Quote:
Originally Posted by Skip Wyona
I like Amazon and am a frequent customer. I like it that their items are cheap and shipping is often free. I also recognize that Amazon does not control the book market ... yet, but not for want of trying. I would like Amazon even better however if Amazon did not have unfair advantages in what is supposed to be a free market. Can there be no doubt that Amazon gets a free ride to the detriment of brick and mortar stores? Should not buyers have to pay sales tax for example as they must for most other purchases? I fear that these praises of Amazon posted here might have unforeseen consequences in the future. All users should take warning from Aesop and re-read the fable 'Killing the Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs'.
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I beg to differ Skip Wyona.
Amazon pays to ship directly to the customer. That is a higher expense than the so called brick and mortar stores pay for their bulk shipping in big tricks and on railways. You have to factor that cost into their overhead.
Yes state and local governments don't get their sales tax, but the citizens of those states and local governments get lower costs and thus are better able to support these state and local governments.
Amazon doesn't get a free ride. They provide the citizens good products at a low cost, and with incredible efficiency.
If you want to look at free rides, look at such artifices as not charging sales tax above $300 on an automobile sale. Look at giving tax breaks on first and 2nd mortgages. Look at farm subsidies, ethanol subsidies, homesteader exemptions, etc., etc., and so on forever.
What we have is politics in action where "people" decide what is fair, but there are groups of other people that disagree.