The Washington Post

 Bezos Begging

    At the end of February I cancelled my subscription to WaPo and Bezosbub probably didn't notice.  The remaining people who work at the Post did and for them I feel sorry. Here are the two latest offers I have received via email. For American readers, the CA$2 is about US$1.45.

Early Offer:

Later Offer:

A Solution: 
  In a Post "Post Mortem" a former employee notes:
"When Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post in 2013 and promised to find inventive ways to make journalism profitable in the digital age, he seemed like a godsend. He wasn’t...."

   The Post is again in the market for a new publisher, but saving this splendid national treasure requires more than that. The real need now is for a new owner, or a big endowment that would allow it to carry on as a nonprofit public service. Do we know anyone who could spare a billion or two to fund such a noble cause and assure his or her place in American history?"
  
   I do! While Bezos has been boating, his ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott has been giving. She has been generous with gifts and grants to a variety of institutions, but has only given away $26 billion of her $40 billion fortune. Giving well could be the best revenge if she gave a portion of her wealth to support the paper Bezos abandoned. 
(The quote is from "Post Mortem" by Robert G. Kaiser, NYRB, March 26, 2026.)
(Analogy alert: One definition of "Beelzebub" - "a fallen angel in Milton's Paradise Lost ranking next to Satan".)

The Washington Post

 Subscription Going Dark
   A few years ago, the Washington Post adopted the slogan "Democracy Dies in Darkness", implying that newspapers were needed to shine light on the things we should know about. I have lamented the loss of so many of them, but I am now cancelling my subscription to the Post. The latest round of staff cuts announced earlier this month, was the deciding factor for me, although many of the good writers and a cartoonist had already left.
   I grew up in Maryland, across the Bay from Washington and went to university just outside the D.C. border. The very thick WaPo picked up very late on a Saturday night could help one through the worst of hangovers and last all day Sunday.
   A few years ago, I started subscribing because of a very good deal and kept subscribing when it wasn't. Apart from the fact that it was an excellent paper, I still enjoyed reading the regional coverage that included the Delmarva Peninsula. Since I submitted my cancellation, I have been asked to reconsider. I decided not to take advantage of a really good deal - $20. Apparently I have two hours left and I don't think the price is going lower. I will miss reading it. I will even miss George Will. 

BEZOSBUB
  Although some were upset when Jeff Bezos bought the Post in 2013, he did have a lot of money and some good intentions. Lately, however, some decisions were made that were questionable and even a cartoon was cancelled. The paper is now not supposed to favour a presidential candidate and the columnists have been encouraged to endorse "personal liberties and free markets", not bad things to endorse, but it is bad to be told to do so.
  The Post is losing money, but money is not the issue for Bezos. As Ruth Marcus, who quit in March, notes: "When Bezos purchased the Post, his net worth was about twenty-five billion; it is now an estimated two hundred fifty billion. Why not one per cent of that for the Post, enough to sustain the paper indefinitely? A pipe dream, I know, but this arrangement would make Bezos the savior of the Post, not the man who presided over its demise."

