Amazon tax avoidance

It cuts both ways.

You are right that Walmart has done a lot of harm:

• they force vendors to move offshore for cheaper labor
• they forced competitors out of business
• they offer low prices without any expertise or real customer service
• they hurt the economy by importing so many of their goods
• they get generous tax concessions from local governments

But they also do a lot of good:

• they have cut food prices for the poor by 20%
• they hire people no one else would hire
• they bring prices down for everyone
• they were recycling long before it was fashionable
• they cut packaging materials to reduce costs

So, it is very hard to generalize, like you just did. You have to look at the total impact of Walmart on our society, and then decide if something should be done to prevent the harms it does, while keeping the good it does. And that just isn't a simple thing to do.

You just cannot create laws to restrict Walmart that don't apply to everyone else.

Can you really legislate "no imports" when your government has an official policy of free trade? And would our trading partners retaliate if we did?

In a free market the customers make these decisions, and they seem to have decided that "we want lower prices, and we don't care what harm that causes to anyone else." So, we might as well blame ourselves....

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Marty
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