By Dr. Susmit Kumar

In 1994 Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos from his garage in Bellevue, Washington. The company initially was an online marketplace for books. Gradually it now sells nearly everything. Due to record Amazon profits and its share price, Jeff Bezos was nearly worth $194 billion in early 2024. He has been also credited for creating 100,000s of [low-paying service sector] jobs in US as well. But we will see that his enormous wealth and jobs created in US are actually based on the ashes of 100,000 US manufacturing units and millions of US good paying jobs, and it also enriched the US arch enemy China.

Right now, Amazon has its shipping trucks to deliver to its customers in nearly all major US cities. But still in late 2023 it utilizes US Postal Service for last mile deliveries, for an example, in rural communities from Portland, Maine, to Washington state’s San Juan Islands. In bigger cities, Amazon has its own distribution network, which takes some of the pressure off the post office. But in rural areas, where carriers drive miles of lonely routes in their personal vehicles, the arrangement has caused problems.¹

In the mountains of Colorado, biologists in Crested Butte are struggling with the delay of time-sensitive samples, the Denver Post reported in September, while mail carriers in Carbondale say they are overwhelmed by Amazon packages. Other Minnesota towns including Brainerd and La Porte have been hit hard by Amazon in the past, carriers said. In Bemidji, the mayor has complained to local members of Congress, who say their ability to control the post office is limited. Last week, Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) sent a letter to Postmaster General to ask about reports that “Amazon is interfering with timely deliveries and stretching the agency’s already-overburdened workers too thin.”²

In Bemidji, postal workers said they had been told that Amazon was coming to town for years. It finally happened one morning in early November, when the post office was flooded with thousands of Amazon boxes and carriers said they were told they all had to be delivered by the end of the day.³

Carriers who previously had delivered dozens of small parcels a day plus paper mail suddenly had to deliver between 300 and 500 boxes that they said had previously been handled by UPS. One mail carrier said his mail truck was so full of packages he could barely see out the left window. Some boxes were so big they couldn’t fit into mail vehicles. Those were stored on-site for customer pickup in an area that soon was overflowing.⁴

If a person sends a package to another person in the same city, US Postal Service charge would be at least $3. But one can buy a $5 worth of item at Amazon and it would come to his home with free shipping. [At eBay also, you can buy millions of items each costing just $1 and it would come from China with free shipping to your home by US Postal Service.]
Till ten years ago, majority of Amazon items used to be delivered by US Postal Service because Amazon did not have its own delivery service.

Features of Amazon are the following:

1. Corrupt congressmen and senators colluded with websites like Amazon (and eBay also) to provide cheap shipping services by putting pressure on the US government owned US Postal Service.
2. These websites sell cheap Chinese products, imported without any tax, which China has been selling to US under their manufacturing costs (these provide jobs in China as well as precious hard currency US dollars to China).
3. US economists, management gurus as well as Wall Street pundits point to millions of service sector jobs created by Amazon and eBay but these are low paying jobs. But they forgot to mention 100,000s of US manufacturing units lost to China and the associated millions of good paying workers’ and associated jobs, lost to China.
4. If one small town loses a firm, having 1,000 factory workers, to China, it actually loses 1,000 homes/apartments, 2 thousand cars (2 cars per house), 2 thousand school/college students (2 children per household), grocery shops for 1,000 homes, doctors/hospitals/pharmacies for 1,000 homes and so on and then in-direct jobs associated with all these like gas stations, transportation trucks, roadways, handymen, etc. All these jobs and facilities are now created in China.
5. This is also enriching US Frankenstein China.
6. Without cheap US Postal Service shipping rates, websites like Amazon (and eBay also) would not have survived at all.
7. Therefore Jeff Bezos $194 billion is based on the ashes of 100,000 manufacturing units and millions of US good paying jobs.
8. Entire system is working only till US dollar is global currency. The moment US dollar loses the status of global currency, Amazon would not be able sell majority of its items as they are Chinese made.

Footnotes

1. “A rural post office was told to prioritize Amazon packages. Chaos ensued,” Caroline O’Donovan and Jacob Bogage, Washington Post, November 28, 2023.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. ibid.