  To put this in nautical terms,  "among the Amazon founder’s more expensive recreations, [ he has a]125.8-metre, three-masted sailing yacht, Koru. (No need to get into the details of Abeona, the seventy-five-million-dollar “shadow boat” that trails Koru and provides a helipad and adequate space for extra staff.)
   "Koru cost an estimated five hundred million dollars. This is double what Bezos paid for the Washington Post. Annual maintenance runs tens of millions of dollars. It is, to be sure, a very special boat. According to Architectural Digest, “Bezos’s superyacht has a classical style, with a navy-blue steel hull and a two-level white aluminum superstructure. The ship’s teak decks include spots for outdoor lounging as well as three Jacuzzis and a swimming pool. Robb Report notes that the hull features traditional portholes, while the upper deck windows are smaller than typical, which might help to foil paparazzi trying to capture guests inside.” If that information about the boat is not galling enough, there is more: the Journal published a story on Friday by Richard Rubin headlined “Trump’s New Tax Law Saved Amazon Billions.” But the Ukraine correspondent had to go."
   Bezos founded Amazon, by the way. Perhaps now he is simply more interested in films than journalism since he reportedly contributed $40 million for "Melania" and spent another $35 million to promote it. 
   Whereas the New York Times purchased a company to cover sports, WaPo just fired everyone. Some were at the Olympics when they learned. Ron Charles who sent a very interesting book newsletter every Friday, was laid off and quickly became "an unemployed journalist with a mortgage". You can now find him on Substack, along with many other fine writers. The entire book section was shut down. Even if you were not a subscriber, you may have read the WaPo reviews that were syndicated.
   Most papers do not review books anymore and the Associated Press stopped doing so last year. The New York Times "Book Review" "is the last discrete newspaper books section standing." 
   There still are magazines that publish book reviews, but "The books section of a newspaper plays an altogether different role. It does not cater to aficionados; it seeks new recruits. A newspaper is—or ought to be—the opposite of an algorithm, a bastion of enlightened generalism in an era of hyperspecialization and personalized marketing. It assumes that there is a range of subjects an educated reader ought to know about, whether she knows that she ought to know about them or not."
And Amazon is not the answer:
   "On Amazon, the glorious inconvenience of browsing shelves or combing through piles has been eliminated. There is no occasion to pick up an unfamiliar book out of sheer curiosity. Every book that the site’s algorithm recommends is similar to one that you have purchased already. In this way, you encounter nothing but iterations of yourself forever. It is a world in which the customer is always right. But if you didn’t want to be proved wrong, if you didn’t want to be altered or antagonized in ways that you could never predict, why would you read at all?"
  To conclude with some CANCON, I will end with the word created by Cory Doctorow and say that this is just one more example of the enshittifcation of everything:
  "We’re all living through the enshittocene, a great enshittening, in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are turning into giant piles of shit."

Sources:
"The Death of Book World: What the Closing of the Washington Post’s Books Section Means for Readers," By Becca Rothfeld, The New Yorker, Feb. 10, 2026.
"How Jeff Bezos Brought Down the Washington Post: The Amazon founder bought the paper to save it. Instead, with a mass layoff, he’s forced it into severe decline," Ruth Marcus, The New Yorker, Feb. 4, 2026. (The nautical bit is also from The New Yorker, by David Remnick, Feb.8.)
More about "enshittification" can be learned in MM's, "On Bullshit."
Post Script: I just received another offer to re-subscribe.

Warehouses

 

Good News or Bad?

   Good news is rather rare these days, but some has appeared in our local region. There have been many positive headlines about the construction of new warehouses and the potential arrival of Amazon in our area. Here is one of them along with a few opening sentences:

"A Windfall and a Shakeup; An Amazon Centre Would Bring Money and Force Retailers to 'Up Their Game'," Norman De Bono, The London Free Press, May 28, 2021.

An Amazon packaging and distribution centre landing on London's doorstep would be an immediate windfall for the local economy, say retail industry observers.

The building of what may be a massive, e-commerce hub, buying a host of support services, generating tax revenue and paying workers wages all would be an injection of cash locally.

But its long-term impact on the retail sector, as it pushes consumers even faster into the e-commerce economy, will bear watching as it may hurt brick-and mortar shops slower to embrace e-commerce.

Questions could be asked about this 'windfall' and how tight our embrace of e-commerce and Amazon should be, but I am more concerned about this headline: 'Amazon Plans to Expand Southwestern Ontario Footprint with 2 London Warehouses: The Company Says There, Will Be 200 Warehouse Jobs Available, 130 Delivery Drivers." (CBC News, May 27, 2021.) The jobs may be good and the 'windfall' may last, but surely the Footprint will last even longer and be difficult to erase. 

