Amazon's just too big.
I won't pretend I know how you fix it. But, I do think there seems to be too much government involved in certain areas of the economy and not enough in others, as someone else alluded to above. Well-intentioned or not, so many regulatory schemes go awry. Figuring out where to apply certain pieces of legislation and where to abolish others...kinda the whole ballgame, isn't it? It ain't easy.
I like the idea of a vast playing field full of smaller companies all trying to out-compete one another as opposed to this protected system of constant consolidation, huge companies grabbing more and more market share by buying up the smaller ones only to then be protected by regulation or even subsidized by government outright.
Again, no idea how you fix it as it's obviously a pretty complex issue. There might be credence to the idea of smaller government generally, or government of a similar size to the current, but applied in much different ways. The permutations are nearly infinite and form the basis of a lot of what people argue about on CNN panels. It's the backdrop to what has essentially become team sports. What do you do?
I think I understand some of the opposing argument against the idea of cutting government protection for the big multinationals, i.e. those big companies employ millions, which contributes to the tax base, infrastructure, etc. But, I still prefer the idea of an economy of millions of smaller businesses as opposed to handfuls of larger ones. Would it actually be better for the economy and for people in general? No idea, but I like to think so.
You do run into the issue of growth, though. As in: it would likely be folly to put a cap on how big a business can grow, say if you're a small business owner who's doing well and keeps rightfully expanding because of your superior product/service. But, maybe the better idea would be to remove government protection or subsidies for big businesses which might allow for more smaller entrants to take chunks out of the bigger players through their aforementioned superior product/service.
I don't know if there are too many onerous barriers for smaller players to grab market share from the Amazons of the world. Someone else can tell me if that's the case. Someone reading this might say "well, duh, of course this is the case!", but I don't want to say that it's so without knowing definitively. I do admit it's my opinion that it's true, but just because I think it doesn't make it so. Someone here can correct me if I'm wrong.
If those barriers do exist, however, well - call me Captain Obvious - but, that's a problem. And it might be a large contributing factor to what's allowed the horror stories outlined in that article that DVD posted to occur.
Meanwhile, where are all the smart people we need to fix this? I guess instead of entering public office, many/most of them are engaged in figuring out how to join the Amazons of the world and copy that model in order to become immensely rich.
Then they go into government as "regulators" after the fact. Interesting how those "regulations" turn out too.
So, it's a recognition that in the current climate you can't beat 'em, so you've gotta join 'em. However wrong-headed or backward that mentality might be. It seems like a cycle that feeds on itself...and on the rest of us too. What do you do?
