One example: bottled water from Coca-Cola Co. Amazon used to have a $6.99 six-pack of Smartwater as the default order on some of its Dash buttons, a small device that allows for automatic reordering with a single press. But in August, after working with Coca-Cola to change how it ships and sells the water, Amazon notified Dash customers it was changing that default item to a 24-pack for $37.20.
That raised the price per bottle to $1.55 from $1.17. And Coca-Cola will start shipping those orders directly to consumers, sparing Amazon the expense of shipping from its warehouses. Manufacturers shipping from their warehouses is something Amazon has asked more brands to do to cut its own costs.
Amazon told Coca-Cola that it was losing money on the smaller, cheaper shipments, according to people familiar with the matter.
Amazon has used financial engineering to put small businesses out of business. They lost money for a LONG time. I’m not sure they’re making money yet. I think they are only making money on computer services.
This is the way the connected and wealthy screw the rest of us. They use financial connections to borrow vast sums of money then cut cost,(lose money), until the drive everyone else out then use their monopoly position to shaft us.
Many, many, medium old school businesses like paper and stuff like that were bought up by the same bunch during the junk bond 80′s and 90′s. They would steal the pensions, cut wages and squeeze the company while putting any profits they could get into their and the financiers pockets. The financial types ADDED NO VALUE to the business. All they brought to the table was financial connections.
Now I do believe there should be ways to take over companies and companies do get slack but there should be some way to do this where you can’t take a profitable company, loot it until it’s a shell then bankrupt it.
This is an excellent comment. In fact, I kind of think I ought to steal your whole comment and reblog it. Should I credit you with a link to your website or can I just cite you as “Sam J.”?
Sam J. is fine. Fortunately I don’t have a website as I torture the planets electrons enough with my comments here and there. A website would be too much.
This comment will be a bit lengthy, but now take a broader look at how the whole scheme works:
The largest institutional shareholders of Amazon (AMZN) include:
Vanguard, BlackRock, Fidelity (FMR), State Street, Capital Research, Northern Trust, Capital World, and other of the largest money-management and investment firms, whom operate collaboratively (even existing as the largest shareholders of each other), forming virtual monopolies, via large share holdings, amongst the largest “competing” corporations, in most every single industry.
(http://investors.morningstar.com/ownership/shareholders-major.html?t=AMZN)
Similarly, the largest institutional shareholders of Coca-Cola (KO) include:
Vanguard, BlackRock, Fidelity (FMR), State Street, Capital Research, Northern Trust, Capital World, and other of the largest money-management and investment firms, whom operate collaboratively (even existing as the largest shareholders of each other), forming virtual monopolies, via large share holdings, amongst the largest “competing” corporations, in most every single industry.
(http://investors.morningstar.com/ownership/shareholders-major.html?t=KO)
These firms operate like a CARTEL.
They largely own the largest “competing” tech corps, telecoms, energy/utility corps, media corps, auto mfg’s, electronic mfg’s, banks, airlines, hospitals, insurance & pharmaceutical co’s, and so on, and so on, and so on.
Now, take a look at the inter-related/cross-ownership:
Though Bank of America is a large direct owner of Coca-Cola but not Amazon, the largest institutional shareholders of BofA include many of the largest shareholders of Amazon.
It’s one huge, highly-convoluted group.
Also, it doesn’t matter if Amazon loses profit on deals, as that lost profit is made up through other “subsidiary” companies like Coca-Cola.
Similarly, with such broad/vast ownership, expenses at one owned corp become profits at another.
When IBM purchases a CRM, they purchase SalesForce. Both corps are largely owned by the same shareholding firms.
The money stays in the “family”.
This is why there are so many collaborating “back-door” deals between hospitals, insurance and pharmaceutical co’s.
Money lost from any one is profit made at another.
This is also why Facebook was caught selling user data to so many other companies…even supposed “competitors.
The profit goes back to the same largest owner groups.
This is the long-version explanation of Sam J’s comment:
“All they brought to the table was financial connections.”
While smaller, individual shareholders can’t invest in all of the different available funds through these firms (thus don’t invest in all the corps), and must pick & choose, they are thus luckly to see the larger total gains, those that these firms profit big from, since they hold the whole lot of all the corporations.
It’s why we often see such large sell-offs and resurgence in the markets (like the recent pre-christmas sell-off and post-christmas re-gains).
These firms just shift money around, from one group of assets to others (it’s termed “rebalancing”).
This is why the stock market ends up being such a large scam….too few big firms/shareholders doing too much manipulation for their own personal gains, at the expense of others, mostly using those other peoples money.
Though these investment firms are using other peoples money for their investments, and thereby claim they (the firms) aren’t the true owners of those shares, they posses the largest shares, thus voting power to make decisions on Executive Management & Board composition of these corporations, selecting those Executives and Board Members whom will obide by their directives.
William McNabb, CEO and Chariman of Vanguard has stated as such.
(http://theconversation.com/these-three-firms-own-corporate-america-77072)