Every week “The Top Twenty” brings you the first 20 minutes – give or take – of “The Hard Rock Lunchbox”.
This week, DJ swings at Amazon. Again. Also on today’s show: cool brace (Tom), non non-compete agreements, pickles for a dollar and MORE!
Music from: @KnowYourEnemy Video Highlight: @More Perfect Union We Found Corporate America’s Biggest Enemy
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Greetings and salutations everyone, welcome members of the Hard Rock lunchbox and viewers of course at the top 20 and for those of you on tiktok not smart enough to realize what's going on. We are doing a live radio show that happens to get recorded for a podcast replay on Spotify and Apple Music and we are recording the top 21st, 20 so minutes of the show so that we can put out the video of the top 20 but first and foremost we are on a live radio show you can check it out right now if you wanted to although not if you're watching it because we are in the future. It is a live radio show on 99w nr.com you can check it out every Thursday from noon to noon. Don't believe me and even if you don't believe me it doesn't matter you're going to make up your own facts anyway welcome to the future it is a incredibly and shockingly warm August 1st 2024 we've made it ladies and gentlemen we have made it to August and I don't care for it to be perfectly honest with you it's a little too warm for me and as much as I do tend to prefer nice weather over bad weather I always prefer cold weather to warm weather and I know that there's definitely two different camps of that a lot of the peeps I tend to associate with really do like the cold weather for the main reason that they can wear a hoodie you wear a hoodie today you're gonna die like that's basically what it comes down to and you know that seems like a really lame way to go like when there's options out there like getting attacked by a lion sticking your head in a blender driving off a bridge that kind of stuff so all I can tell you is the eighth month of the year we have basically two more months until we get to October now I know all you white women are about to get really excited over that statement just slow your pumpkin spice roll we'll get there when we get there I believe it was last turn off Broadway that said that so it's probably not true so yeah doing my best the whole things together oh thank you for asking so I am not in the new episode or series of Mad Max although this brace makes me look way cooler than I am or the injury that it's supporting it is a shoulder cuff brace because your host has got a slight tear in his rotator cuff now you could ask yourself what were you doing where you like building pyramids or lifting up cars to save babies and I would say all of that but I'd also be lying directly to you remember a couple weeks ago when I said I was like kind of hurting my shoulder a little bit so I was like doing push-ups and flies well instead of listening to the warnings that my body was so clearly sending up flares about I was like oh just push through it we'll just tape it up what you can't do once you reach the end of life like I have because things start breaking so that's what I did I did too many push-ups which is not really a sentence I ever thought I would utter in my mediocre life but I did I did too many push-ups and then decided to follow that up with rounds of flies now I do like flies I always did and now I have a tear in my rotator cuff which if you've never had one um how do I describe this um lift your arm up like that like take your arm out well if you're in radio you can't see but if you take put your arm out to your side take your well take any arms stick it out to your side now slowly lift it up until you get about I don't know 45 degree angle now put some lightning in your shoulder and that's what it feels like to have a rotary so that's what it is I am on the rice protocol which is rest ice compression and wait rest ice compression and elevation I can't really elevate my shoulder more than I can because I'm already 61 this is about it I think if I were like anti-stomach or whatever maybe I'd stand on a milk crate or something I don't really know how to elevate where I'm at I could get high that would certainly elevate something but probably not my shoulder and anyways thank you for asking I'm wearing this brace it's actually not it's doing more today because I decided to wear it over my shirt all the pictures of how to put this on are usually like dudes in much better shape than me with their shirts off putting it on and I think that's how you're supposed to wear it but I think I I'm still adjusting to the new size that I am so I think I ordered too big of a size I did do the chest measurement like it said to and I ordered the right one but I guess people lie about their chest size much like you know guys lie about other things and so it just it felt like a little big so but I'm wearing it over my shirt and I actually get a little bit more compression but the main reason I'm wearing it is because it just serves as a reminder like hey do not don't use your left arm for anything if you can avoid it or just do stuff like like I'd be an awesome Tyrannosaurus Rex right now or at least on the left side I could do all that but I'm not so I'm just a radio show host current anyway if you're wondering that's what that's about I'm hoping to heal in the next couple weeks I'm not doing any exercises where my arm leaves my shoulder at all so none of those none of these you know none of this and hopefully in two weeks I can kind of get back and if you guys could all do me like a slight personal favor the next time I talk about a body part that's hurting can somebody just in the chat be like you know stupid can you just take a little bit easier on that and not do that or whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing or whatever and that way maybe I won't hurt myself into rail absolutely everything I'm doing so thank you for that in advance I appreciate that let's get to some lighthouse keeping please we've got a brand new top 20 out on YouTube on strange hood TV where you can find not only bacon is my podcast and all things craving strange but you can find this stupid show too if you're watching it you probably already know that feel free to