David Leonhardt of the NY Times hopes that Barnes & Noble can be saved from the predatory practices of Amazon, the behemoth that was willing to take losses on book sales in order to grab customers that will buy everything else from them.
Barnes & Noble represents the good guy company that is prey to the companies that are violating anti-Trust laws, the same laws that were used to bust up Standard Oil and AT&T.
Leonhardt suggest that there was a time when the government viewed such monopolizing companies as dangerous to the well-being of a fair and just society and economy, but something happened in the 1970s. The government decided that as long as prices stayed low, that was all that mattered. (For Leonhardt’s edification, AT&T was taken to court in 1974 and 8 years later it was busted up.)
Nowhere in the article does Leonhardt mention Facebook, Google or Twitter as dangerous to a fair and just society and economy, and in his closing paragraph he longs for the day Trump is out of office so that the left, I presume, will take monopolies seriously.
Didn’t congress just hold Facebook hearings where the right was arguing that they are way too big, dangerously so, and the left mocked the right at every turn?
The dope’s essay HERE.
B&N has been closing their stores down bunches at a time since before Amazon and Walmart became a force online. They don’t know how to run the business, and then compete, so they get choked off.
The only reason that dufus is worried about B&N is because they tend to hide Conservative best-sellers and avoid putting them up front on the displays. It’s the Lib’s hangout as is Starbucks.
Yeah, Amazon and Walmart may be the devil. But if you have a shitty business model it’s not their fault.
What’s so special about Barnes and Noble? Not exactly a small business.
Does the editorial board own stock or what?
Not long ago Barnes and Noble forced thousands of local town square Book Stores around the country out of business.
I don’t recall the NYT writing articles trying to save local small book businesses.
lost interest in the article the moment you said it was written by the New York Slimes….FISHWRAP TILL THE DAY THEY DIE!
Interestingly enough, Barnes& Noble was a prime purveyor of every kind of pornography available. It could be categorized as suicide by smut. They were doomed from the very beginning!
The leftists will find a way to criticize Trump in any context possible. If he is impeached on flimsy “evidence” civil war will ensue. And there will be no rules of engagement.
I remember how hard the 0bama administration worked to keep brick and mortar stores like B&N open. How could I not – it was in the news nightly!
Oh wait…
Yet Amazon thrived during the Obama years. Hard to argue against monopolies when you trying to monopolize health care.
I only went to the B&N here a couple of times (it’s long gone). I rarely saw people buying books. Most customers would come in, get a latte, grab a book off the shelf, and sit down to read. That latte ain’t gonna keep the place open.
Have you lot seen the prices of movies and music in B & N? RIDICULOUS!
B&N would turn in the right direction by putting Comey’s book in the Fiction or Trainwreck sections.
Half-Price Books is our go-to bookstore; both online and 3 locations within 10-15 miles. Plus they’ll buy your old books or give you store credit, which is a better deal for us.
Why pay retail?
Because neither Facebook, Google nor Twitter, nor Walmart, eBay nor Netflix, are Amazon. And Amazon is the enemy. Not “The enemy of Barnes & Noble, is the enemy” — but Amazon, directly, is the enemy. Because Amazon is not like the others — any or all the others. Amazon is the enemy of “a fair and just society and economy” — as defined by capitalists and banksters. (You can decide, yourself, whether that needs a ‹sarc› tag.)
@cato May 7, 2018 at 4:34 pm
The big fish get eaten by even bigger fish, but little fish still pop up. That’s all good IMO.
I don’t even agree that the government should have broken up Standard Oil. TR let himself get influenced by socialist muckrakers. Free competition is the only solution. Forty years ago IBM had 75% of the computer market. Not now. It all changed due to the free market system. The market doesn’t need interference except for some food & drug products.
The main reason I want to go to B&N is that it’s not Amazon. Amazon with their anti-Christian anti-conservative policy (earlier story). I’ll have to look online to see if B&N have the books I want.
I have more than $10,000 of books I bought OTHER places rather than shop the lefty B&N. It became a part-time obsession to go into B&N looking for a particular book they REFUSED to put out where people could find it. (specifically Savage and Levin, Gurka, etc.) The books were sometimes kept in the back room, not displayed. Only admitted to if asked for specifically. I wouldn’t buy the book if they had it. I’d politely thank them and walk away. In other cases the books were deliberately hidden on the tables so they were impossible to see when browsing.
They could close the local B&N and I would be most happy. Except, they do have one of the best chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies around.