I love that automation is slowly doing away with the need to eye-ball somebody at a checkout counter and make small talk. Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) are a gift from the Gods. Just this last week I had an issue with the bank which required me getting into the queue and waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting ... There were these two customers who stood at the tellers' windows for a good half-hour, bringing the manager out to see why the queue was reaching to the door of the bank.

Give me automation every time. The Opal system on transport is another Godsend that means you don't have to socialise with the bus-drivers any more.

And what the hell is it with these Chinese dentists who feel obliged to carry on an uninterrupted conversation with you while they're working on your teeth? With your mouth open all you can say is "ng ... yeah ... ng ... ng ... ng " but this doesn't stop these dentists from going on and on and on until your ears start to bleed. Robotic automation is the answer. Nice, quiet automation with NO obligation to play social games with a pest who wants your personal attention.

But what about jobs Herb? There are not enough jobs now to give people dignity and these bastards like Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg et al are busy trying to destroy what's left.

Famed cable and media investor John Malone, a man who repeatedly manages to cobble together some of the most complicated, and profitable, financial transactions in the world, appeared on CNBC this morning with a message for anyone in the "B2C business"...Amazon is going to use their scale to destroy you.  Speaking with CNBC's David Faber, Malone hilariously described Amazon as a "Death Star moving into striking range of every industry on the planet."

The internet "makes scale even more important in the media business, where scale always was important. It's all about scale," he said. Netflix was "the first wave. And I think Jeff [Bezos] is gonna be the most disruptive. As [his] Death Star moves into striking range of every industry on the planet."

He explained that Amazon's business dominance is growing stronger. Malone said any company that sells products to consumers is at risk of being crushed by the e-commerce giant.

"If you're in the B2C business, if you're selling anything to any consumer anywhere on the planet, you gotta believe that Amazon is gonna have a look at that opportunity to commoditize you to use scale to serve the public," he said. Bezos is "reducing cost to the consumer and providing great convenience ... You just got to take your hat off and envy what he has built."

Ironically, just yesterday we noted that Amazon's "Death Star" had moved the grocery industry directly into its sights and is preparing to fire (see: Amazon Says It's "Almost Ready" To Get 1,000s Of Grocery Store Cashiers Fired)...

Late last year we noted Amazon's efforts to 'disrupt' the traditional grocery retail model by introducing small format stores that allow customers to simply walk in, pick up what they want and walk out.  The concept store, dubbed AmazonGo, tracks a customer's every move, including each item they remove from store shelves, allowing them to skip long, often frustrating, check out lines (see: Amazon Goes Offline With Bricks-And-Mortar Grocery Chain; Envisions Opening 2,000 Stores).

Now, after nearly a full year of testing their Seattle concept store with employees, Amazon says their cashier-less grocery store is just about ready to go live.  As Bloomberg notes this morning, the company has already begun hiring construction managers and marketing staff to build out a store base.

The e-commerce giant unveiled Amazon Go last December, saying it planned to open the store to the public early this year. However, the company encountered technical difficulties and postponed the launch to work out the bugs, The Wall Street Journal reported in March.

Seven months later, challenges remain, but the “just walk out” technology has improved markedly, says the person, who requested anonymity to speak freely about the project. And in a sign that the concept is almost ready for prime time, hiring for the Amazon Go team has shifted from the engineers and research scientists needed to perfect the platform to the construction managers and marketers who would build and promote the stores to consumers

:ZeroHedge

In a nation - the USA, where 'being out in Public' can result in a drive-by shooting, a massacre, an act of terrorism. Even going to church can result in shaking hands with someone who is 'armed' but not in the Military.

Little wonder such 'business's' like Amazon are emerging.
The less 'social interaction' in the dangerous USA - the better. Because social interaction in the USA = confrontation.

