Quote:
Originally Posted by DuckieTigger
If what they are doing is obviously that term you call rent seeking, then I don't see how that applies. Is it not rather the opposite? When I googled rent seeking it appears to supposed to be initiated by a (corrupt) company to lobby advantages to them by imposing restrictions on the competition that is unwilling or incapable to sink to the same low. Amazon is making themselves look better in the media by raising the wages without having to pay anything extra. Nothing extra to pay since some of the cost increase come from culled benefits.
Amazon's reaction is to the pressure from politicians in the press, not Amazon pressuring the press to make them look bad. So who is lobbying? Amazon or the press?
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Amazon is lobbying the government to raise minimum wage to $15 per hour so everyone has to pay the higher rate. Rent seeking basically refers to any effort to lobby the government to do something that would put your company in a more advantageous situation than your competitors. For example, large corporations like regulation because they are large enough that the cost of regulation is a smaller percentage of their overhead than it would be for their smaller competitors. They already have an army of lawyers and accountants. It's not just sinking to a low and isn't necessarily corrupt. Many regulations are well meaning, but perhaps not necessarily effective.