You don't have to like Amazon to fear DT's attack on it.

[pnwmom]

NO ONE should appear to be supporting Trump's very personal attack on Amazon now, no matter what they think about Amazon.

This is all about the WA Post and DT's effort to punish Jeff Bezos.

PROOF: Can anyone believe that if Amazon were owned by the Koch brothers or the Mercers or Sinclair Broadcasting, that DT would be attacking it now?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/opinion/trump-autocrat-playbook.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region

Modern authoritarians rarely seize critical newspapers or TV stations outright. Instead, they use state power to pressure critics and reward friends. As Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, professors at Harvard, wrote in their recent book “How Democracies Die,” President Vladimir Putin of Russia turned the tax authorities on Vladimir Gusinsky, owner of an independent television network, NTV, which was considered bothersome. Gusinsky eventually signed NTV over to a government-controlled company. Under Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan authorities accused Guillermo Zuloaga, owner of Globovisión, a TV station frequently critical of the government, of illegal profiteering. In 2013, Zuloaga sold Globovisión to allies of Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro.

Now Donald Trump is going after Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post.

The president’s latest round of anti-Amazon tweets began last Thursday, when Trump claimed, inaccurately, that Amazon pays “little or no taxes to state & local governments” and that the United States Postal Service loses money on Amazon deliveries. On Saturday, he wrote that The Washington Post should be forced to “REGISTER” as an Amazon lobbyist. On Monday, he warned that Amazon may soon have to pay more for its deliveries: “Only fools, or worse, are saying that our money losing Post Office makes money with Amazon. THEY LOSE A FORTUNE, and this will be changed.”

Trump’s antipathy has already affected Amazon’s fortunes. He threatened the company during the presidential campaign, and, as Forbes reported, Amazon’s stock plunged more than 6 percent after he won. Last Wednesday, after Axios reported that Trump was “obsessed” with Amazon, the company lost $53 billion in market value. In the wake of Trump’s tweets on Monday, Amazon’s stock fell more than 5 percent.

SNIP

By the time those regimes moved against unsympathetic media companies, much of the population had been disoriented by disinformation. Under Trump, America has started down the same road. There are many reasons to be terrified of Amazon’s power, but Trump’s ability to undermine it with a tweet is far scarier.

[Squinch]

1. Kick. We have to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time.

[Dawson Leery]

2. Agreed.

Money is not everything.

Trump's attacks supercede corporate troubles.

[Wwcd]

3. Stock manipulation by an elected official is illegal

Bezos will sue the crook & his crony profiteers who stood by him, before Amazon takes another shove by the bully criminal.

Bezos has far better attorneys than Trump or his stupid pals that quickly jumped to his defense.

They all better be showing no signs of profiting from this stunt.

[Angry Dragon]

5. +5,000

[Wwcd]

10. If there's any billionare who knows the game at the top

& how its being played by Trump & his crooked pals, its Jeff Bezos.

Bezos knows the game & has the legal system & the world class attorneys & more money than all of them, on his side of the chess board.

Trump & those who climbed on his bus of stupid nobodies, will not win this against Bezos.
He will protect what he's built.

[C_U_L8R]

9. True... but can Amazon sue Trump ?

[Wwcd]

11. Yes.

Link to tweet

?s=20

Link to tweet

?s=20

Link to tweet

?s=20

More here from CNNMoney
http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/29/technology/trump-tweets-about-amazon-taxes/index.html?iid=EL

Here's Trump's big problem with how he attacked Amazon.

"The president has said he dislikes Amazon because CEO Jeff Bezos also owns The Washington Post.
He has said without proof that he believes Bezos uses the newspaper to lobby for Amazon's business interests.
Amazon does not hold a stake in The Washington Post.

I think Trump took on the behemoth of billionares. Bezos is nobodies fool.

[dalton99a]

14. +1

[Cha]

23. Wow.. as I gleefully

rub my hands together.. Mahalo for those encouraging tweets from Painter.

"I think Trump took on the behemoth of billionares. Bezos is nobodies fool."

And, trump is.

