By all accounts Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods, if it indeed goes through, is a very big deal. No one denies it will have many consequences, whether those consequences are good or bad. What will precisely be the nature of those consequences, though, is not so agreed upon. Of course it may depend on how far into the future one looks. In the near term it is said it will change the food industry, the habits of customers for whom ordering on line may well be easier, the delivery of goods, the nature of retail, the competition to be the largest retailer and for what’s would be left of the retail industry. Amazon which went public in 1997 was then worth $438million with a stock price of (more…)
Governance
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Libyan Slave Market
Once in a while in all I read to prepare for these pieces, I find myself in disbelief, encountering how evil humans can be. This week it was a story in The Guardian newspaper about what they called Libyan slave markets. Migrants, usually from West Africa, with little or cash and often with no papers, manage to pay people smugglers to get across the desert to the coast. The rescued migrant interviewed for this story tells of a bus ride organized by the (more…)