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While New Yorkers continue to debate the loss of Amazon from a site in Queens, the discussion seems to have lost sight of what Amazon contributes to the long-term well-being of our society.

Amazon is not a friend to America, has contributed very little if anything to our overall economy. The stock is currently grossly overvalued with a P/E ratio in excess of 80x.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has an estimated net worth of $165 Billion, primarily as a result of a business model which has dramatically changed the U.S. retail sector.

Most egregious? Amazon paper earnings for 2018 are $11.2 Billion, and early reports indicate that they will pay $0 in federal income taxes on these earnings.

(Amazon reported $5.6 Billion in U.S. profits in 2017 and paid $0 last year.)

Amazon creates jobs? True. Good jobs? False.

Economic scholars generally agree that a ‘living wage’ in the NY Metro area for an adult with one child is $31/hour, with 2 children $41/hour.

Amazon announced in early October 2018 that it would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour for its U.S. employees.

Meanwhile, much like Walmart, Amazon has created a business model which effectively eliminates competition and destroys small business.

The hot topic today is the talk of ‘Democratic Socialism’ being portrayed by some pundits as a death threat to American democracy.

The real threat to American democracy is the proliferation and exponential growth of a few family-controlled and vertically-integrated oligarchies which are capable of re-creating the Feudal System which characterized medieval Europe during the Middle Ages.

“Those who fail to learn from the lessons of history are bound to repeat the outrage of history.”