Today, on the anniversary of the creation of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 1914, the FTC and 17 state attorneys general sued Amazon for using “a set of interlocking anticompetitive and unfair strategies to maintain its monopoly power.” The FTC and the suing states say “Amazon’s actions allow it to stop rivals and sellers from lowering prices, degrade quality for shoppers, overcharge sellers, stifle innovation, and prevent rivals from fairly competing against Amazon.”
Thank you, Joe, and the FTC for a return to sanity in the corporate world. We can all see what Amazon's been doing for years now - stiffing third party sellers, in some cases reproducing their products to undercut them on price and give us crappier products, overcharging, upping the cost of Amazon Prime and then finding excuses not to honor the components of it (i.e. shipping things late), putting their workers in dangerous work situations, paying them crap wages and treating them like slaves, and all the other things that TR and FDR fought so hard against. Go get Bezos! Make him pay for a change!
For decades I have been lamenting the lack of anti-trust actions against these mega corporations. No, monopolies are not good, no matter what big business says. I would like the too big to fail banks to be next, along with the handful of big media corporations that own so many tv, radio and news outlets. Thank you Joe Biden.
I find it most fascinating that the Biden administration has in effect launched a two pincer war against economic consolidation and inequality. One is the reinvigoration of the FTC and the dusting off the cobwebs of the Sherman and Clayton Anti-Trust Acts by empowering the wonderful Lina Khan to go after Amazon, as well as the Google in the trial already underway. The other arm of this pincer movement is more diffuse and symbolic at present, but will hopefully bear legal and policy fruit in the near future. That would be his clear support of Labor during this year of the strike (Viva la Huelga!).
It is truly amazing that no American President prior to today has ever marched on a picket line.
I am sure ole George Pickett, he of the famous Confederate charge at Gettysburg that when repulsed turned the course of the Civil War in favor of the Union, would be flabbergasted to hear that an American President walked the line derived from his name.
Imagine what Biden can accomplish in a new term with Democrats controlling both houses of Congress. That's why the Republicans are desperate enough to trying just about anything to prevent this.
Good one Daniel. I am just a few comments in and I see the potential of having great discussions. I just love scrolling the comments. I learn more each time and have developed interesting exchanges with very sharp people over the past years.
Let’s wonder how many of our presidents actually raised themselves up from the working class_I think Lincoln and Andrew Jackson would be two—maybe Grant.
While it's focus is mostly on his death, Candice Millard's book "Destiny of the Republic" is one of the best books I've ever read! It's reads like a page-turner novel---a book to turn "only fiction" readers into readers of non-fiction!
Miselle....I read Candice Millard's bio of Garfield and have read several of her books.
You are correct about the info concerning his drawn out and painful death from an asassin's bullet and infection he received at the hands of the attending physician during his Presidency.
I did enjoy reading everything about his life....family surviving a fire in the back country of Ohio when he was young....the importance of education from his mom.
His survival during a storm while working on a boat....not knowing how to swim.....believing there must be a purpose for his future.
Garfield was a Union officer during the Civil War.
I had the same thought as I read this letter this morning. I would like to see the FTC go after the cable companies, Comcast, T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, etc. For years they have controlled the costs and accesses to how people receive their internet, TV coverage and phones. They appear to compete on the surface but I think it is only on the surface. And why is it when you drive down any given road and there are several different gas stations (all different brands) all of them have the same or similar price? There are so many other companies that should also be scrutinized.
The loss of Borders was especially sad for me and many others. Hopefully Biden will keep doing those things TFG would never do, like showing up on a picket line.
I literally would not have the authorial career I am enjoying right now if not for Borders. We used to go to ours regularly, and I always checked out the military aviation history shelves. One time, a young clerk saw me there (had seen me many times) and recommended a new book that had just come in. I looked it over and liked what I saw, and bought it. When I read it, I found a story in it I knew well, having written the story originally in Flight Journal. It had a footnote number that I looked up, and there I was, the footnote! A couple weeks later I ran across the author on a discussion forum, and sent a private email thanking him. He responded and introduced me to the late Eric Hammel, who had published the book. We got along like gangbusters and he pushed me to write "Fabled Fifteen," and the rest is history. You can't do that at Amazon.
You can't TOUCH anything on Amazon, let alone have something on a shelf jump out at you, like WOW! No developing relationships. No new friends. No warm comfortable spaces. No reading room for Heather to read from and talk about her new book.......
That's a great story, TC, and no you certainly cannot do that at Amazon. If I may inquire, do you recall where that Borders was located? I reside in Los Angeles as well and remember some of the interesting Borders stores
For a large chain, Borders was pretty good, but they and B&N put so many great independents out of business and for that i will never forgive them. Vroman's in Pasadena is one of the few left. A loving patron bought Children's Book World in Westwood, just to save it.
I stopped bying from Amazon years ago because they are poison. They kill what we love and deprive us of the experience of LOOKING for book. I hope they get their ass kicked hard.
I have a copy of an old Flight Journal that printed a story my Dad wrote about getting shot down while he was a Flying Tiger. Not many of those old guys left to tell the stories.
