Stock churn payback theory | General financial discussion | Discussion forum

Bud said
Wouldnt you say Amazon is bogus as a public co. the company trades hundreds of billions of stock annually with limited profit no dividend doesnt make sense. Its been going on for years. Am I missing something they'll never make enough profit to justify the trillions of dollars in gains trading in the stock.   

Keep a far distance from them.

Nobody gave them a snowball's chance in Hades when they started selling books, cheap, in the early days. They never made a profit as far as I know, on books, but they kept doing it. They kept expanding and squeezing out other retailers. Just try to find an independent bookseller now.

Bezos is an extremely wealthy man. Amazon is a gigantic corporation, exploits its workers big time and pays them as little as they can get away with.

Amazon's goal as far as I can see is world domination, and they are proceeding apace. Who do you know who never orders anything from amazon? Who do you know who orders from them regularly? That's the story. And then there are their many many subsidiary companies.

For me, they are the retailer of last resort. I want to maintain the possibility of choice in future; they don't.

I would be very cautious about underestimating a multi-trillion-dollar company that is still growing and is being successful with its game plan. They don't care about dividends etc. as they are still in the growth phase and probably will be for a long time. World domination takes time.

I read an article a little while ago by some allegedly wise person. I don't remember who. but what he said was interesting. When asked who/what all retailers should most fear, he said "amazon and costco". This was before Covid.

I've never read any of their annual reports or any commentaries about them. But I think it was Peter Lynch who said something to the effect that you can tell a lot just by looking around you about what businesses are succeeding and are likely to succeed
.

I agree, Norman1, it's very early in Amazon's history. Think back to the early days of General Motors, Exxons, etc of the world when the age of fossil fuels came in compared to where they are today, same will happen with brand-new digital age. Though as the digital world is instantaneous, speed of light, the timelines will be vastly more compressed, in my view.

We can only hope that these large corporations achieve "world domination". Where there is a widespread large corporate sector is prosperity & freedom, wherever state-run economies are dominant is poverty and oppression.

Never had more retail choice than today, even with the WalMarts, McDonalds, Amazons, etc of the world. Plus incorrect to use a more than century-old example of Standard Oil (a basic necessity of the emerging oil-based economy) with retailer selling mostly discretionary stuff. Plus in retail there's always some new model coming along, WalMart came along, Amazon out of nowhere (and heard of Alibaba?), there will be more who change the game again, always is. Plus "world domination" is ominous-sounding hyperbole to begin with, Apple has a kind of "world domination" and its users seem as happy as anyone else, maybe happier because they're Apple users!

Then there's the introduction by you of a new element to the conversation, the mandatory gratuitous judgement of someone whose opinion differs 180 degrees from yours - "ill-considered", eh? Ummm......ok, I find your statement puerile.

Loonie, I can see why you didn't deal with my point, which was that in fact, in our reality today, there is more choice than ever before. That's the real world you live in. How is it possible that it's never been easier to get any book you want, and for cheap, way more than a local bookstore or five ever carried? Tons of online booksellers, tiny to large, the world over, you seem to be familiar only with amazon. Never had more choices of financial institutions, big 5 plus a myriad of others featured here, new ones all the time, you're old enough to remember when the CDIC list of insured entities was much, much shorter. You name it, in every single aspect of life, every single one, we've got way more choice than ever, new and numerous competitors (from micro boutique to large) to the behemoths always arise, that's the reality. Though many have had the goal no-one has ever had close to "world domination", thus such goals are irrelevant to me, plus the future does not unfold from some mechanical, linear projection of today. Thanks to human ingenuity, etc there are invariably twists and 90 degree turns - check out human history, you'll see it over and over.

It's precisely in the heavily regulated situations you advocate, as in socialist or communist states, where choice is absent. Large corporations are one of humanity's crowning achievements, in my view particularly instrumental in the liberation of females for the only time in human history (to me an unequalled historical liberation), so I'm very happy for any opportunity to express that. Don't worry, amazon won't take over the world.

Loonie, you write "still some choices".

My point all along has been that you couldn't be more wrong if you tried when you imply, even with the Apples, Microsofts, amazons, big banks, Costcos and so on of today, that choice is narrowing.

My proof is the fact today there is far more choice than ever before.

Your latest counter is to ramble about imaginary alliances, barbs, etc. I'll take that and your sign off as indication you concede the point.