Amazon blows off its poorest shoppers

On the day of the centenary President Donald TrumpThe second administration, Tablebide DC I was dropped in the few punchbowl by reporting The Amazon will start Cost Trump’s tariff In addition to high prices. Kerfuffle, which followed, is not a small part like most of the other TROMP news like a terrible annoying epic of Kilmar Abrago GarciaOr the separatist moment that the president considered foreign films.A threat to national security“

Unfortunately, this makes a bright dimension with the Amazon Haul story that is easier to miss: the poorest Americans, who are increasingly dependent on superior discreet retailers, which depends on China’s superconducting costs in China. Since Trump’s tariff raises prices, these consumers leave with some other options in the private market for available and easily available goods – something that should be considered a brutal failure of our current capitalist system.

In what can be predicted The watches that followed the story of the tablide, the gravile was treated. President The name Jeff Bezos while the White House described the proposal as a “hostile and political act.” Amazon explained, the first clarification that the plan “was never from the main Amazon website” and the second says that the idea “has never been approved and will not happen.”

“The team runs our low -cost store,” the spokesman said in the Amazon I statement, referring to the Megali launched by the new TEMU. In November.

After clarifying the certain Amazon, Trump Bizos described it as a “good man”, “very nice” and “wonderful” before heading to an event in Michigan to celebrate his hundred day. “The problem has resolved very quickly,” the president said. While it was starting to the Middle West, the few gunshot returned to the right track.

Choosing the word Amazon, in its statement that the distance team has the idea, is what caught my attention for the first time. To be fair, I caught my attention a lot of formulation in this exchange, including Trump’s determination of “the problem” not because his definition raises our prices, but Amazon publicly reveals that his definitions raise prices. But in the first statement of Amazon, the distances were described as “low -cost” – not “imported” goods, or goods “uniquely dependent on global supply chains.” It is easy to imagine that Amazon chooses to use the phrase “a very low cost” to take advantage of some of the press related to TROMP and enhance awareness of its new TEMU-similar offer and this is logical, taking into account that in the first three months, most people are He did not try once Amazon distances.

But the irony inside me-and I usually agree with the irony of people and companies that do not show any limits to their personal or greed for the public good-see the choice of the word as a capitalist Freudi, which is a dark reminder that both Amazon and Trump knows that prices in prices were seen only by shoppers with lower claims of the company, and most of them choose a few market in the market.

It is a billionaire game, and it puts a sign that there is nothing that can be seen here, and there was never, because these price increases will not be seen by the pioneering experimental offer for Amazon: white women, highly consumed in the thirties and forties who earn about $ 60,000 annually and spend approximately 2660 dollars on Amazon in a certain year. Take up to 25 % of this income for taxes, and that the Amazon spending reaches approximately 6 % of its annual income.

Instead, consumers were supposed to look at the disclosure of distances Closer to $ 300What is their economic security, for people like Trump and companies like Amazon, an abstract thinking experience.

For the most vulnerable shoppers in America, Trump’s tariff makes the terrible situation completely not sustainable. Dollaar General and Dollaar Tree stores execute the number of products at a price of $ 1, while others have closed only 99 cents and family dollar hundreds of stores. In 2023, the five retail dealer below went to a complete perception of his new “Five Beyond” brand, and it includes elements at a price above 5 dollars. Aldi grocery prices rose last year as well.

Walmart and Target have imported the most popular retailer among low -income Americans, an additional inventory before Trump’s tariff entered and has so far been able to raise prices. But more than a week ago, the executives of those companies, as well as from Home Depot, told Trump that they could not keep it for a longer period without raising prices.

“Anything that increases the prices will directly hurt those who live near the edge of poverty and make an already invested position,” Christopher Weity, Director of Poverty and Social Policy Center at Columbia University told the salon. He said that the number of Americans living below the poverty line was “increasing very quickly in recent years”, with the high costs of food, housing and all other basic necessities.

more than One in 10 AmericansAnd Yamar said that about 37.9 million people were living below the poverty line in 2022. In 2023, this recent data was available, that the share of Americans living under this line increased again.

