06-16-2017, 08:41 AM
Somebody here said it best, one has to be either really rich or really poor (EBT makes it "free") to shop at Island Naturals. I'm sure the same applies to Whole Foods.
But to weigh in on the OP's question, will this effect Hawaii? Directly, no. Indirectly, the Amazon monopoly potentially just grew significantly. Eventually, fewer choices is bad news for consumers.
The stocks of all the other major grocers fell today after this announcement. Amazon's went up almost $24, which seems like an odd reaction considering Amazon is financing this buyout with debt at the same time the FED is raising interest rates, and Whole Foods hasn't been pulling in much of a profit. Since Amazon's share price at around $1000/share is a significant part of the market index, if they bought a lemon and it drags the stocks down, it could effect Hawaii again indirectly by pulling down values in Hawaiian's 401Ks etc. Amazon's retail operation lost money for 80 consecutive quarters and has only shown a profit a few times. Most people don't know that their retail operation has been subsidized by their other businesses, mostly cloud computing (for example, most of Netflix streams from an amazon cloud).
It will be either boon or bust for amazon, but considering it just added some of the 44 million food stamp recipients to their potential customer base overnight, probably a boon. Amazon Prime Rib, anyone?
But to weigh in on the OP's question, will this effect Hawaii? Directly, no. Indirectly, the Amazon monopoly potentially just grew significantly. Eventually, fewer choices is bad news for consumers.
The stocks of all the other major grocers fell today after this announcement. Amazon's went up almost $24, which seems like an odd reaction considering Amazon is financing this buyout with debt at the same time the FED is raising interest rates, and Whole Foods hasn't been pulling in much of a profit. Since Amazon's share price at around $1000/share is a significant part of the market index, if they bought a lemon and it drags the stocks down, it could effect Hawaii again indirectly by pulling down values in Hawaiian's 401Ks etc. Amazon's retail operation lost money for 80 consecutive quarters and has only shown a profit a few times. Most people don't know that their retail operation has been subsidized by their other businesses, mostly cloud computing (for example, most of Netflix streams from an amazon cloud).
It will be either boon or bust for amazon, but considering it just added some of the 44 million food stamp recipients to their potential customer base overnight, probably a boon. Amazon Prime Rib, anyone?