comment on there I'm hoping this weekend I'll be able to catch up on comments but I feel like I say that a lot I'll catch up on them I'll catch up on them eventually please leave them I really enjoy having that engagement I truly do it's about audio illusions and I talk about me being at the bottom of the overpass because I was doing leg day at the gym and then walking 20 25 minutes home and then realizing there's a huge hell in the way which is very hard after you do like I don't know this inside when you do the in when you do the hip abductors the adduction not abduction but the adduction where you're squeezing squeezing like that so you have this tiny little muscle on the inside of your thigh right and I am I am very strong I am very strong in that capacity where I can do like well over 200 pounds but like I just don't use that muscle all that often like I don't even know what you use it for other than doing exactly these but like I am trying to actually crowd out some fat and I know you can't you can't target a body area to remove fat like that's not that's a myth that doesn't actually work by the way I've got a good story about a myth for you but about workout myths you know probably won't get to so why even said it but I do have a lot of fat in that area I carry all my fat right on the inside of my thought is not that you notice thank you for not asking and my probably solid a cups at this point and of course my belly because that's where stress lives and I don't know if you know this about me I have a fair amount of stress and guess thank you is replenished every single day I get a morning delivery of it so it's like the old school like milk bottles but it's stress but you can crowd fat out by adding muscle and it just kind of pushes fat a little to the side or pushes it up but it's like you know the whole body composition like you add more and more rocks in the water like there'll still be water in there but you'll have a lot of rocks in there too so that's my plan that's why I'm targeting those muscles but they're very small muscles especially for your legs they're not like your thigh or your hamstrings like those are and your glute like those are some of the biggest muscles in your body except my traps tend to be the biggest muscles in my body because they're usually inflamed and angry and on fire but that's why I was working on them it becomes very difficult to walk over a bridge that's all I was trying to say please plan accordingly yeah broken windows policy 100 beats from in an alley it's a good episode I think check it out I like the very beginning of it I always find that part funny but you know that another show notes Rebel Nine has a show our last show of the year scheduled I'm sure we'll add something else but it will be a nostalgia tomorrow night we take the stage around 10 we've never played nostalgia as a full band my band is definitely stressing it just for the amount of room we won't have on stage but you know we'll see it's going to be a fun show it's going to be a fun set the band had all the input on the set so and it's sounding really good actually the last time we ran ran the set was probably the best we've ever played those songs I just hope that carries on until tomorrow night we're going to rehearse again today tonight before we load up and we'll just you know go from there but you don't need to know any of that the discussions and drinks for the week on bacon is my podcast is the truth about ego and is it always bad I happen to be a big fan of studying ego and a big student of it because I do find it interesting because it is completely one thing to have an ego that is not deserved it is completely another one to have a healthy ego that is deserved so I'm curious to see what the boys have to say on that so I'll be listening to that at some point this week if I get an opportunity to go for a walk rest of my week looks banana so I'm just not sure that I'm gonna get to anything but whatever so that's that I think I'm gonna not do the myth about working out until next week mainly because the video is watching from Kurt Kurt good shot I can't even pronounce it super interesting but there's gonna be a part two of it so maybe I'll just wait and I'll just talk about him both at the same time so that will be something to look forward to which is going to be unusual for this show do you have a bunch of new music for you by the way but it really wasn't feeling up to it I just I really wasn't filming talking so much about me and stuff that's going on so I was actually gonna just end the top 20 early but I did happen to catch a report on most something nation something I forget the name of the channel but it's something that talks about like it's kind of like nerd politics a little bit I can't remember the name of it but like they go into it's kind of like a like a quick journal journalism show and they go into things like you wouldn't necessarily be discussing most favorite nation no that's not I can't remember I can't remember what it is and I'm sorry I'll probably link to the clip in here when I post the video but I wanted to read you something because I thought it was interesting and like I said I was very interested in this like 10 minute clip about the person I'm going to discuss so this goes back to 2017 and a law student her name is Lena Khan wrote this article that posted honestly I don't even remember where I posted some journal I should have brought it but I didn't 2017 and the introduction from the New York Times about this particular article I thought was was interesting so the article itself is called Amazon's amazon's Monopoly Paradox again this is 2017 that's pre-COVID so that's interesting because or that's important because it would become interesting a little bit but the New York Times kind of intro on this article or poet it's a it's a lot it's like a 22 page letter from some sort of like law journal or whatever economics economics but the introduction is this quote even as Amazon became one of the largest retailers in the country it never seemed interested in charging enough to make a profit customers celebrated and the competition language that's been the problem all along that is also not entirely true anymore about the profit and that's a whole other story but at 2017 