Behemoth companies are bad. This is worse.
by digby
I realize that Amazon is a hated behemoth that is distorting the market and disadvantaging companies in a dozen different ways. There should be an effort to address this problem.
Nonetheless, the president trying to use his power to destroy it because he doesn’t like what the owner’s newspaper writes about him is a threat to everything we care about including the very businesses we hope to protect from Amazon.
This is some real kleptocrat, oligarch shit. Nobody should cheer him on for this:
President Trump has personally pushed U.S. Postmaster General Megan Brennan to double the rate the Postal Service charges Amazon.com and other firms to ship packages, according to three people familiar with their conversations, a dramatic move that probably would cost these companies billions of dollars.
Brennan has so far resisted Trump’s demand, explaining in multiple conversations occurring this year and last that these arrangements are bound by contracts and must be reviewed by a regulatory commission, the three people said. She has told the president that the Amazon relationship is beneficial for the Postal Service and gave him a set of slides that showed the variety of companies, in addition to Amazon, that also partner for deliveries.
Despite these presentations, Trump has continued to level criticism at Amazon. And last month, his critiques culminated in the signing of an executive order mandating a government review of the financially strapped Postal Service that could lead to major changes in the way it charges Amazon and others for package delivery.
Few U.S. companies have drawn Trump’s ire as much as Amazon, which has rapidly grown to be the second-largest U.S. company in terms of market capitalization. For more than three years, Trump has fumed publicly and privately about the giant commerce and services company and its founder Jeffrey P. Bezos, who is also the owner of The Washington Post.
Trump alleges that Amazon is being subsidized by the Postal Service. He has also accused The Post as being Amazon’s “chief lobbyist” as well as a tax shelter — false charges. He says Amazon uses these advantages to push bricks-and-mortar companies out of business. Some administration officials say several of Trump’s attacks aimed at Amazon have come in response to articles in The Post that he didn’t like.
The three people familiar with these exchanges spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the White House’s internal deliberations.
You know very well that he’s trying to intimidate Bezos into muzzling the Post. That is his one and only motivation. If Bezos would agree to kiss his ass and tell his newspaper to go easy, Trump would be Amazon’s biggest fan.
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