Boycotting Amazon

And I agree with petallus about your oversimplistic views, jend.

Don,t worry, absent. I like your straightforwardness. It's refreshing.

Straightforward but not simplistic.

I'm not going to boycott Amazon but would avoid going into Starbucks, and possibly not use google if this would help.

Why does it have to be Amazon?

Because it's big, hugely profitable, transnational and doesn't really care about you, your needs, the needs of your society or the place where you live. It makes a huge, inflated, unreasonable and barely taxed profit because it (i.e its shareholders) is a greedy entity with no social conscience. Any other questions?

Sounds like our village shop.

merlot!

merlot, you have a gift for the bon mot!

And this is not true of Starbucks or Google?

I don't give a flying fc whether Amazon cares about me and my needs or not.

I meant f**ck

Some water companies avoid paying tax on their profits [or pay very little] and we can't boycot water. It seems to me that we are the generation that made a stand on everything throughout our adult lives and we're still doing it now...I do wonder younger people bother these days [gosh, it makes me feel old saying that].

Well, I just can't resist. This was sent to me by a UK friend who lives in France. I loved it, and then wondered, could it apply to adults and grannies too?

“Always we hear the cry from teenagers ‘What can we do, where can we go?’
… My answer is, “Go home, mow the lawn, wash the windows, learn to cook, build a raft, get a job, visit the sick, study your lessons, and after you’ve finished, read a book.”

“Your town does not owe you recreational facilities and your parents do not owe you fun. The world does not owe you a living, you owe the world something. You owe it your time, energy and talent so that no one will be at war, in poverty or sick and lonely again.”

“In other words, grow up, stop being a cry baby, get out of your dream world and develop a backbone, not a wishbone. Start behaving like a responsible person. You are important and you are needed. It’s too late to sit around and wait for somebody to do something someday. Someday is now and that somebody is you…”“

Could it really apply to grannies?

I'm at home, I mowed the lawn (until November) Actually, I'm lying....DH mows the lawn but you know what I mean. I wash the bl**dy windows, I'm a good cook, I have helped to build a raft for our local Aquafest. It sank!!!
I had a job, I visit my mother four times a week, I study anything and everything I'm interested in and I always have a book on the go.

I bet that applies to all of us...Well, maybe not the raft

Smacks a bit of more haranguing to me!

'and after you’ve finished, read a book'

I'll leave you to fill in the rest

I won't be boycotting Amazon. It's our elected government's job to get rid of all the tax loopholes.

I can see where granjura and Jendurham* are coming from. I guess I agree. But it's so hard. Especially at Xmas. I'm getting a bit past carrying the presents home on my bike. And the shops are tiring.

The kindle thing is very difficult too.

It has to be down to the government.

Or perhaps I shouldn't be so lazy. Because it is laziness.

I wonder if they give to charity?

granjura I love this. However, I wonder if I will read it and draw the same conclusion as others..why do people expect businesses to provide the money to take care of them, it's not their job. You elect a Government, they set the tax rules, they gather the income from business and hopefully re-distribute it. We are actually a pretty fair country, no one starves or has to beg. We have it easy and if everyone understood no one has a 'right' to anything it might simplify things.

We are all, actually singing from the same hymn sheets (sorry pedants!) Money rules, always has and always will. Companies do deals with Governments, they work out even more favourable tax rates to lure them to their country and mostly that's because Governments want to provide THEIR citizens with more benefits and lower taxes, then they can remain in power.

The whole issue about Amazon, Starbucks and Google has done one thing, it has highlighted what has been happening. But it's not just those three American companies, it's British ones too -not to mention all the individuals who incorporate themselves and avoid tax that way. Same moral issue.

I am not sure what Utopian paradise people think we are living in.

According to this Amazon don't make any charitable donations. (One up from bottom of page)

Well, the money's got to come from somewhere to look after the disadvantaged Sel. Why shouldn't it come from the likes of Amazon, as well as from you and me?

"no one starves or has to beg". No?! Maybe they don't actually starve but neither do they have full bellies every day of the week.

j05 not sure I can respond to that without a Marie Antionette echo I am contrasting the situation here to those countries where there is real poverty with no safety net that we enjoy. Countries where people are scared to get sick, where a home isn't a given, where there is real fear of being without work. Yes, the money does have to come from somewhere - where? Quantative easing? Business generates it, and I am not arguing that these companies shouldn't pay tax, just trying to point out that they are not the only ones and it would be fairly simple for the Government to stop it. They don't, they haven't and maybe that's because if they close the loophole Amazon etc will just up sticks. That would result in job losses and loss of other revenues. A fraction of a cake etc etc. Companies do deals with Governments.

This outcry won't be exactly a surprise, it's been going on for years. Maybe the negative publicity will have some effect and something will change. The whole thing resulted from Obama and potential changes to US corporate tax policy.

Thanks, sel, for more rationality and good sense.

jura, now you're just being petulant because we don't agree with your point of view. If you think we grans need such a dressing down, you show very little respect for your fellow gransnetters. Besides that, you cannot know what we have done with our lives and how much we have fought (still do fight) for good causes. Just because we may not boast about it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I'd thank you to get off your high horse.