You're so right. Literally, the last one alive is Bud Anderson from the 357th - 101 last May. When I wrote "I Will Run Wild" and did the chapter The Tigers of Burma (AVG), I realized all four of them I knew (Eric Shilling, Charles Older, Tex Hill, R.T. Smith) were long gone. Same thing when I wrote "Clean Sweep" - all the guys except Bud were gone. Steve Pisanos was the last, in 2016.
What I meant about "you can't do that at Amazon" is you can't do it online like that. Amazon will recommend 20 books "you may like" based on an order, but not one in particular, like that kid did because he'd read it and liked it.
During my eight years in Ann Arbor, Borders was my second home. I loved that store so much. I remember worrying that expansion would kill it, and so it did. Not that it wouldn’t have happened anyway. But that store was special.
I will go out on a limb here. I used Amazon when is was just a book store. Amazon is the poster child for the multi monopolies . It has taken advantage of a broken system of non regulation. I live in a rural area & to find items there are no vendors even traveling between several towns. I buy local when I can but too often traveling between stores, items are not available. I am not a prime member bc 2 day service in not available to me & the tv programs are not worth the price. I have 90% of the time have had excellent service & great return policy from Amazon. They were a life line during covid. Their IT department far exceeds others like that @ United Health Care( a very dysfunctional system). So in going after Amazon, dont throw the baby out with the bath water & look @ other big systems, such as for profit health care companies.
Carole, isn't what you describe exactly the point of going after Amazon? Your rural residence should provide opportunity for small business enterprise, but the strength of the mega corporations to undercut competition is precisely why you feel - and BTW, even where I live, a small city of 50K I encounter lack of choice - you must use their services. Like you, I have availed myself of Amazon's services more and more, as fewer and fewer alternative options are available.
I live in even a smaller community. I use the resources available. There is not one Apple Store in MT for instance so to get service either I drive 5+hr or as in the past use a local service that was not competent. It was even worse during covid. I am not saying that Amazon does not need reining in, along with a multitude of others, but from my experience they give a better quality of service than other abusers, like UnitedHealth Care that is less competent with my well being
Glad to hear that someone is trying to contain Amazon. As a primary care doctor it would be my nightmare to find myself working in a retail medical office run by… Amazon?! What kind of country allows such an absurdly sprawling monopoly to invade our grocery stores, music, books, streaming shows, and examining rooms?
As they state on their website:
“Amazon and One Medical have teamed up to make it easier to get exceptional primary care. Most major insurance plans accepted.”
Exceptional primary care has increasingly become an oxymoron as family docs like me are squeezed from all angles, 25% of the healthcare workforce has left, and primary care doctor shortages are projected to be around 20,000 nationally in the next 10 years.
Does Amazon based primary care sound as haunting to you as it does to me?
Well, no matter what happens to Amazon, or the Trump family Ponzi scheme, I’m thinking my Substack medical writing might just save my soul ☺️
Yes, I'm haunted by the same spectre and so long as we're trapped in the third-party, for-profit payor system, doctors are going to be commodified and enslaved by private equity firms and insurers. Worse, I predict that within 10 year an AI program will be given prescribing authority for "simple" conditions. Good luck, Doctor. (I think lawyers are going to be hit by a similar crunch when litigants start using Chat-GPT to represent themselves.)
As a fellow physician, I'm feeling your pain. It was really difficult in psychiatry with managed care before the parity laws passed. Now, insurers don't bother us much, having learned psychiatrists are harder to herd than cats. Primary care is the practice getting squeezed the most at the moment - you couldn't pay me enough to do your job.
That does seem to be the trend. Wal-Marts all have Pharmacies. Wallgreens are opening primary care offices in their stores, retail medical care chains such as Convenient MD and Village Medical are opening everywhere. All claiming to offer care at a lower price. All are crappy places to work (I spoke to an MD at one of these places who said he had not had a pay raise in 5 years). The best offer so-so care, but at far lower rates than can be found in more traditional medical settings. I've noticed that, in medicine, competition does lower prices, but it also lowers quality even more. I do not think medicine and capitalism work well together, but I cannot suggest an alternative, either.
I have to add a comment in favor of Walmart pharmacies. Nearly 20 years ago when I went on Medicare I opted not to sign up for Bush’s Part D drug option, as did my older husband. ( He was forced a couple of years ago to sign up and pay the penalty because of all the RX’s he is currently taking...for good reasons.) I still need to go online and research costs at various pharmacies for what I need. Walmart is often the one of choice. What I have experienced there is a most personable, caring staff that greet me by name, that don’t fill some called-in RX’s when the prices are ridiculously high and instead call me, that when I bring in same immediately inform me of cost. They have given me the same small town experience that I had growing up in Redondo Beach. Medicine and medical care are outrageously expensive. Without Medicare and, yes, United Healthcare plan, we would not have been able to be functioning as well as we are.
It's not Amazon which is failing to approve creation of any more government-supported residency positions at American Academic medical centers; it's congress failing to adequately address the growing shortage of doctors! The growing preference of our for-profit healthcare system is "mid-level" practitioners like Nurse-Practitioners (N-Ps) because, like Amazon, they can be paid less.
