Today, Amazon announced strong earnings and is an excellent example of why America is doomed.  The Amazon model for book delivery (and lots and lots of other merchandise) is very efficient, easy for consumers to use, and cheaper than the traditional brick and mortar model.  Translation, Amazon achieves more with a lot less people, i.e. unemployment.   Ditto, for Netflix.  Meanwhile, goodbye Circuit City, Borders, Barnes and Noble, and Best Buys — to name just a few.  Yes, a few more jobs at UPS and Fed Ex.  But, on balance, a lot less jobs for America.

Amazon is a good company and kudos to the people that run the company.  However, the implications of companies like this is less employment for America.  Plus — nobody is talking about the extent that technology is eliminating jobs.    Thus, nobody is addressing the job destruction phenomenon that is occurring in the U.S.  The latest stimulus bill doesn’t address that at all.

Further, Amazon will have to get more efficient about its model in order to continue to do well.  Translation, doing more with less people and using technology even more.  In the process, the digital world will make it more difficult to sell “books”, just like the virtual destruction of the traditional music business.  That is, if it is digital it can be copied and distributed for virtually zero cost.

Even authors, can publish online for almost nothing and receive almost nothing in income.  This has been happening for decades with the free software foundation who produce more software than all the “for profit” software companies in America.  Meanwhile, companies are embracing free software tools and paying virtually nothing for it.  Companies, like IBM, have embraced linux in their bids.  Screw Microsoft (yeah — those greedy bastards!), Sun, and you name it.  Think of any great new software idea, start a company, and if it is really good the free software will clone it in short order and will probably do it even better.  Too bad I spent all that time in Computer Science grad school.

Replicate the “free” model to Wikipedia, self-publishing authors, and new media stars ala youtube.com.   All of these venues result in people producing products for free to other for free.  Meanwhile, ignore traditional commerce and the “free enterprise” system.  It is full employment for the unemployed who won’t make any money.  Sure, there are still traditional books that are doing well but this is only because it takes a while for people to figure out they don’t have to buy it any more.

Think about this — if it was really difficult to leave the place you live, what place would you still have to go to?  For me, it would only be places where my physical body must be there, e.g. doctor, haircut.  That’s about it.  So, how much commercial space does the U.S. need for retail?  If your community is like mine, there is lots of retail space for lease and more every day.

America is doomed.