By George Sibley
A couple months ago I broached the idea in this column that one of the problems with “capitalism” in America is the American bias that equates it with “private-sector capitalism.” Meaning, a system for investment during the production and distribution of goods and services controlled by individuals and organizations who have money and are looking for ways to use it to make more money.
What made me think of this again was a story from the New York Times business section back in April about a difficulty that big online virtual mall Amazon.com is encountering today – what might be called an enviable difficulty, I suppose, from a business perspective. Amazon is making a lot of money these days. How they are doing that, we will look at more closely in a minute, but the fact is, in a time of “weak economic recovery,” as we’re euphemistically putting it, Amazon’s first-quarter revenues this year were up 38 percent over the same period last year.