I couldn’t believe this latest either.... controlling healthcare so it is continuing to be just Big Business.
Where are our representatives???? Oh, right getting their mental health check-ups at Amazon prime .
I told United Health Care on their survey: “I got more care at the gas station, and it was self serve”!
Now Kaiser has a new hospital and it so reminds me of Kennedy Airport it is mind boggling. People running from here to there looking for their gate, and their doctor’s name on huge screens . Everything done on the computer. No one really sees anyone of us. No wonder doctors are quitting. They are starting to get their pilots’ licenses.
Oh, wait... I think Amazon bought up the airports.
Ryan, how you find the time to write and read as much as you obviously do is amazing to me.
I had a difficult confusing time recovering from COVID (a story for another day) but in May, my primary (who I've been going to for 32 years) spent an HOUR with me. Truly listened to the myriad concerns I had. Recently, I had a follow up to that visit. He spent 35 minutes with me.
When we finished up, I sincerely thanked him and told him he's a great doctor. Since he isn't that much younger than me, I worry about who I'll see when he retires and I grow ever older.
Thanks for that compliment - and I certainly wish I had more time to be better read, but I do cram in as much as I can, and cutting the cable cord decades ago has helped. I do try to be efficient, but it is so nice to turn off the clock with patients (especially the last appointment of the day if I don't have to run) and practice/listen the way we should and want to! Glad you had a positive visit, your primary sounds great.
She started her practice the same year I got health insurance through the county. She'd been my doc for 20 years when she discovered my breast cancer in a routine physical exam. Given that I was lax (at best) at self-exams, I doubt I would be here today. She retired during Covid. During the last exam I had with her, she told me their firm had signed with United Health Care, and that she was now being limited in what she could provide to patients. She had been castigated for taking 45 minutes to talk with an elderly woman about drug interdictions and not "burning off 3 warts for 3 different kids." She really bemoaned the switch to United Health.
Exactly accurate Gary; the flock doesn't have any understanding whatever on how economics, civics actually work in the real world. They actually rely on the interpretations by their 'strong men / women' that make all sorts of hollow promises to them. Snake oil salesmen..... there always existed a certain percentage of folks > 20 -30 % who would always be desperate enough to buy 'snake oil' , otherwise snake oil salesmen would have disappeared; it was lucrative enough, and apparently still sells today. A pathetic human condition reality, even yet today.
Here you have it right Jeri... deluded, uneducated, naive, and self centered; that describes the bulk of the common flock who strangely seem to vote against their own self interest. Pundits have wondered about just that seeming anomaly. I never have wondered. I lived among and grew up with that sort of crowd. I choose the words uneducated and naive, because I can forgive them for what they don't know. I treat them like I see them, with empathy as I would have for a small children. Try it; you'll find some peace, and the correct places for anger and hot derision. Brava Jeri !
My family and friend MAGAts are not stupid, some more ignorant than others, but my ex-bff is as smart as they come. Hubby requires all family to be repubs, and they are smart and educated. It’s all emotional, not intellectual.
Biden has turned out to be a much better president than I envisioned. His stance with the union workers versus the planned visit of TFG with non-union workers (and added fans) at a non-union auto parts manufacturer says it all. Biden’s administration is correctly going after Amazon with monopoly charges; Amazon is doing exactly what other monopolies have done in the past—gradually paying the suppliers (the independent sellers) less while charging the buyers more because they’re the only game in town.
I got the book on audible, and it is fabulous to hear her speak the book.
One of the first lines that was so striking was “more democracies or lost in the ballot box and not by bullets.“ (I may have forgotten the last part but for sure it was. They are lost in the ballot box. So frightening how she describes what happened in Germany as a blueprint for what is happening now.
I agree with you that these are dangerous times and am so grateful to have discovered Heather and this great community. Enjoy the book! Audible version must be great!
When Mitch McConnell, and the Supreme Court, show that they are sick and tired of the Far Right's shenanigans, this is a good sign that the jig is up. It doesn't mean the wounded bear will stop thrashing and clawing, but it is a sure indication we're getting close.
Thanks for this great substack this evening with everything else that is going on in your life. Congratulations on that! Such a powerful summary of what is going Great in this country---with Biden's powerful leadership and example (wow--walking a picket line and standing with labor---let's sing a few songs....)....with the counterpoint of the Big Losers: the GOP, Kevin Mc, and Trump dragging the country DOWN. Time to get to work on post cards, phone banks, etc.....
Seems a pretty good day in a year of craziness. America may actually end the year with a functional government that proves capable of regulating corporations rather than being run by them.
What most struck me reading today’s LFAA is that the consolidation of industries starting in the 80s mirrored the consolidation of corporations controlling a majority of U.S. media. Specifically, in 1983, that number was 50: in 1987, it was 29; in 1990, 21; in 1992 14; in 1997, 10; in 2000, 6; in 2004, 5. ( Source: Ben H. Bagdikian The New Media Monopoly, 2004) I would be remiss were I not also to note that at 2022 90% of the media was controlled by just 6 corporations: AT&T, CBS, Comcast, Disney, Newscorp, and Viacom.