The 403

   The news is even more euphoric in The Brantford Expositor. The reasons for that are easily spotted as one drives from London to Hamilton. You may recall that before the 403 was completed the drive took longer, but was certainly more scenic. On the east side of Brantford the fields are now full of warehouses and it is likely the ones between Woodstock and Brantford will be as well.  Soon we may dread the drive along the 403, just as we much as we dread seeing the HTTP 404 message on our computer, as a symbol of what has been lost.

   My objection is not an aesthetic one, it is agricultural in nature. Should prime agricultural land, which is a rare commodity in Ontario, be turned over for such a purpose? Would we not be better off growing crops, rather than constructing warehouses? And, given what has been made obvious by the pandemic, wouldn't we be better off making things ourselves locally rather than distributing goods made by others far away?

Sources: 

   I will not attempt to skew them, in favour of my position. If you want to read some positive articles you can start with The Brantford Expositor. For example: "New Warehouse Centre Backed by City Council," Oct. 7, 2020 and "Growth in Warehouse Industry Continues," where it is noted that:  In the county, warehousing and distribution employs approximately 1,400 people and represents about five per cent of all business in Brant. By way of comparison, agriculture represents 13 per cent, retail nine per cent and manufacturing seven per cent. (April 13, 2021.) I did note at the end of one article where it was mentioned that "Supply Chain Management" was being taught in support of such developments that:  “It is generally accepted that global supply chains have reduced costs and increase the range of options available to businesses and consumers alike. However, businesses, academics and policymakers have tended to underplay the risks associated with this process of globalization.”

There is also one article to be found about some Indigenous opposition: "Activists Support Protecting Land for Future Generations," TBE, May 8, 2021.

   For a recent article from the United States, questioning the covering of the land with warehouses see:

"A New Crop in Pennsylvania: Warehouses: Huge facilities have sprouted up in and around the Lehigh Valley, fueled by the astonishing growth of e-commerce. Some residents say the area’s landscape and long-term economic health could be threatened.

Michael Corkery - May 26., 2021, The New York Times. 

“They are coming here and putting up shiny new warehouses and erasing pieces of history,” said Juli Winkler, whose ancestors are buried in the Maxatawny cemetery. “Who knows if these big buildings will even be useful in 50 years.”

Developers are very confident in the industry’s growth, however, particularly after the pandemic. Big warehouse companies like Prologis and Duke Realty are investing billions in local properties. Many of the warehouses are being built before tenants have signed up, making some wonder whether there is a bubble and if some of these giant buildings will ever be filled.

“People are calling it warehouse fatigue,” said Dr. Christopher R. Amato, a member of the regional planning commission. “It feels like we are just being inundated.”

   See this site, presented by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture: Prevent Ontario's Food and Farms From Disappearing Forever. 

"Food Growers Issue Urgent Plea to Preserve Ontario's Shrinking Farmland Base," Doug Schmidt,  Windsor Star, May 28, 2021  

Amazon is Everywhere: On June 11, this article is found in the Times Colonist - "Amazon Rumours Continue to Swirl in Langford and Sidney," by Darren Kloster.

The Bonus:

  Jeff Bezos is taking a trip on July 20 to the edge of space. Someone just paid $28 Million to have a seat next to him for the ride, which will take less than 28 minutes. 

Factlet (6)

 

Extraordinary Times....         Desperate Times.....

That's Billions With a 'B'

   For review, a Factlet is true, whereas a Factoid is only widely believed to be true. I have not provided a Factlet for a while, so here are a bunch of them in one post. My last one was about the Opioid Epidemic and was negative, and this one is about the Covid Pandemic, but is positive. The pandemic has been profitable for some and not just the manufacturers of Purell or the makers of plexiglass. To wit:

   To put the chart in context, consider this:

A Wealth Tax??

   Jeff Bezos has already decided to give $10 billion to causes relating to climate change. He started by donating $791 million to various organizations, including $100 million each to: The Environmental Defense Fund, The National Resources Defense Council. The Nature Conservancy, The World Resources Institute and The World Wildlife Fund.  This will certainly help, since in 2019 only 2% of the $730 billion given globally was for the fight against climate change.