The USA, especially via the Media (and its Celebrities) - really exists in a Death Star mentality. Just one big floating 'CITY' of technology heading towards being a Computer as well. But that's the USA Media for you - totally stuck in a lawn-bowl 'bias' of living in a Asia/African/European lifestyle ...from Namerica 
Yep - the Yellow Asian 'city' with its token Black Man (Darth Vader). Even its 'Celebrity' President Ronald Reagan was obsessed with 'Star' Wars. 
...no wonder the Media can't relate to North Americans anymore! 

So basically, this Amazon - will eventually float away from North America. Because people in North America will soon realise the negative effects of not seeing people 'face to face'.

I prefer to wait in line to see a Bank Teller.
Being 'machined' as they say, by Automation - is an isolating existence for 'the poor'.
I try hard not to go to the 'self-service' at Supermarkets.
I always go to a check-out chick/guy, the ticket-booth person, etc. Sometimes the wait is worth it.

Socialising doesn't only exist in a 'Pub' or a 'Club'.
It's also part of the workplace, the waiting line, the counter.

You can tell the 'plebs' from the 'people' when you talk to someone who works in contact with the public.

In a rural town - you could easily spot the 'illegal' immigrants. They kept their heads down and didn't acknowledge you as you passed. Immigration picked 17 in just one month by this alone on the mainstreet. The 'legal' immigrants would acknowledge as best they could at least.

Thus we see also the 'change of scenery' where in the Old Worlds - 'advancement' was a 'mental' issue where knowledge was power.
But here in the New Worlds of 'tech-savvy' and mental complexity - people are losing touch with their 'physical' state of being.
So much so - that society in the New Worlds is very much a giant computerised Death Star of Science induced technology. Where people just sit and stare - mindfully dependent on the machine to do the work for them.

I work as a Labourer. I make $40 phr. Why?
Because everyone prefers to work 'white-collar', IT-orientated, mentally-complex jobs, etc.
Not enough of us guys going around.
I would rather 'work out' digging a trench or carrying plasterboards - than paying a gym to make me do similar for no constructive purpose.
The increase in all this IT, mental jobs - has shown a rise in in the population too.
Yep - all this 'mental technological dependency' has resulted in a mentally 'complex' situation.
I know about 'mental stress', I once did a job that paid so highly, because of its strain on the 'mind'.

Btw - here in Australia, it's not the , like it is in the USA (Media).
It's the - hence why you gotta be in it to 'win it' 
And no I don't leave tips in the glass bowls at Cafe's and Restaurants. 'Black' is not the colour of the Food Industry for starters you 'snooty boutique café-latte over-priced' bores who turn your noses up at my Bogan-flanny top that makes twice as much money as you, because this is the New Worlds!

greggerypeccary wrote on Nov 17^th, 2017 at 1:51pm:



get into appliance repair .... farken rip off merchants make a fortune. My local mob charges $100 call out fee just to show up, tells me I need a part and he'll need to come back, then charges me $100 call out when he comes back .... and this is without the cost of the parts or any labour yet

They even did it to me once when I told them I needed the drain hose replaced cause it had a hole and was leaking ... fkkwit came out, told me a need a new drain hose, then proceeded to charge me for the second call out .... unbelievable

greggerypeccary wrote on Nov 17^th, 2017 at 2:40pm:


never buy fisher and paykel


whist they're usually a good machine, they have to much electronics that isn't necessary, so often break down

I asked several appliance repair guys what brand they get called out the least for, and the answer was always Westinghouse .... although I think Westinghouse sold off or moved to the china recently so not sure if that's still the case



Fisher and Paykel were their most common call out.

Multi-nationals are all the same.... and they don't pay much tax.

Again - reading Max Hastings 'All Hell Let Loose' and a passing comment was that certain US industrial giants made huge profits out of WWI production - but mysteriously no tax was paid.....

The problem with companies is ages-old and stems back to the original installation of company 'law' or 'rules' that were designed back in the 18th Century...