[Cha]

22. Anybody has better attorneys

than trump.. especially Bezos.

Thank you for the link, Wwcd.

[sprinkleeninow]

26. Agreeable. n/t

[democratisphere]

4. An illegitimate so-called president should not be allowed to attack a successful American

company with absolute proven lies that erodes shareholder value!

[Angry Dragon]

6. Trump is an egotistical low self-esteem racist bully

[kwassa]

7. As a daily reader of my local paper, the Washington Post ...

Bezos has done nothing to change the outstanding journalism of the paper. He leaves the management alone, but focuses on ways to find new revenue streams for the paper. The Post has been incredible.

Trump is a wannabe dictator, and has consistently tried to control information, albeit rather ineffectively. He always attacks the messengers, because he can't attack the message.

[VOX]

8. 45 is attacking Amazon because Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.

45 could give a shit about Amazon, one way or another.

But the Washington Post has been front and center among the few media outlets that have consistently gone after 45 and him “administration.”

Leave it to 45 to attack obliquely. He can’t even fire his own incompetence/criminal people face-to-face.

[Control-Z]

12. Well, it may be secondary

but Spankey Dennison does care about Amazon - but only because of how rich it has made Bezos. Far richer than the false number he pulls out of his butt about his own wealth. He can't stand that Bezos wealth is real and superior.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

20. tRump's immense ego is more threatened by Bezos' WaPo than by Amazon delivery system. . . nt

[VOX]

35. Absolute agreement. 45 wants a pissing contest with Bezos...

Because, as you said, he’s stuck on “livid” as Bezos has far greater wealth.

Weirdly, this might be more than secondary; it’s the same mechanism that gets tripped by the back-and-forth of 45’s interactions with Kim Jong-um.

[napi21]

13. I still find it amazing that he tries to sound like the mean executive, but he always delegates any

firing to someone else. What is he afraid of? Maybe the person being terminated would call him the jackass that he is?

[elmac]

15. I have no interest in Amazon or any other corporate entity in this country

They are all basically low paying sweat shops. I have no interest in stocks or any part of capitalism. They are reaping what they sow.

[pnwmom]

17. You are missing the point. Trump is attacking freedom of the press and that freedom

underpins all of our others.

This has nothing to do with Amazon and everything to do with the WA Post and Jeff Bezos.

You're deluding yourself if you think DT would be attacking Amazon if it was owned by the Kochs or the Mercers.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

19. Woosh. You are purposely looking at Ivanka's suppliers. But instead you want to shoot the messenger.

Ivanka and the Mango Mussoline employ the sweatshops.

[Adrahil]

36. Don't miss the forest for the trees....

... or you are serving his interests.

[George II]

16. This is a disgusting attack. Period. It may be an attack on "big business", but it's unethical.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

18. Well, do you see tRump attacking Facebook (megacorp)? No. They help him. . . . nt

[Cha]

21. Donald Trump Wants to Get Revenge on Jeff Bezos by Messing With Amazons Taxes

snip//

Trump hates the newspaper’s critical White House coverage and has accused Bezos of using the publication as a political sword to protect Amazon’s business interests. “If I become president, oh do they have problems. They’re going to have such problems,” he said during a campaign rally in 2016. According to Axios, Trump’s rich pals have added fuel to the fire by telling him that Amazon is hurting their businesses. “His real estate buddies tell him—and he agrees—that Amazon is killing shopping malls and brick-and-mortar retailers,” Axios writer Jonathan Swan reports. Trump is also apparently hung up on the mistaken belief that Amazon is somehow fleecing the U.S. Postal Service. (Pretty much the opposite is true; Amazon’s packages are a crucial moneymaker for USPS.)

https://slate.com/business/2018/03/donald-trump-wants-to-get-revenge-on-jeff-bezos-by-messing-with-amazons-taxes.html

https://slate.com/business/2018/03/donald-trump-wants-to-get-revenge-on-jeff-bezos-by-messing-with-amazons-taxes.html

Of course it is.. and he doesn't need assistance from anyone.

Thank you, pnwmom!

