ‘How could they do this?’ But they did.
“One should not bank on having money. People say: ‘Oh I have a pension.’ But the government won’t be able to pay your pension. ‘Oh I have some savings.’ But you won’t have any access to your savings account.”
While Mueller says the prognosis is bleak, his disastrous scenario may not come to fruition if Western economies see sense.
The best immediate hope, he says, would have been if Donald Trump got re-elected.
“This will end the lockdowns. There will be a strong, quick recovery. And the Europeans will follow.”
He says he takes no pleasure in warning of disaster.
“I hope it will not happen. I do not make prophecies. I only see the implications of what is happening now with lockdowns, what the future looks like.”
Professor Antony Mueller was talking to James Delingpole on the Delingpod podcast. You can see the full interview here . You can support James’s podcast at https://www.subscribestar.com/jamesdelingpole and https://www.patreon.com/jamesdelingpole
WSJ: Amazon Wins by ‘Steamrolling’ Smaller Rivals Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
LUCAS NOLAN
24 Dec 2020 3
2:30
In a recent article, the Wall Street Journal outlines how e-commerce giant Amazon gains an advantage over smaller competitors, “steamrolling” their business with similar products and services on its massive platform.
In an article titled “How Amazon Wins: By Steamrolling Rivals and Partners,” the Wall Street Journal outlines how the e-commerce giant Amazon uses its vast influence to push out competitors and rivals. The company often does this by targeting items that are selling well and creating their own version of the product, selling it at a cheaper price and undercutting the original manufacturer.
The Wall Street Journal writes:
No competitor is too small to draw Amazon’s sights. It cloned a line of camera tripods that a small outside company sold on Amazon’s site, hurting the vendor’s sales so badly it is now a fraction of its original size, the little firm’s owner said. Amazon said it didn’t violate the company’s intellectual-property rights.
When Amazon decided to compete with furniture retailer Wayfair Inc. , Mr. Bezos’s deputies created what they called the Wayfair Parity Team, which studied how Wayfair procured, sold and delivered bulky furniture, eventually replicating a majority of its offerings, said people who worked on the team. Amazon and Wayfair declined to comment on the matter.
Amazon set its sights on Allbirds Inc., the maker of popular shoes using natural and recycled materials, and last year launched a shoe called Galen that looks nearly identical to Allbirds’ bestseller —without the environmentally friendly materials and selling for less than half the price.
Allbirds Co-CEO Joey Zwillinger commented on the situation stating: “You can’t help but look at a trillion-dollar company putting their muscle and their pockets and their machinations of their algorithms and reviewers and private-label machine all behind something that you’ve put your career against. You have this giant machine creating all these headwinds for us.”
As multiple tech companies such as Facebook and Google face antitrust lawsuits , Amazon pushing out competitors could see the company in the sights of the Justice Department next.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.c
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