pre-COVID Amazon had a plan and their plan was basically world domination which is trust and monopolistic monopolistic practices which is something I keep talking about like if anybody follows my Instagram they probably saw my post yesterday about the letter that I wrote to Amazon correcting their usage of next of same day because they keep guaranteeing the same day serving guaranteeing it says it in the order and the note that comes with it they guarantee same day service and then most of the time I don't get it till the next day well that's called next day delivery so I don't or next day service so I don't so I wrote them a letter I just I guess maybe nobody brought it to their attention like so so that was that and I posted that and it's gonna be maybe that anyway so I've been talking about Amazon off and on for years but this is super interesting and the person that wrote it is super interesting and if I saw a time I'll talk about that so again her name's Lena Kahn that name sounds familiar good for you give yourself a good gold star because she should and and and I'll get into that but anyway here's here's the abstract on this 22 page paper Amazon is the titan of 21st century commerce in addition to being a retailer it is now a marketing platform a delivery and logistics network a payment service a credit lender an auction house a major book publisher a producer of television and films a fashion designer a hardware manufacturer and a leading host of cloud server space although Amazon has clocked staggering growth it generates meager profits choosing to price below cost and expand widely instead this is not an uncommon thing lots of pump lots of companies do this widely instead through this strategy the company is positioned itself at the center of e-commerce and now serves as essential infrastructure of what I said about pre-covid now remember how essential Amazon was during covid so it now serves as an essential infrastructure for a host of other businesses that depend upon it elements of the firm structure and conduct pose anti-competitive concerns yet it is it has escaped anti-trust scrutiny this note argues that the current framework in antitrust specifically it's pegging competition it's pegging competition to quote consumer welfare defined as short-term defined as short-term price effects is unequipped to capture the architecture of market power in the modern modern economy we cannot cognize like that's a good word I never heard that we cannot cognize the potential harms to competition posed by Amazon's dominance if we measure competition primarily through price and output specifically current doctrine under appreciates the risk of predatory pricing and how inter integration across distinct business lines may prove anti-competitive these concerns are heightened in the context of online platforms for two reasons first the economics of platform markets create incentives for a company to pursue growth over profits told you that's not unusual a strategy that investors have rewarded under these conditions predatory pricing becomes highly rational even as existing doctrine treats it as irrational and therefore implausible second because online platform strips is critical intermediaries integrating across business lines and positions these platforms to control the essential infrastructure on which their rivals depend the dual role also enables the platform to exploit information collected on companies using its services to undermine them as competitors right that's the data mining if you keep ordering from their competitors through their platform they have access to that and then they can create their own knockoff versions anybody ever buy anything from Amazon basic that's what that is this note maps that fast is of Amazon's dominance doing so enables us to make sense of its business strategy illuminates anti-competitive aspects of Amazon's structure and conduct and underscores deficiencies in doc and current doctrine the note closes by considering two potential regimes for addressing absence power restoring traditional antitrust and competition policy principles or applying common carrier obligations and duties that's just the abstract right so that's basically what this entire notice about i would highly encourage anybody to read it i think it's amazon's antitrust it's an amazon's antitrust paradox you can search that up if you want and take a look at it is incredibly well cited because it has been such a problem over the past years as i said think about all this being written in 2017 and then remember how essential amazon became in 2020 and now also consider how many businesses now don't even bother doing their own shipping and logistics they always say go visit our amazon star store i was trying to buy stuff from eargasm not too long ago directly because i do try and support these companies directly and their pricing on their store was like 50 bucks while it was 35 on amazon and i messaged them i was like hey man i'd much rather buy this from you but you're not even competing with your own competition and they were like yeah just buy it from amazon like that is complete like acquiescence like at the it's best like you're not even trying anymore like that to me is just bananas now as i said a couple weeks ago like it's good to see that amazon is starting to lose a little market share as companies like target and walmart really go after that market but you know amazon just dominates it and yes those meager profits that they're talking about are meager profits on stuff at the time because they undersell you you know like lost leaders are that's the stuff at the at the register that they just get you to buy or sometimes it's the sale item like hey man come in and buy this lease car oh i'm sorry we don't have those anymore how about this Mercedes instead like they're all practices and they're all strategies and economics and the problem is our doctrines of these antitrust laws are still from the 1890s when thank god our government realized that there might be a problem consolidating the power of all the radii all the railroads all of the sugar all of the oil into the hands of just people like the rocket fellers the banda belts and all those dudes i mean if you ever want to see like how monopolies work in the in the