[oasis]

24. Straight that!

K and R

[Jarqui]

25. The day begins with news of another woman going after Trump in court

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=10441643

Politifact Rate Trump's claim as FALSE:
No, the Postal Service isn't losing a fortune on Amazon
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/apr/02/donald-trump/trump-usps-postal-service-amazon-losing-fortune/

The day ends with clear cut grounds for the world's third most valuable company to legally go after Trump for his outrageous comments against it and the Washington Post.

Bezos personally lost more ($10.7 billion) than triple Trump's $3.1 billion net worth with Trump's comments.
http://fortune.com/2018/03/29/amazon-stock-amzn-jeff-bezos-net-worth/

As if the shrinking Trump legal team needs more litigation .... His stupidity is boundless.

[pnwmom]

29. I missed that story about the 3rd woman. Thanks for the link.

What sort of legal grounds does Amazon or Bezos have for going after DT? Do you have certain laws in mind?

[Jarqui]

34. Here's one way:

Defamation Lawsuit Against Donald Trump Gains Support From Law Professors
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/defamation-lawsuit-donald-trump-gains-support-law-professors-1041068

Amazon can sue Trump for damages as his comments that have been widely criticized by factcheck sites and media were found to be very inaccurate and costly to Amazon.

Washington Post probably has a first amendment civil argument.

if Amazon or Bezos sues Trump for the $10.7 or more billion loss - which again is more than three times Trump's reported net worth, that goes against his credit rating and the liability will ripple through his companies indirectly. Now the US banks stopped lending to him long ago but Russians or others didn't. Yet, the institutional risk criteria for loan renewal or cash-flowing an entity are a common set of global considerations - which a lawsuit like this will affect because the risk increases that the lending institution will not get paid back. In other words, the mere presence of such a lawsuit could dry up the cash for Trump's businesses and take him out or dramatically hurt them without ever getting through the courts because I think these businesses were fairly substantially leveraged as it is and were already suffering before this.

This could turn out to be a wildly stupid thing to have done that could really cost him.

A sign of how serious it is might be will be what rhetoric his lawyers persuade him to use soon to lessen the damages as Amazon-Bezos lawyers have to ask him to retract his remarks. He's been a hard-headed idiot on stuff like this before - for example, his claims of Obama ordering wire tapping or his birth certificate but this is something that will affect his wallet which might get through to him.

[gyroscope]

27. Bezos has invited criticism

by being owner of both a major retailer and major newspaper, something that could certainly be viewed as a conflict of interest. Though it's usually a liberal that would be making such a criticism. The right are usually fine with big business doing whatever it wants.

But of course the Deranged Orange Dictator isn't attacking Bezos for that, but because he mindlessly attacks anyone or anything that is critical of him, in this case the WP.

[Me.]

28. Quite

This is another visit from the vicious, spiteful, mendacious, jealous, vindictive resident of that building of no exact name.

[BobTheSubgenius]

30. Does anyone know of Amazon, or other business, gets a favourable rate?

A volume discount, that is. If USPS is Amazon's main delivery agent, or does even a healthy minority of their shipping, it must be 1000s per day. I can understand Amazon getting a discount, our mercantile system relies on that principle. What I don't know is if the Post Office does, or is even allowed to do this.

If Amazon is paying either full retail, or a reasonably discounted rate, it's hardly their fault if the service is being delivered at a rate lower than cost. The USPS has the worst business model in history, if that's the case.

[pnwmom]

32. The Post Office is losing money on other parts of its business -- not on the business

it does with Amazon, which has been profitable and even allowed it to expand service.

[KPN]

31. This should be pretty obvious to anyone who has been paying attention.

Definitely an attack on free press. At the same time, I think we can do or be concerned about both -- attacks on the free press in order to control the "news", and concentration of economic wealth and power that ultimately undermines democratic principles.

[no_hypocrisy]

33. As an aside, can Bezos personally or Amazon as a corporate "person" sue Trump for

Last edited Tue Apr 3, 2018, 03:38 AM - Edit history (1)

defamation as his statements have caused both to lose value?

Or would this trigger an SEC investigation?