   Elon Musk has decided to move from California to Texas. The decision may be related to the fact that the Lone Star State has less regulations and lower taxes.

   Short of pleading for these individuals to be more philanthropic, what could be done? Instituting a wealth tax is one option and it is being considered in the UK. It is suggested that the tax could be a one-time one and there appears to be a fair amount of public support for it. That would likely be true here, but perhaps not in the Lone Star State during the time of Trump.

Sources:

   The chart is from a report produced for Americans For Tax Fairness and The Institute for Policy Studies. The title: "Net Worth of U.S. Billionaires Has Soared by $1 Trillion - To Total of $4 Trillion - Since Pandemic Began." A sub-heading indicates that the "Wealth Increase in 9 Months Exceeds Likely $908 Billion Cost of Covid Relief Package GOP Has Stalled as Too Costly."

   The charitable actions of Bezos are reported in the Washington Post - see: "Bezos Makes First Donations From $10 Billion Earth Fund For Fighting Climate Change," Steven Mufson, Nov. 16, 2020.

Bezos owns the Washington Post.

   The title of the Wealth Tax Report is: "A Wealth Tax For the UK", Wealth Tax Commission Final Report, by Arun Advani et al. The full 126 pp final report is available. 

The defining feature of a one-off wealth tax is that it would be a one-off exceptional response to a particular crisis. Individuals would only be taxed once based on the wealth they owned valued at a particular date. They would still be allowed to pay the tax in instalments over a number of subsequent years, to reduce the cost in any single year, but the amount of tax would be based on their wealth on the initial assessment date.

For two articles about the report: "Economic Cost of Covid Crisis Prompts Call For One-Off UK Wealth Tax," Richard Partington, The Guardian, Dec. 9, 2020 and "U.K. Urged To Levy $350 Billion Wealth Tax to Fund Pandemic," Andrew Atkinson, Dec. 9, 2020.

The Bonus: 

   You will have noticed the names of three Waltons in the chart. To see what Alice did with a bit of her money a few years ago, read this earlier post or, when the pandemic is over, travel to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

The Bright Side

   Not all the news is bad during this time of the Great Flu. As someone who specializes in the contrarian, I thought I would provide you with a few good bits.

   One does not have to read the following article since the very good news is obvious in the headline: "Corporate Insiders Pocket $1 Billion in Rush For Coronavirus Vaccine," David Gelles and Jesse Drucker, New York Times, July 25, 2020.

  Jeff Bezos also continues to do well and you don't need to be concerned about his ex-wife. This was found on Bloomberg News:

Jeff Bezos added $13 billion to his net worth on Monday, the largest single-day jump for an individual since the Bloomberg Billionaires Index was created in 2012.

Bezos, Amazon’s 56-year-old founder and the world’s richest person, has seen his fortune swell $74 billion in 2020 to $189.3 billion, despite the U.S. entering its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. He’s now personally worth more than the market valuation of giants such as Exxon Mobil Corp., Nike Inc. and McDonald’s Corp.

and

Mackenzie Bezos, his ex-wife, gained $4.6 billion Monday and is now the 13th-richest person in the world.

   If you are among the fortunate ones and are healthy, but still worried about the coming of the fall and the prospect that we might have to remain hunkered down, there are options like these:

   The marketing folks at Hilton Head are suggesting you can rent a home there and your kids can "Go Back to School Island Style."

   If you would rather be locked down this winter somewhere really warm, consider Barbados. 

Here are some related headlines:

Out of Office: Barbardos Prime Minister Welcomes Remote Workers: Proposes 12-Month Visa.

Working From Home Can Soon Mean Working in Barbados For Up To A Year.

The Bonus:

   Additional good news: The NHL resumes play on August 1, and you can watch the Kentucky Derby on Sept.5 and view The Masters in November. [the normal dates for these events were altered due to Covid.]

   So there; things aren't so bad.