Not an Amazon Problem
It&#x27;s maybe worth considering that the surpluses generated from globalism are not being distributed evenly. It doesn&#x27;t mean that the standard of living of any group is going down.<p>I rarely go to Walmart, but every few years I do in the USA, and it constantly blows my mind. The quantity, price and quality of &#x27;stuff&#x27; in there ... you can live extremely well compared to anyone in 1970 just off Walmart.<p>I submit that the surpluses are going to consumers, but because we don&#x27;t price them (i.e. the added value to you in savings or quality doesn&#x27;t go on the books), it&#x27;s not part of the equation.<p>At least in most material ways, the Western World&#x27;s &#x27;cup runneth over with stuff&#x27; ... a lot of which we do not need and is therefore luxury.<p>The financial profits stack up in the top 10%.<p>It&#x27;s unsustainable, but it&#x27;s not all bad news.<p>The other &#x27;Elephant in the Room&#x27; nobody will talk about are the surpluses to middle class yielded form undocumented workers. The US has 10-20M people &#x27;off the books&#x27; working for crap wages, no health insurance. That is a <i>huge</i> part of why everything is so cheap in America. Particularly food and restaurants (the whole value chain is migrant workers it seems).<p>The #1 thing America could do to reduce inequality would be to force companies to pay a real minimum wage. 1&#x2F;2 the undocumented workers would be out of a job, the others would see pay increases.<p>All jobs have to come with healthcare, or at least pay enough such that the income can cover a basic healthcare.gov package or else - what&#x27;s the point? Collect taxes and redistribute via medicare?<p>Taxation at the high end could be increased somewhat.<p>Pushing some of those surpluses into the hands of working people would be a massive boon for the economy.