Loose Lips

I have been verklempt at President Obummer for his frequent swipes at American exceptionalism... most recently at Howard University when he told the wide-eyed graduates there that a person's success is only due to luck ... see: Breitbart Article. Shades of "you didn't build that." What an absolute boob! Now we have Donald Trump taking a swipe at Jeffery Bezos for his remarkable success at building Amazon.com into a retailing giant that is now threatening the entire "bricks and mortar" U.S. retail industry. However, Trump's motivation may not be as a trust-buster, but rather to get back at Bezos for how his personally-owned newspaper, the Washington Post, has been mistreating Trump in his bid for the presidency.

Donald Trump needs to quickly learn the lesson that Obummer never has ... that shooting from the lip,  as a person of such great consequence, is just that ... consequential. Is Amazon's success to be praised or condemned? That is a tough question because, like many things in life, it is relative. Walmart was the last great retail juggernaut ... condemned by liberals as the destroyer of many Mom and Pop operations. And it was, but look what then happened. The Internet allowed this upstart visionary, Bezos, in twenty-two short years, to begin turning Walmart into the next Montgomery Ward.

To completely answer this question requires a look at how Amazon has won the strategic high ground in retailing. Has Bezos used collusion, subterfuge or corruption? Likely not. He has used vision, innovative automation, superior organization and imaginative marketing. And, sorry Obummer, not a lot of luck ... other than that which was achieved through hard work and good decisions. Does this make Bezos into a beloved figure to anyone but his stockholders? Probably not, but then few of the transformational American entrepreneurs of the last two centuries have been known as pussy cats.

They, like Jobs, Edison, Ford, Watson, Carnegie, Rockefeller and many others were tough cookies ... and some did cut too many corners. But eventually, most of those that did paid a price. Trump is attacking Amazon for not paying sufficient taxes. This may be the case. But this is an issue for the IRS and, if this government agency has (once against) been corrupted by political influence or bribes, then this is very serious. But if Trump is making such a charge, he should supply some fiscal details. Otherwise, he should take the advice I am continually giving Obummer ... and zip his lip.