LMAO! And no mod points to give.
Well said, Mr D.
There's are three more components in this issue; social connections, revenue, and jobs.
Re social connections... Locally owned businesses can have a more positive impact on a local community. There is a stronger sense of community or of a social connection. I experienced this myself while working at a small grocery store when I was in high school.
Re revenue... There have been studies that support the idea that locally owned businesses keep more of the money earned by that business within the community. Corporate owned businesses (like Dollar Store) remove from the local community a large portion of the money earned by that operation.
Re jobs... Here again, the impact is more localized. Since the owner of the store is most likely from within the community, the positions are more likely to be filled from within the same community. The owner has a vested interest in the community in order for the business to be a success.
You can see the trend in the country today. More and more communities are sourcing their produce locally instead of from some remote mega-corp. Some communities have garden plots set up right within their neighborhoods by using empty lots. Others are seeing more farmers' markets appearing. Still others are seeing cooperatives developing.
In our town we have several big-box stores standing empty; some for over 10 years. We've lost Sears, K-Mart, Penny's, Boston Store, and soon we'll lose Shopko. These all represent lost tax revenues and job opportunities. When communities depend on corporate operations they leave themselves vulnerable to the market performance of those corporations. Just this one detail alone is justification for that Tulsa community to respond the way they are responding. But they need to include with it a strategy to encourage and develop locally-owned businesses to fill the void. It's certainly not an easy challenge, but they will find they are better off when they do.
This strikes me as an effort made by a person who is afraid of becoming irrelevant.
I think it's what the Republicans are doing for soy bean farmers. Unfortunately, even with that policy a number of farmers in the midwest have gone bankrupt.
I think the AC was expecting somebody to mod the comment as "Funny."
As long as there are no exploitable resources it should be fine. But if someone discovers something useful or that can be sold, it won't take long before we humans manage to lay waste to most of it. Sadly that seems to be the way we operate as a species. We've just gotten very efficient at it as we advance.
Agreed. +1
Video from a Wired Business Conference
How the Amazon Warehouse Works
Or a series of pics from Business Insider.
Another possibility is Amazon's recent starting pay increase. Very simply that means each employee costs more. And the budget for this year might provide only a certain amount of money for the work force. IOW, they don't want to exceed their budget.
lgw's comment is correct:
All these robots do is move shelves full of bins around. That's it. They don't sort. They don't pack. They don't ship. They help with picking (and stowing) by bringing the shelves to the human who does everything except walk to the shelves.
We know people who work in a distro center near us. People handle the products in all phases. I think some automation is used to pull the inventory (off the high shelving), but then the robotic pallets simply move the bins around the warehouse.
FWIW, here's one video of ops inside a "fulfillment center."
Life is a healthy respect for mother nature laced with greed.