Plainly stated, two+ decades of media deregulation have enabled a small handful of huge conglomerates to own the majority of films, music, television, radio, books, newspapers, magazines, and important Internet sites. Drawing a parallel to the consolidation of industries, the impact of this consolidation on fairness, accuracy, and diversity in the media poses equally serious risks to a democratic society.
Thanks for posting this, and note that the 2004 reference, nearly 20 years old, confirms how long this has been ongoing. It happened on the watch of and with the support of both parties.
I've seen in reading that the six corporations are owned by just six families (I've not fact checked this). These decades have recorded a descent into a true corporatist oligarchy. We are way past "serious risks." For all practical purposes our democracy, what's left of it, is indeed in chains.
In 2023, this corporate media decides which candidates to promote, which to black out, and communicating the corporate messages it wants citizens to receive and polarizing them to divide them and alienate them from one another in every way possible. Meanwhile, factions in both parties seem openly working to get rid of the last vestiges of independent sources of investigative reporting.
This shutdown, I fear, will be like none other. The rabid Republicans see themselves as revolutionaries hell-bent on dismembering the federal government. They care nothing about the suffering they will unleash. If they manage to hobble the economy, it's a great victory in their demented minds. What better way to hurt Biden's re-election chances.
The cliché "cooler heads will prevail," always bandied about during previous shutdowns, looks to be a fantasy. The small gang about to wreak havoc is a cruel minority exercising power the electorate didn't grant. That it is able to wield so much clout is one of the nation's greatest political failings and runs counter to specific constitutional language.
But here we are — and all in the face of such great progress by the president and other Democrats.
Michael, Though I could be wrong, I believe that narrow margin of persuadable Independents and, I dare say, moderate Republicans needed for the White House and Democrats up and down the ballot to prevail in 2024 will see through far-right extremist machinations and pin blame for the shutdown on Republicans, not Biden. I would note my comment is not meant to minimize the suffering a shutdown would unleash. Nonetheless, my remarks are meant not to allow us to get distracted from the most pressing issue at-hand—promptly doing all we can now that early voting has started in Virginia to help bank as many early votes as possible that, in my view, offers our best shot at flipping the State House and holding the State Senate. Additionally, I would be remiss were I not to note that said outcome also would level a much needed repudiation of Virginia’s current governor.
Barbara Jo, Is there any kind of national GOTV for Virginia dems and indies, say from Vote Forward?
I feel deeply that our efforts helped win the AZ and GA recent elections; thought the VA vote this year is simply for state houses - THE most important bodies for public policies on the local level!!
Given that tfg values his image as a successful and self-made businessman more than his kids, I expect he will fight like a cornered tiger over the NY ruling, which exposes him as a fraud. Remember when he made very clear to Mueller looking into his finances was crossing a red line?
Kevin McCarthy wants to be known as Speaker of the House, period, his constituents and the country be damned. He will undoubtedly go down as the worst Speaker in history. Part of me wants to feel sorry for this poor excuse of a public servant, but most of me wants the country to pull a full Howard Beale and scream from the windows “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”.
". . . reads better in the original catsup." That's brilliant.
". . . reads better in the original catsup."
[renews subscription]
Lol.... I adored that quip !
Here in Pa, it's "ketchup."
Well, Pa needs to catch up. : )
😂🤣😂
I love it! I needed a laugh!
Thank you, Joe, and the FTC for a return to sanity in the corporate world. We can all see what Amazon's been doing for years now - stiffing third party sellers, in some cases reproducing their products to undercut them on price and give us crappier products, overcharging, upping the cost of Amazon Prime and then finding excuses not to honor the components of it (i.e. shipping things late), putting their workers in dangerous work situations, paying them crap wages and treating them like slaves, and all the other things that TR and FDR fought so hard against. Go get Bezos! Make him pay for a change!
For decades I have been lamenting the lack of anti-trust actions against these mega corporations. No, monopolies are not good, no matter what big business says. I would like the too big to fail banks to be next, along with the handful of big media corporations that own so many tv, radio and news outlets. Thank you Joe Biden.
You and me both, Jack.
I find it most fascinating that the Biden administration has in effect launched a two pincer war against economic consolidation and inequality. One is the reinvigoration of the FTC and the dusting off the cobwebs of the Sherman and Clayton Anti-Trust Acts by empowering the wonderful Lina Khan to go after Amazon, as well as the Google in the trial already underway. The other arm of this pincer movement is more diffuse and symbolic at present, but will hopefully bear legal and policy fruit in the near future. That would be his clear support of Labor during this year of the strike (Viva la Huelga!).
It is truly amazing that no American President prior to today has ever marched on a picket line.
I am sure ole George Pickett, he of the famous Confederate charge at Gettysburg that when repulsed turned the course of the Civil War in favor of the Union, would be flabbergasted to hear that an American President walked the line derived from his name.
Imagine what Biden can accomplish in a new term with Democrats controlling both houses of Congress. That's why the Republicans are desperate enough to trying just about anything to prevent this.
Good one Daniel. I am just a few comments in and I see the potential of having great discussions. I just love scrolling the comments. I learn more each time and have developed interesting exchanges with very sharp people over the past years.
Me too! I finally cancelled my NYT overpriced subscription because I learn more here!
I only have NYT for my husband’s obsession with Spelling Bee!
Thanks much, Ranson, and welcome aboard to the Good Ship "Commentary scrolling".
Heather's LFAA is most welcome is it not?
Let’s wonder how many of our presidents actually raised themselves up from the working class_I think Lincoln and Andrew Jackson would be two—maybe Grant.
Liz.....and President Garfield...find a good read about his life.
While it's focus is mostly on his death, Candice Millard's book "Destiny of the Republic" is one of the best books I've ever read! It's reads like a page-turner novel---a book to turn "only fiction" readers into readers of non-fiction!
Miselle....I read Candice Millard's bio of Garfield and have read several of her books.
You are correct about the info concerning his drawn out and painful death from an asassin's bullet and infection he received at the hands of the attending physician during his Presidency.
I did enjoy reading everything about his life....family surviving a fire in the back country of Ohio when he was young....the importance of education from his mom.
His survival during a storm while working on a boat....not knowing how to swim.....believing there must be a purpose for his future.
Garfield was a Union officer during the Civil War.
He was a great person of character.
I would add Mizzou's Harry Truman to that list, and of course, a certain controversial President from SoCal, Richard Milhouse Nixon
Daniel, thanks...you are correct. I really enjoy history. I will find a biography of Harry Truman.
Daniel, LOVE the historical word derivation for picket line! Thank you!
YW John, and thank you for the kind words.
I had the same thought as I read this letter this morning. I would like to see the FTC go after the cable companies, Comcast, T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, etc. For years they have controlled the costs and accesses to how people receive their internet, TV coverage and phones. They appear to compete on the surface but I think it is only on the surface. And why is it when you drive down any given road and there are several different gas stations (all different brands) all of them have the same or similar price? There are so many other companies that should also be scrutinized.
We are paying 5k a year more on average, HCR reports, due to monopolies. Insane.
Yes, it is.
Every monopolistic struggle ends with the worst company winning. Barnes & Noble over Borders, CVS over Sav-On, the list goes on.
The loss of Borders was especially sad for me and many others. Hopefully Biden will keep doing those things TFG would never do, like showing up on a picket line.
I literally would not have the authorial career I am enjoying right now if not for Borders. We used to go to ours regularly, and I always checked out the military aviation history shelves. One time, a young clerk saw me there (had seen me many times) and recommended a new book that had just come in. I looked it over and liked what I saw, and bought it. When I read it, I found a story in it I knew well, having written the story originally in Flight Journal. It had a footnote number that I looked up, and there I was, the footnote! A couple weeks later I ran across the author on a discussion forum, and sent a private email thanking him. He responded and introduced me to the late Eric Hammel, who had published the book. We got along like gangbusters and he pushed me to write "Fabled Fifteen," and the rest is history. You can't do that at Amazon.
You can't TOUCH anything on Amazon, let alone have something on a shelf jump out at you, like WOW! No developing relationships. No new friends. No warm comfortable spaces. No reading room for Heather to read from and talk about her new book.......
That's a great story, TC, and no you certainly cannot do that at Amazon. If I may inquire, do you recall where that Borders was located? I reside in Los Angeles as well and remember some of the interesting Borders stores
For a large chain, Borders was pretty good, but they and B&N put so many great independents out of business and for that i will never forgive them. Vroman's in Pasadena is one of the few left. A loving patron bought Children's Book World in Westwood, just to save it.
I stopped bying from Amazon years ago because they are poison. They kill what we love and deprive us of the experience of LOOKING for book. I hope they get their ass kicked hard.
Northridge Mall up in the SFV.
I have a copy of an old Flight Journal that printed a story my Dad wrote about getting shot down while he was a Flying Tiger. Not many of those old guys left to tell the stories.
There is also no Amazon to be AT!
You're so right. Literally, the last one alive is Bud Anderson from the 357th - 101 last May. When I wrote "I Will Run Wild" and did the chapter The Tigers of Burma (AVG), I realized all four of them I knew (Eric Shilling, Charles Older, Tex Hill, R.T. Smith) were long gone. Same thing when I wrote "Clean Sweep" - all the guys except Bud were gone. Steve Pisanos was the last, in 2016.
What I meant about "you can't do that at Amazon" is you can't do it online like that. Amazon will recommend 20 books "you may like" based on an order, but not one in particular, like that kid did because he'd read it and liked it.
During my eight years in Ann Arbor, Borders was my second home. I loved that store so much. I remember worrying that expansion would kill it, and so it did. Not that it wouldn’t have happened anyway. But that store was special.
Home Depot’s cabinets over MEGA Cabinets.
For profit health care companies like UHC
I will go out on a limb here. I used Amazon when is was just a book store. Amazon is the poster child for the multi monopolies . It has taken advantage of a broken system of non regulation. I live in a rural area & to find items there are no vendors even traveling between several towns. I buy local when I can but too often traveling between stores, items are not available. I am not a prime member bc 2 day service in not available to me & the tv programs are not worth the price. I have 90% of the time have had excellent service & great return policy from Amazon. They were a life line during covid. Their IT department far exceeds others like that @ United Health Care( a very dysfunctional system). So in going after Amazon, dont throw the baby out with the bath water & look @ other big systems, such as for profit health care companies.
Carole, isn't what you describe exactly the point of going after Amazon? Your rural residence should provide opportunity for small business enterprise, but the strength of the mega corporations to undercut competition is precisely why you feel - and BTW, even where I live, a small city of 50K I encounter lack of choice - you must use their services. Like you, I have availed myself of Amazon's services more and more, as fewer and fewer alternative options are available.
Also in a small community that is very very red, some retailers are flat out trump supporters & I will not spend my $$ with them.
Yes, a challenge here too! Used to be swing state, now ruby red.
I live in even a smaller community. I use the resources available. There is not one Apple Store in MT for instance so to get service either I drive 5+hr or as in the past use a local service that was not competent. It was even worse during covid. I am not saying that Amazon does not need reining in, along with a multitude of others, but from my experience they give a better quality of service than other abusers, like UnitedHealth Care that is less competent with my well being
Yes. I have to agree that both access and service have propelled Amazon to the top. It's hard to live far from choice.
Glad to hear that someone is trying to contain Amazon. As a primary care doctor it would be my nightmare to find myself working in a retail medical office run by… Amazon?! What kind of country allows such an absurdly sprawling monopoly to invade our grocery stores, music, books, streaming shows, and examining rooms?
As they state on their website:
“Amazon and One Medical have teamed up to make it easier to get exceptional primary care. Most major insurance plans accepted.”
Exceptional primary care has increasingly become an oxymoron as family docs like me are squeezed from all angles, 25% of the healthcare workforce has left, and primary care doctor shortages are projected to be around 20,000 nationally in the next 10 years.
Does Amazon based primary care sound as haunting to you as it does to me?
Well, no matter what happens to Amazon, or the Trump family Ponzi scheme, I’m thinking my Substack medical writing might just save my soul ☺️
Yes, I'm haunted by the same spectre and so long as we're trapped in the third-party, for-profit payor system, doctors are going to be commodified and enslaved by private equity firms and insurers. Worse, I predict that within 10 year an AI program will be given prescribing authority for "simple" conditions. Good luck, Doctor. (I think lawyers are going to be hit by a similar crunch when litigants start using Chat-GPT to represent themselves.)
As a fellow physician, I'm feeling your pain. It was really difficult in psychiatry with managed care before the parity laws passed. Now, insurers don't bother us much, having learned psychiatrists are harder to herd than cats. Primary care is the practice getting squeezed the most at the moment - you couldn't pay me enough to do your job.
Thanks for the validation - but what if I offered you 100 million dollars a year like what they are paying soccer stars in Saudi Arabia?
1 month and then I'd retire like a fat cat!
That does seem to be the trend. Wal-Marts all have Pharmacies. Wallgreens are opening primary care offices in their stores, retail medical care chains such as Convenient MD and Village Medical are opening everywhere. All claiming to offer care at a lower price. All are crappy places to work (I spoke to an MD at one of these places who said he had not had a pay raise in 5 years). The best offer so-so care, but at far lower rates than can be found in more traditional medical settings. I've noticed that, in medicine, competition does lower prices, but it also lowers quality even more. I do not think medicine and capitalism work well together, but I cannot suggest an alternative, either.
I have to add a comment in favor of Walmart pharmacies. Nearly 20 years ago when I went on Medicare I opted not to sign up for Bush’s Part D drug option, as did my older husband. ( He was forced a couple of years ago to sign up and pay the penalty because of all the RX’s he is currently taking...for good reasons.) I still need to go online and research costs at various pharmacies for what I need. Walmart is often the one of choice. What I have experienced there is a most personable, caring staff that greet me by name, that don’t fill some called-in RX’s when the prices are ridiculously high and instead call me, that when I bring in same immediately inform me of cost. They have given me the same small town experience that I had growing up in Redondo Beach. Medicine and medical care are outrageously expensive. Without Medicare and, yes, United Healthcare plan, we would not have been able to be functioning as well as we are.
Whew! Sometimes I am glad I'm an old fart. I might not have to go through that crap. Then again, I might live long enough to suffer it Gaaa.
It is getting frightening for sure. I 'll have to check out your Substack. My wife and I have Dr, friends who sing a similar song.
It's not Amazon which is failing to approve creation of any more government-supported residency positions at American Academic medical centers; it's congress failing to adequately address the growing shortage of doctors! The growing preference of our for-profit healthcare system is "mid-level" practitioners like Nurse-Practitioners (N-Ps) because, like Amazon, they can be paid less.
...and Physician Assistants (PAs).
Exactly Dr.McCormick,
I couldn’t believe this latest either.... controlling healthcare so it is continuing to be just Big Business.
Where are our representatives???? Oh, right getting their mental health check-ups at Amazon prime .
I told United Health Care on their survey: “I got more care at the gas station, and it was self serve”!
Now Kaiser has a new hospital and it so reminds me of Kennedy Airport it is mind boggling. People running from here to there looking for their gate, and their doctor’s name on huge screens . Everything done on the computer. No one really sees anyone of us. No wonder doctors are quitting. They are starting to get their pilots’ licenses.
Oh, wait... I think Amazon bought up the airports.
Ryan, how you find the time to write and read as much as you obviously do is amazing to me.
I had a difficult confusing time recovering from COVID (a story for another day) but in May, my primary (who I've been going to for 32 years) spent an HOUR with me. Truly listened to the myriad concerns I had. Recently, I had a follow up to that visit. He spent 35 minutes with me.
When we finished up, I sincerely thanked him and told him he's a great doctor. Since he isn't that much younger than me, I worry about who I'll see when he retires and I grow ever older.
Thanks for your always enlightening posts.
Thanks for that compliment - and I certainly wish I had more time to be better read, but I do cram in as much as I can, and cutting the cable cord decades ago has helped. I do try to be efficient, but it is so nice to turn off the clock with patients (especially the last appointment of the day if I don't have to run) and practice/listen the way we should and want to! Glad you had a positive visit, your primary sounds great.
A good primary care doc saved my life.
She started her practice the same year I got health insurance through the county. She'd been my doc for 20 years when she discovered my breast cancer in a routine physical exam. Given that I was lax (at best) at self-exams, I doubt I would be here today. She retired during Covid. During the last exam I had with her, she told me their firm had signed with United Health Care, and that she was now being limited in what she could provide to patients. She had been castigated for taking 45 minutes to talk with an elderly woman about drug interdictions and not "burning off 3 warts for 3 different kids." She really bemoaned the switch to United Health.
".... they can do this to YOU!” " Yes, if your a criminal, they can and should do this to you. What a twit...
His MAGAts think he will make them rich also, deluded and ignorant, as they send him their last dime. Only a cult…
It seems like many of them think the economy is a zero sum game. If they get theirs or the Democrats lose theirs, then they are happy.
They don't care that the 1% and the corporations make more in a year than a small city. Or that Trump cut their tax rate by 10-16%.
Exactly accurate Gary; the flock doesn't have any understanding whatever on how economics, civics actually work in the real world. They actually rely on the interpretations by their 'strong men / women' that make all sorts of hollow promises to them. Snake oil salesmen..... there always existed a certain percentage of folks > 20 -30 % who would always be desperate enough to buy 'snake oil' , otherwise snake oil salesmen would have disappeared; it was lucrative enough, and apparently still sells today. A pathetic human condition reality, even yet today.
They are stupid and ignorant, but only evil can explain their actions
Here you have it right Jeri... deluded, uneducated, naive, and self centered; that describes the bulk of the common flock who strangely seem to vote against their own self interest. Pundits have wondered about just that seeming anomaly. I never have wondered. I lived among and grew up with that sort of crowd. I choose the words uneducated and naive, because I can forgive them for what they don't know. I treat them like I see them, with empathy as I would have for a small children. Try it; you'll find some peace, and the correct places for anger and hot derision. Brava Jeri !
My family and friend MAGAts are not stupid, some more ignorant than others, but my ex-bff is as smart as they come. Hubby requires all family to be repubs, and they are smart and educated. It’s all emotional, not intellectual.
I love tat Jeri — MAGAts!
😂
Love the book.
Biden has turned out to be a much better president than I envisioned. His stance with the union workers versus the planned visit of TFG with non-union workers (and added fans) at a non-union auto parts manufacturer says it all. Biden’s administration is correctly going after Amazon with monopoly charges; Amazon is doing exactly what other monopolies have done in the past—gradually paying the suppliers (the independent sellers) less while charging the buyers more because they’re the only game in town.
I always feel like I am an adult in the real world again after reading your columns.
I ordered Democracy Awakening on audible.
Just received my book and started it! Fantastic!!!⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Mine was delivered by Amazon...
Mine too.
Got my two copies y’day, too. One for me and one for my son with the B.A. in history.
I got the book on audible, and it is fabulous to hear her speak the book.
One of the first lines that was so striking was “more democracies or lost in the ballot box and not by bullets.“ (I may have forgotten the last part but for sure it was. They are lost in the ballot box. So frightening how she describes what happened in Germany as a blueprint for what is happening now.
I agree with you that these are dangerous times and am so grateful to have discovered Heather and this great community. Enjoy the book! Audible version must be great!
Yes, it is next up for me too.
When Mitch McConnell, and the Supreme Court, show that they are sick and tired of the Far Right's shenanigans, this is a good sign that the jig is up. It doesn't mean the wounded bear will stop thrashing and clawing, but it is a sure indication we're getting close.
Thanks for this great substack this evening with everything else that is going on in your life. Congratulations on that! Such a powerful summary of what is going Great in this country---with Biden's powerful leadership and example (wow--walking a picket line and standing with labor---let's sing a few songs....)....with the counterpoint of the Big Losers: the GOP, Kevin Mc, and Trump dragging the country DOWN. Time to get to work on post cards, phone banks, etc.....
