Amazon

Defense budgets, nation states, and congressional mugshots + this day in history w/the sinking of the USS Indianaoplis and our song of the day by Clutch on your Morning Monarchy for July 30, 2018.

Stifling competition, secretly livestreaming and hijacking SIMs + this day in history w/the kitchen debate and our song of the day by Stickybuds on your Morning Monarchy for July 24, 2018.

SEATTLE – Amazon’s flagship annual sales event, Prime Day, encountered a tangle of difficulties starting Monday as aggrieved workers, boycotts, and a range of technical glitches brought new attention to the online retailer’s troubled internal regime.
For four years now, Prime Day has grown as the company’s top promotional event, bringing billions in revenue on a level comparable only to the holiday season’s Black Friday. For the past several weeks, the company has promoted the event widely across its site and various online media. The promotion is a 36-hour event.

“The message is clear—while the online giant gets rich, it is saving money on the health of its workers.” (CD) — Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has just become the richest man in recorded history—surpassing $150 billion in net worth—thanks to his business model of subjecting employees to low wages, brutal working conditions, and scant benefits, and on Tuesday […]

The company is forecast to hit sales of $258.2 billion by the end of 2018, a roughly 30% increase from the previous year. Many people, including President Trump, object to Amazon's advantages from tax loopholes, its special deal with the US Postal Service and hiring foreign workers instead of Americans to save money on labor. [...]

Triggering signal, eye in the sky and the Akon AKoin + this day in history w/disastrous presidencies and our song of the day by Remy on your Morning Monarchy for July 3, 2018.

In Part 1 of our investigative series on Surveillance Capitalism, MPN spoke to author Yasha Levine and Monthly Review editor John Bellamy Foster about the rise of the Amazon.com empire and its fusion with the U.S. state apparatus.
In our next installments, we will continue exploring the rise of Surveillance Capitalism and the implications of Amazon-fueled spying technology, both in the workplace and in U.S. city streets.

(CW) — Amid Amazon’s ongoing collusion with government organizations, company employees circulated an open letter to CEO Jeff Bezos this week demanding he cancel the internet monolith’s contracts with law enforcement and Palantir, a tech firm that has helped the NSA expand its surveillance capabilities. Gizmodo reported Wednesday that the internal letter circulated on a mailing list titled, “we-won’t-build-it,” calls on […]

Dropping Starbursts, generating buzz and losing Koko + this day in history w/Tony Bliar resigns and our song of the day by Jim James on your Morning Monarchy for June 27, 2018.

Sharing secrets, bombshell accusations and incompetent enemies + this day in history w/Clinton punishes Iraq and our song of the day by Stickybuds on your Morning Monarchy for June 26, 2018.