Long Past Time For A Full Review.

greggerypeccary wrote on Nov 17^th, 2017 at 1:51pm:


It pissed me off greatly when the two female Chinese waiters in my favourite Chinese restaurant suddenly put a bowl on the checkout counter, labelled 'TIPS'. It was a very rude and ignorant thing to do, did they but know it. It sat next to the donation boxes for crippled children and guide dogs.

Months went by and not even a single 5 cent coin was ever seen to be sitting in this bowl, and that alone should have shamed them into removing it, but they never did.

Multicultural 'enrichment' didn't gain any traction with their customers ~ not a single one.

greggerypeccary wrote on Nov 17^th, 2017 at 4:24pm:


A cup of coffee is expensive enough without you being asked to pay a surcharge in the form of a tip.

I would drop a funnel-web spider in the Tips box.

Lord Herbert wrote on Nov 17^th, 2017 at 4:20pm:


they're Chinese ... they wouldn't leave any tip in there any longer than it would take the person tipping to walk out the door  ... you might pinch it otherwise

bogarde73 wrote on Nov 16^th, 2017 at 5:44am:


Reminds me of the basket weavers.

And now I am Amazon-opoly . . .

Jeff Bezos spends a lot of time directing the newspaper he owns, The Washington Post, to criticize President Donald Trump in every way imaginable. But for some reason, the federal government cannot stop giving Amazon — the retail empire Bezos also owns — a slew of taxpayer-subsidized subsidies. Now, Congress is considering a new federal purchasing plan that could result in Amazon’s most lucrative government handout yet.

The technology giant is no stranger to sweetheart deals that line its pockets at taxpayer expense. The U.S. Postal Service, for instance — which has lost $60 billion since 2007 — handles last-mile shipping for two-thirds of Amazon’s deliveries. This means overtime for workers and a good incoming revenue number on the USPS’s balance sheet, but it’s a financial bonanza for Amazon.



According to media reports, USPS delivers Amazon packages for $2 per package — even though it costs USPS $3.46 per package to make these deliveries. And that’s before you get into the $200 million three years ago for 270,000 handheld scanners to process the packages or the $5 billion or more to replace USPS vehicles with ones better suited to carry Amazon’s packages.

But even this cozy arrangement pales in comparison to the deal Amazon is now trying to push through Congress.
Buried deep in this year’s defense spending bill is a provision that would move Defense Department purchases of commercial off-the-shelf products to online marketplaces.

A summary of the proposal, which was inserted into the legislation by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, argues it is needed to save money over the burdensome and expensive current system.

It pointed to a report from the Inspector General of the Government Services Administration that found some IT equipment could be purchased more cheaply on the open market than through the GSA’s “schedules.”

In response, the plan calls for developing an online marketplace platform through which federal agencies can buy products such as paper clips, bottled water, computers, office furniture and more — just as any business would do.

But it also calls for this platform to be designed to “enable government-wide use of such marketplaces.” This means the government is looking only for a procurement and supply management firm big enough to offer multiple suppliers for the same product with constantly changing selection and prices and serve the entire U.S. government.

That leaves just one likely possibility  - Amazon Business - for basically monopoly control of $53 billion in federal purchasing, much of the supplies for which comes from no-bid contracts.
Amazon provides a platform for e-companies to sell through to their own customers. It receives 15 percent to 20 percent of the proceeds from such sales, which means a huge revenue stream for Amazon for doing basically nothing while vendors are forced to cough up as much as half their margin.

A government deal with Amazon sets up opportunities for abuse, not to mention control over suppliers. Amazon would get to collect an enormous amount of data on agencies, which could be used to identify top competitors and drive them out of the federal marketplace with increased fees or other rules changes.

And it means any discounts that can be negotiated for the bulk rates of purchasing the federal government does would flow not to the government and taxpayers — but instead into Amazon’s pocket.

Amazon Business, which only started in 2015, already has 1 million customers and $1 billion in sales, and its revenues grew 34 percent in the last year. Adding federal procurement would effectively drive out all competitors for its business service.