Seems a pretty good day in a year of craziness. America may actually end the year with a functional government that proves capable of regulating corporations rather than being run by them.
And it looks like Heather and Ryan Grim from The Intercept see the day in similar ways.
https://theintercept.com/2023/09/26/government-shutdown-house-republicans/
...while being shut down?!!
The plot thickens, Trump ill be held accountable and Biden will win going away.
May it be so.
We must work to make it so.
From your lips to God's ears...
Please God
Amazing you could get this out tonight after your wonderful interview with Magna in Boston this evening!
What most struck me reading today’s LFAA is that the consolidation of industries starting in the 80s mirrored the consolidation of corporations controlling a majority of U.S. media. Specifically, in 1983, that number was 50: in 1987, it was 29; in 1990, 21; in 1992 14; in 1997, 10; in 2000, 6; in 2004, 5. ( Source: Ben H. Bagdikian The New Media Monopoly, 2004) I would be remiss were I not also to note that at 2022 90% of the media was controlled by just 6 corporations: AT&T, CBS, Comcast, Disney, Newscorp, and Viacom.
Plainly stated, two+ decades of media deregulation have enabled a small handful of huge conglomerates to own the majority of films, music, television, radio, books, newspapers, magazines, and important Internet sites. Drawing a parallel to the consolidation of industries, the impact of this consolidation on fairness, accuracy, and diversity in the media poses equally serious risks to a democratic society.
Thanks for posting this, and note that the 2004 reference, nearly 20 years old, confirms how long this has been ongoing. It happened on the watch of and with the support of both parties.
I've seen in reading that the six corporations are owned by just six families (I've not fact checked this). These decades have recorded a descent into a true corporatist oligarchy. We are way past "serious risks." For all practical purposes our democracy, what's left of it, is indeed in chains.
In 2023, this corporate media decides which candidates to promote, which to black out, and communicating the corporate messages it wants citizens to receive and polarizing them to divide them and alienate them from one another in every way possible. Meanwhile, factions in both parties seem openly working to get rid of the last vestiges of independent sources of investigative reporting.
This shutdown, I fear, will be like none other. The rabid Republicans see themselves as revolutionaries hell-bent on dismembering the federal government. They care nothing about the suffering they will unleash. If they manage to hobble the economy, it's a great victory in their demented minds. What better way to hurt Biden's re-election chances.
The cliché "cooler heads will prevail," always bandied about during previous shutdowns, looks to be a fantasy. The small gang about to wreak havoc is a cruel minority exercising power the electorate didn't grant. That it is able to wield so much clout is one of the nation's greatest political failings and runs counter to specific constitutional language.
But here we are — and all in the face of such great progress by the president and other Democrats.
Michael, Though I could be wrong, I believe that narrow margin of persuadable Independents and, I dare say, moderate Republicans needed for the White House and Democrats up and down the ballot to prevail in 2024 will see through far-right extremist machinations and pin blame for the shutdown on Republicans, not Biden. I would note my comment is not meant to minimize the suffering a shutdown would unleash. Nonetheless, my remarks are meant not to allow us to get distracted from the most pressing issue at-hand—promptly doing all we can now that early voting has started in Virginia to help bank as many early votes as possible that, in my view, offers our best shot at flipping the State House and holding the State Senate. Additionally, I would be remiss were I not to note that said outcome also would level a much needed repudiation of Virginia’s current governor.
Barbara Jo, Is there any kind of national GOTV for Virginia dems and indies, say from Vote Forward?
I feel deeply that our efforts helped win the AZ and GA recent elections; thought the VA vote this year is simply for state houses - THE most important bodies for public policies on the local level!!
Let’s not ignore the egotism of McCarthy trying to save his own a-- and dealing with the Devil to do it.
But one wonders with their slim majority what lunatic fringe insurrectionist scum would take his place among the spineless House majority.
President Biden joins auto worker strikers.
A New York justice dissolves The Trump Organization.
McCarthy’s House Raucus Caucus is having a hissy fit that will close down the United States government.
Anti trust suit targets Amazon.
What a marvelous day for the official launching of Heather’s DEMOCRACY AWAKENING Notes on the State of America.
Given that tfg values his image as a successful and self-made businessman more than his kids, I expect he will fight like a cornered tiger over the NY ruling, which exposes him as a fraud. Remember when he made very clear to Mueller looking into his finances was crossing a red line?
YES!!
Kevin McCarthy wants to be known as Speaker of the House, period, his constituents and the country be damned. He will undoubtedly go down as the worst Speaker in history. Part of me wants to feel sorry for this poor excuse of a public servant, but most of me wants the country to pull a full Howard Beale and scream from the windows “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”.
If only...
I’d actually love to punch him in his handsome face just to wake him up—and I’ve never punched anybody
Received my two copies of Democracy Awakening today. Very excited!
Me too!
Me too!
Me too first copy sold at b&n this morning. Hadn’t even got it on the shelf yet. It’s on it now!
Picking mine up today!
I haven’t and ordered from an independent bookstore several months ago and recommended here…maybe it’s on the way.
Same!
Me Two!
Me Three!
One to keep, one to give away!