Amazon Haul was created to compete with TEMU, Megamall digital that sells directly from Chinese manufacturers, translated into low -cartoon prices: $ 5 sports shoes, and a $ 6 foam. Just one year after the launch of TEMU in the United States in 2022, Reuters reported that the site had already been shown 17 % From the discount e -commerce market.

Temu did not succeed in a vacuum, and the impressive financial insecurity may reflect the demand for $ 3 table lamps. In order to be fair, TEMU’s popularity is not fully linked to how everyone is broken – an overpopulation TEMU is a master’s degree in consumption, which makes buying new socks a trip to the digital casino.

But it is also fair to say that if American shoppers are not very desperate to spend a break from high prices, TEMU will not get a fifth of the opponent’s market in less than a year. More than half of the ordinary users in the application Lower From $ 50,000 a year.

Although these super retail dealers are more part of the problem, their absence in the retail market in the United States leaves the poorest America with no reliable provider of their most basic commodities.

“Given the broader picture, it is difficult to identify any major division stores or chain ascending to meet the needs of low -income Americans at the present time,” George Carillo, a former director of the government health office in Oregon, told the Oregon Director of Health, “Given the broader picture, it is difficult to identify any major division stores or a chain ascending to meet the needs of low -income Americans at the present time,” George Carillo, a former director of the government health office in Oregon. “This leaves families in an impossible position, forcing difficult choices about reducing necessities such as grocery, medical care, or even facilities.”

If we live in an era of late capitalism, and if every dimension of the human experience-culture, dating, art, everything-it has been neglected, presented or becoming not subject to spending and consumption, what does he say about capitalism when the poorest Americans still cannot afford the cost of basic commodities? Adam Smith may think it has failed.

“For Smith, there was a good amount of national wealth that is easily available, abundant, and cheap, and how the basic necessities can be reached. So, you really care if you have enough food to live in and survive – not only to survive, but in reality he lives a meaningful life.”

This is GLory Liu, author of “Adam Smith’s Americana: How the Scottish philosopher has become an icon of American capitalism,” talks with Sean Eleng on “Gray District” in Fox Podcast. Her book aims to correct the modern understanding of Smith, a eighteenth -century philosopher in the eighteenth century that is widely considered the ideological father of modern capitalism. But Smith’s most famous works and ideas-Writer 1776 “The wealth of nations“The theory of his invisible hand-has been different over the years, and drew support for capitalism as a kind of morally good services, which are biologically identified and that occur at any time exchanging human beings or more people.

In fact, Smith was first and foremost a philosopher, and a person who might call him even a spiritual thinker. His interest in capitalism, in the end, was rooted in his interest in morals-and how a rapid industrial community could do so fairly.

“There are certain types of goods that we may consider unnecessary, or perhaps more than the basic, such as the flax,” said Liu Smith. But Smith also said that “if, in our society, a person who does not have a linen shirt can continue in public life without facing shame and irony, this is an essential necessity.” “People should be able to reach these basic essentials at a cheap price and clearly.”

And she continued: “When the lowest members of society have cheap and abundant arrival to basic commodities so that they can not only stay, but also live in public life without fear of shame or irony, this is when the nation is prosperous.”

Shop like billionaire: This is the TEMU logo now, provides people with the opportunity to experience life as a consumer without restrictions. And when you remember that these words, and all other companies refer to the same imagination, come from billionaires who suffer from this reality every day, it is insulting, right?

Ironically, it could have been a smart step by Amazon to post Trump’s tariff on its width. By doing this, Amazon may have been allergic to the poorest of its customer’s financial problems, and critics may not have placed a sign that the company was only transparent with consumers who had another option. Trump was angry, of course – but, he may have given him another railway chance against American companies that became cheap Chinese manufacturing. The important point, the Amazon was not strong to apply for Trump’s will, is more than activists who are forced to protest in the streets. The Amazon made an option. It is an option that will mention all consumers, especially those who have fewer options, or that companies that aim to serve you do not see you as a human being completely, or at least not a human being like them.