It already is moving into position to do this at the local level. In January, Amazon signed a contract with U.S. Communities, a coalition of 90,000 local governments, to provide them with an online marketplace for office supplies and other goods.

The fate of the proposal is unknown. It is in the House version of the defense spending bill but not that of the Senate. This will be resolved in a conference committee, and one solution is to try it as a pilot project before committing the entire government to it.

There certainly ought to be a breathing period before yet another government agency signs yet another deal to use tax dollars to further enrich one of the richest men on the planet.

It’s beginning to get suspicious.
:ZeroHedge

bogarde73 wrote on Nov 16^th, 2017 at 5:44am:



Aww, what's the matter, Goebbels? I thought you lovvvvved capitalism. By the way, hippie, Wal-Mart is about to initiate the same thing. 

Marla wrote on Nov 21^st, 2017 at 1:01pm:


You need to make your mind up whether Boge is a Nazi or a Hippie. That is unless you have invented a personal interpretation of both, that nobody else cares about.

Lord Herbert wrote on Nov 16^th, 2017 at 6:58am:

Bezos, the Amazon billionaire (and owner of the Washington Post) became the 2nd man since Bill Gates in 1999 to reach the 12 figure fortune of $100 billion.

How many industries will you buy today Jeff and how many jobs will you scrap?
How much will you give away like Bill Gates?

Apparently the full AU launch is Dec 1.

greggerypeccary wrote on Dec 5^th, 2017 at 10:42am:


Try selling your goods through old harvey like you can with Amazon. That arrogant prick wouldn't even look at you

Silly old bugger

Less Retail Jobs, More Amazon Robots: Get Used To It

When it comes to job creation in the United States, President Trump will be displeased to hear the latest findings from Quartz: 170,000 fewer retail jobs in 2017 - and 75,000 more Amazon robots.

In November, we explained that while everyone likes to point the finger at Amazon, America’s retail apocalypse can’t be tied to just one catalyst (see: A Look At America’s Retail Apocalypse In Charts), however, fierce competition in the industry has induced an army of robots at Amazon’s fulfillment centers, which has certainly led to the termination of retail employees across the industry.

At the end of 2016, Amazon was the eighth-largest private employer in the United States with a headcount growing by 40% year-over-year. So basically, as Amazon’s robots helped to disrupt the overall retail industry, the excess of cheap retail labor is now  flocking to Amazon.

We must point out the majority of positions being added are jobs not careers inundated in wage stagnation.

The article notes, Amazon’s growth has to come at some cost, because there is no free-lunch here..

Does Amazon create more jobs than it destroys?

The analysis below from Quartz’s staff provides the shocking realization that retail job-loss in 2017 is the first annual decline since 2009. Even though Amazon is hiring at a fast clip, it won’t be enough to cover the losses in the rest of the industry. All the while, amazon added 55,000 robots this year as the trend in robot additions is now parabolic…

Assuming the current industry trends continue through the end of the year, the number of employees in Amazon-related retail (that is, retail that Amazon competes with, such as book stores, as opposed to areas it doesn’t compete with, like gas stations) will decline by about 1% year-over-year. While that’s a small percentage, the number of job losses would be 170,000. That would be the first annual decline since 2009.

Amazon’s employment increases won’t be enough to cover the losses in the rest of the industry. We have assumed Amazon will maintain its current year-over-year headcount growth rate and will add 146,000 employees worldwide in 2017, a 43% increase (excluding Whole Foods employees). Even with that aggressive growth assumption, and including Amazon employees worldwide, the combined employment at Amazon and Amazon-related retail would still decline by 24,000.

Amazon has already added 55,000 robots this year and its growth rate is accelerating. The company stated it had 45,000 robots at the end of 2016, added 35,000 robots by the end of the first half of 2017, and then another 20,000 in the third quarter. We’ve assumed another 20,000 in the fourth quarter for a total of 75,000 new robots in 2017. While it may be difficult to prove causality, it’s not difficult to see the correlation between a decline of 24,000 human employees and an increase of 75,000 robot employees.

:see zerohedge for entire article + charts

We don't want Rockefellers or Carnegie's thanks. We don't want Zuckerfrigginbergs or Bezos either.
We don't need an uberclass and a mass poverty class.
We are happy with a society which for the most part is a fairly level field, at least we try to make it that way without inhibiting ambition and enterprise.

I wonder if Mr Trump thinks this is healthy for America's economy, never mind the rest of the world:

The Amazon juggernaut continues to crush brick and mortar retailers.

On Thursday morning, former retail giant Macy's, announced that was preparing to fire 5,000 job cuts, including closure of seven previously unidentified stores and other cuts at remaining locations, as it seeks stability in a tumultuous climate for "physical retail." The retailer's cost reductions come as it announced that its comparable holiday sales rose a modest 1.1% for the Nov/Dec period relative to 2016.

Although the company described its holiday sales as "solid," the performance trailed fellow department-store chain J.C. Penney, which posted a 3.4% increase Thursday. Macy's also narrowed its FY 2018 (ending Jan. 2018) year comp. sales view to a decline of 2.4%-2.7% on owned basis, down 2%-2.3% on owned plus licensed basis and total sales down 3.6%-3.9%. This was in line with the latest forecast given in November, which called for sales down 2.2%-3.3% on owned basis, down 2%-3% on owned plus licensed basis and total sales down 3.2%-4.3%.

And while Macy's continues to struggle with margin compression and inventory (mis)management, clearly the far bigger problem is the secular decline for the company (thank you Amazon) with Macy's today announcing it was closing 11 stores in FY19 (year ending Jan. 2019), vs the 4 announced previously, part and parcel with the 5,000 laoffs, as well as the company's intentions to "further streamline some non-store functions."



Macy's disclosed the following seven locations for shuttering which it had previously not identified for closure:

•Miami (Downtown), Miami
•The Oaks, Gainesville, Fla.
•Novato (Furniture), Novato, Calif.
•Honey Creek Mall, Terre Haute, Ind.
•Birchwood Mall, Fort Gratiot Township, Mich.
•Fountain Place, Cincinnati
•Burlington Town Center, Burlington, Vt.

The retailer also said Thursday it is moving ahead with four other store closures previously announced:
•Laguna Hills Mall, Laguna Hills, Calif.
•Westside Pavilion, Los Angeles
•Stonestown Galleria, San Francisco
•Magic Valley Mall, Twin Falls, Idaho

Putting the closures in context, they are are part of a plan announced in August 2016 to shutter 100 stores. Altogether, the company has now revealed 81 of the 100 locations.  Macy's sees closing an additional 19 stores as leases or operating covenants expire or sale transactions are completed. Including the stores announced today, M has closed 124 stores since 2015.

Macy's ongoing woes are good news for bargain hunters: the company said that liquidation sales are likely to begin Jan. 8 and continue for eight to 12 weeks.

"Looking ahead to 2018, we are focused on continuous improvement and will take the necessary steps to move faster, execute more effectively and allocate resources to invest in growth," Macy's CEO Jeff Gennette said in a statement.

Macy's has been struggling with its massive real estate footprint and traditional retail model, as Amazon.com soars and physical competitors such as treasure-hunt retailers T.J. Maxx and Marshall's offer (better and cheaper) alternatives. Despite the challenges, Macy's reported strong performances for active apparel, beauty products, shoes, dresses, coats, fine jewelry and some other items.

Ironically, the company also said its digital sales jumped by double digits. The problem is that when compared with Amazon's own same store sales - all digital of course - it is too little, too late.

* * *

But what is most troubling for Macy's, is the stock's reaction to today's news: whereas in the past, M would jump on any mass layoff and/or closure news, this time it enjoyed a brief kneejerk moment in the green, before tumbling.
:zerohedge