Monopoly money
Amazon in the trust tree
Good morning, merchandise mavens. This is your Stock Market Rundown for October 4th, 2023. My sincere thanks to you for tuning in today. Let’s get into it:
TODAY’S TOP STORY: PRIME PROBLEMS 🖥️
The Amazon logo is printed on millions of cardboard boxes each year. Amazon calls it the “smile”. And, let’s be real, it is delightful to peek in your mailbox and see a special delivery of the stuff you bought online at 1 AM while buzzed.
But the Federal Trade Commission isn’t smiling. In fact, they just filed a major antitrust lawsuit against Amazon.
The retail behemoth is being accused of behaving like a big bully: abusing third-party sellers, biasing search results, and smothering innovation.
It’s tough to believe this trash talk, considering how Amazon made the all-American sport of shopping so much cheaper and more convenient. I can now cut out the middleman and order my yoga mat, rice cooker, or Harry Potter pyjamas directly from a Chinese factory. Beats taking the bus to the Walmart at the mall.
Still, the FTC insists Amazon is using “punitive and coercive tactics to unlawfully maintain its monopolies.” Amazon, as you might guess, says the whole thing is poppycock—and that the FTC is ”wrong on the facts and the law”. They point out customers still buy 80% of all retail products in physical stores, so how can Amazon have a monopoly?
Look, I get that the federal government wants to reduce the concentration of economic power. But maybe authorities should be less worried about this lawsuit, and more worried about stopping the neighborhood kids from stealing my Amazon boxes from the front of my house. Those porch pirates got my SharkNinja juicer.
SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
Fast-food workers in California just got their minimum wage bumped to $20 an hour. Alas, this just encourages the big chains to replace human employees with robots that can flip burgers and mop the floor simultaneously.
If you have the latest iPhone, it may be heating up from more than just spicy text messages: customers are complaining that the iPhone 15 gets hot enough to fry an egg. Apple’s issuing a software fix so the phones can chill out.
Suck it, OPEC: US domestic oil production just hit a record high, and 2024 should be a bumper year too. Producers benefitted from horizontal drilling technology that lets them drink more of each reservoir’s milkshake.
Intel just opened a new plant in Ireland making next-generation chips that will go in laptops. The cutting-edge facility has tools precise enough “to hit a person’s thumb with a laser pointer from the moon”. Meanwhile I can’t even hit a three-pointer into my recycling bin with an empty can of Monster Energy Drink from across the room.
That’s it for today, folks; let’s circle back first thing tomorrow morning. Yours in capitalism, The Axe