current area do do a study on what we did in central america with bananas it'll blow your mind because it's actually bananas like literally and figure so this is an important article it's been cited a million times and it's a really good predictor of what exactly happened and here in 2024 we can look back and see exactly how it happened something like 65% of people's first search for a product they want to buy is on amazon now yeah you might not think that's a monopoly because yes there's other places to get it but when you have such dominance over everything you can undercut the competition and it's funny that walmart is the competition that's being undercut here because walmart was famous for moving into a town selling pickles for a dollar and putting every other store in town out of business that is the that is the walmart strategy and they kept fighting we're not a monopoly we're not you know anti we're not trusts we're not even none of those things but yeah you're anti-competitive and because you're so big you can do that you can take a loss at a store for five years if you know for the next 25 you've got the town in your pocket if you have deep enough pockets to do that that was the point of this whole article now the reason i bring this up is because the woman the young woman that wrote very young woman actually that wrote it while she was done law law school her name is lina con and as i said if you that name sounds familiar give yourself a good gold star because who she is now is the head of the ftc she's the head of the ftc in the biden administration and one of the very few administration officials that works very bipartisanship in fact in the thing i was watching last night she was actually getting some praise from people like jadey vans that douchebag and matt gates that other douchebag along with like bernie sanders and elizabeth warren because what she's doing is something that really hasn't been done since effectively the 1890s and they even compare it to be uh the ftc head under obama who took a very like let's leave you know we'll leave this stuff alone because we don't want to punish businesses that are doing well whereas lina con is like we want to punish businesses that are punishing other businesses because that is the spirit of these laws and in the e-commerce world they don't have the laws for this i mean they have stuff like you can't own every railroad in you know in in in the entire region like well that's not really a problem and also didn't really work out too well but people don't privately own the railroads so much anymore anyway because there's such mass infrastructure anybody's ever been on amtracker the mta knows they're pretty much government funded at this point which is honestly the way it should be it'd be actually really good if we have like all of our mass transportation owned by the government like you ever notice like other countries have like their own airline like alatalia or liftansa or you know that united um what's uh british airways and stuff like that like these are government like maintained airlines and mass infrastructure so like transportation infrastructure and that's probably a good way to do it because they serve the public it public interest without having like corporate greed just rip everybody off and we got bitched about the airlines enough and anybody that's actually tried to fly the airlines recently knows exactly what i'm talking about because there's no punishment for them they just leave you stranded because what are you going to do about it like you're stranded somewhere like oh yeah here's your uber certificate i mean cori was telling me last time he was stuck flying from uh dallas to austin it was like six hours late and they gave him a drink ticket now i'm a huge fan of a drink ticket and i support that move but i think if you're going to waste somebody's time for six hours doing this service that you made them pay for in advance non-refundable by the way i think maybe maybe two drink tickets would be important but anyway that's lina con you should check her out the reason i'm a fan of hers and know who she is is because she is the one that put forth the new guidelines on anti and non-compete clauses basically rendering non-complete clause non-compete clauses in your employment contracts unenforceable which to me is awesome because every single time i've had a take on more employment there is always a non-compete clause in there in fact the last time my company that i worked for got bought out i had to sign a brand new non-compete and that was good for 12 months that means i can't work in my my field for 12 months if i get fired not and like i had switched it last time i had that i was like you can enforce that if i quit but if i get fired i'm immediately going to your competition now fortunately New York state it is almost impossible to enforce those things so that's fine but now as a national level thing it's great they say it's going to actually add the potential from like 50 to 100 billion dollars in salaries because imagine working at your job in a competitor comes by like hey we'll give you an extra 10 percent a year plus we'll cover your benefits and you can have more vacation time but you can't take that job because you have a 12 month non-compete clause in your current contract is that cool nope and the company that you work for now knows that so they don't have to give you your raise but if they can't enforce it and you're like hey company xyz just offered me that can you offer me that they might have to seriously consider it and that's a good thing for workers i've always thought that's a good thing for workers which is why i never intend to comply with my non-complete like they can swing from my nuts for all i can and take me to court good luck getting me there on a weekday my friend that's what i'm saying so i've talked enough i talked way more than i thought i was going to talk but i do think that was kind of important i'm sorry if it bored the entire audience i will now check on the chat and i will wake them up as much as possible i think it's important to know your enemies in this world and that's that way has been brought to you by know your enemy and the hard rock lunch box ♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪
