The Social Cost of Amazon - Expert Edition Episode 42 (Classic Episode)
We have another hard-hitting episode from our ESG series where we dive deep into a subject that's become a part of our daily lives: Amazon. Marie Thomasson, our certified financial planner, and I explore the challenges of breaking the Amazon habit and opting for more socially responsible spending. We candidly discuss the conditioning that's led us to click that 'Buy Now' button and how Amazon's convenience can sometimes come at a cost to small businesses, labor practices, and even our personal values. Join us as we navigate this paradigm shift in shopping, from rethinking consumption to embracing conscious consumerism.
About Our Guest:
Marie Thomasson, CFP® is a financial advisor for progressive women. Marie started her journey with a prestigious internship in asset management after studying Applied Mathematics at UCLA. It turned into 13 long years, overseeing over six billion dollars in bonds for pension funds, institutions, and banks. The experience left her with a deep skillset, and a deeper longing to be free of an industry saturated in privilege, misogyny, and self-interest.
https://modernassetsla.com/
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TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Naseema McElroy: All right, nurses on fire. I am super excited to be back with our certified financial planner, Marie Thomason. And today we are going to be talking about how to spend your money, the socially responsible way, but this is going to be really, really hard. You guys, it, I have been looking forward to this because this is my vice.
My vice is going to my phone. And clicking a couple of buttons and spending money so, so easily. So Marie, what are we going to be learning about today?
[00:00:39] Marie Thomasson: Well, nothing you want to hear probably, but today is anything but Amazon. Yes.
So, like truth time, how many times have you purchased from Amazon in the last month?
[00:00:55] Naseema McElroy: Girl, you should have said the last day or the last week. Oh my God. Like I just bought a new cell phone case. I had to buy my daughter some Barbies because of black Dr. Barbie with the twins went on sale.
And then I had to buy some stuff for the house that I couldn't find in the stores. I've done at least three separate purchases since. In the last three days. I should say.
[00:01:23] Marie Thomasson: Okay. Well, yeah, and it's even worse now because of all The holiday sales, right?
[00:01:28] Naseema McElroy: Yes. Yes. Yes. It's Black Friday early now. So yeah Yeah,
[00:01:33] Marie Thomasson: and did you shop on Amazon Prime Day in October?
[00:01:36] Naseema McElroy: I did not I did not partake
[00:01:39] Marie Thomasson: Okay, good for you
So, yeah, so all right, we're both laughing about it because we both know but I'm really curious like Why do you think that shopping at Amazon would be bad? And, from a socially responsible perspective,
[00:01:59] Naseema McElroy: I mean, it hurts small businesses. Number one, number two, it under, it undercuts like a lot of prices, like across the board.
And Amazon isn't necessarily like the best company in the world. Like I really feel like they're trying to control how we do a whole lot of things. And so every purchase that you make is only support supporting that. So, yeah. Yeah, even though Jeff Bezos act like black lives matter. I loved it.
[00:02:33] Marie Thomasson: That's true. But, but it's like the bigger picture, right? So, I mean, I think, for us and for anyone listening to this podcast, like we all kind of have an idea why. Amazon is not good. And we all have an idea of why Amazon is also equally amazing, right?
[00:02:52] Naseema McElroy: Well, except for the fact that during the pandemic, the delivery times was all off and I'm gonna need a refund on prime because I feel like I paid my good money to have my two day shipping and he don't need that money, but I can use it.
Exactly.
[00:03:10] Marie Thomasson: He definitely does not need that money. So, they've got like pretty awful labor practices, which was only kind of highlighted even more during the pandemic. And with, with COVID and there was, there was employees who were trying to and, they kind of like just clamp that down.
And then, it completely undercuts small businesses shit, it, it undercuts big businesses, right? Hello Barnes Noble, and I'm sure there was other book, big booksellers too that I don't even remember anymore.
[00:03:45] Naseema McElroy: Borders? Do you
remember
[00:03:46] Marie Thomasson: Borders? Oh, that's right! Of course I do!
Borders is gone, yeah. Borders is totally gone. And so it undercuts, it undercuts, big and small businesses alike. Their, their carbon footprint is huge. Hello 2 Day Prime. Like, when they introduced 2 Day Prime, the, the number of purchases And they did this very specifically because the per people who have Amazon Prime they buy so much more from Amazon, right?
It is super easy now to just order a tube of toothpaste instead of going to the store and getting it, right? We all do it. So carbon emissions are huge, even though they've stated that they, are on track to reduce them. They actually increased in 2019. But I actually kind of want to step back just a little bit because we're having this conversation in 2020 talking about anything but Amazon.
If we were having this conversation 10 years ago, it would have been anything but Walmart. Right? Yeah. And so, I was thinking about it prior to our call is Amazon worse than Walmart? And, they both have awful labor practices, they both do the same thing in terms of employing a bunch of people part time, paying the minimum wage.
So what makes Amazon different? And I think that what makes Amazon different is that, because they've been online and because our entire lives have converged online they're taking over far more spaces. In the supply chain and in retail and everything, right, like they bought Whole Foods, like you gotta be a big company to buy Whole Foods.
They also have, which doesn't get a lot of press, Amazon Web Services. So how many companies have all their data? On these services. This is kind of like their bread and butter. But I think that in the day and age of companies like Facebook and Google and Amazon, where information and like data is, is king, you really have to think twice because Yes, Walmart was the low cost leader, but Amazon, when you don't have a bookstore to go to to browse through anymore, what happens when they decide to choose what books and recommendations you look at?
Right? This is really subtle, but it's this massive shift over time. Where it puts a lot of power in their hands in like these algorithms and so, Walmart never quite had that power that Amazon now has like in all aspects of our
[00:06:34] Naseema McElroy: lives I mean, you just think about the data that's shared between Amazon, Facebook, and Google.
And I didn't realize this until I started running my own Facebook ads, like, how I can drill down to the specific person because they have so much information, like, how powerful their data tools are, like, how much information they have on every single one of us, it's crazy.
[00:07:01] Marie Thomasson: It is crazy. And the more power that, any single corporation amasses, the more that can be done with it, good or bad.
And in this case, like they build out geopolitical maps of, of locations that are more likely to unionize. There's. All sorts of problems with the way Amazon is using their data, and it's not just to stamp out the competition. It's to stamp out things like, like workers rights, like Walmart never had.
The data and the, like the powerhouse behind it, that computing all that, the computational force to figure out where these things are happening. And so, Amazon is a little bit different. Then Walmart, not to say that Walmart's not catching up or that Walmart is like, when I say anything but Amazon, I'm not actually like condoning shopping at Walmart.
I should, I should specify that, but. But it's this is where this is where we have to kind of say what do you care about? And are you willing to sacrifice the luxury of convenience for a long term game? Because it took 26 years. Amazon has been in business for 26 years. It took 26 years for them to be in this situation where they are increasingly like deciding, what people read or look at or buy.
[00:08:36] Naseema McElroy: Yeah. I remember when they first came on the scene when I was trying to buy textbooks and then that's what made textbooks so affordable. Cause I remember having to go to the bookstore, spend a thousand dollars and then someone's have you heard of Amazon? You can get your books on there for way cheaper.
And that's where it started. I remember. Yes. Yes. Back in my younger days. Yep. About 26 years
[00:08:55] Marie Thomasson: ago, . Exactly. That's what the first thing I bought were textbooks and CDs. Yeah.
[00:09:01] Naseema McElroy: Yes. CDs. Yes.
[00:09:04] Marie Thomasson: Those old relics,
And look, and now look at what Amazon has become. And I think that that's, that's one of the big things that we have to think about with. With investing according to your values and this is why knowing what you care about matters. Do you care about, like fossil fuels? Do you care about labor practices?
What do you care about? Because maybe Amazon, it's, it's not going to be Amazon. Maybe it's going to be another company. That's like anything but this company. Anything but Exxon, or, I don't know, anything but Disney who knows, whatever it is, right? And so, each one of us has to decide what is that company that makes it really easy for us to spend in a way that doesn't actually align with our values?
So, for me, I never shopped at Walmart all that much because the Walmart wasn't close by. So, That's actually probably the number one reason why I wasn't shopping at Walmart regularly. When I lived near it, when I, lived at home for a short time with my parents, they always went to Walmart and so I went with them.
Except now you live in, in the center of Los Angeles, there's no Walmart nearby. So it makes it really easy to not shop there. What's really hard for me is to not shop at Amazon. , it's the equivalent. And so, just to kind of piggyback on our conversation from last week, talking about shopping at small businesses and like trying to be very thoughtful and support all these small businesses.
You don't support small businesses by buying their products through Amazon. Right. You just don't. Right. They're going to push up whoever they wanna highlight. And sometimes it's good, but on average, it's going to be bad for every single seller on Amazon. And so, and it's going to be bad for the consumer.
Maybe not now, but you know, what happens if, if Amazon is keeps going for another 26 years, like they've already got their own bookstores that they're moved into the old borders locations, I guess, right? Like they just, it's kind of the scorched earth capitalism. They just completely, they're willing to take losses for years and years and years over a decade.
To completely cut out the competitor and then they can go in and charge whatever they want after that. Mm hmm. And so, I think especially thinking in terms of, and it's so hard right now because just because of the election, it's hard to get that out of my mind and, and those parallels, but it's every time you make an easy choice.
What are the consequences for those actions? And, every time you just, kind of throw your hands up in the air about I don't know, Trump or, any policy that, that is maybe goes against your values and sustainability or whatever it is you're not defending your values.
It's that saying that was kind of popular a few months ago during the protest, silence is violence, and it matters with everything. And in this case, it matters with the dollars that you're spending. So how,
[00:12:26] Naseema McElroy: how do we do it? Amazon habit? Okay. So
[00:12:32] Marie Thomasson: is for you, is it Amazon? Is it that big company?
Is that the company or is there another company?
[00:12:41] Naseema McElroy: There's Amazon, and there's Target, and there's Walmart.
[00:12:47] Marie Thomasson: Yeah,
[00:12:48] Naseema McElroy: yeah. So, you know what we talked about this briefly, and like I said, we can have a whole spinoff conversation with this, but I try not to spend money on consumer products. And so that's like where I go.
Right. Is I feel like there's so much consumption out there that somebody probably has something that I need that they're willing to give away. And they're willing to give it away to me. And so, like with my baby, I was telling you with my youngest daughter, who's about to turn two in December, like I had a buy nothing baby.
Like I totally, relied on either gifts or buy nothing groups or yeah, that's pretty much it. Either it was a gift, a gift card or a buy nothing group and I need it for nothing. Like I had everything except for this one, like medical grade wrap that I brought to do skin to skin in the hospital with her, but everything else.
And I could have got that for free because, but I, but I wanted it so bad that I was just like, I'll pay for it. And it's really good. Right. But anyway, so, yeah, like that's the only other solution that I've found to getting the things that I need or thrift shops. Like I, there's like a local thrift shop that I go to, and basically they have everything there that I need, but like for household things, it's really hard.
It's almost like sometimes I kick myself because I will actually take the time to go to the store and look around and see if they have something and they're always out of stock. And I'm like going every day to check in. I'm just like, you know what, by this time I could have ordered it on Amazon and it could have been in my house, it's a hard, it's hard to shop for certain things.
Yeah. So I don't know. I don't have a solution really.
[00:14:32] Marie Thomasson: There's. There's not a good solution. The fact is at the end of the day if you choose not to shop at Amazon, then you're probably going to be limited in terms of choice or you look up the, the items and a lot of these companies, believe it or not, have their own websites and you can order from them.
And a lot of them will actually do free shipping. So you can find the products, offline, but some of them don't have free shipping. Or they're not necessarily available, they're only working through Amazon. And, and it's really kind of a commitment to, to saying you know what, I'm okay with less choice and a little bit more difficulty, which is really hard to do, right?
If you walked into the grocery store and all there is like, Five types of cereal you pick, but if you know the grocery store across the street has 20 You're gonna go to the grocery store across the street.
[00:15:30] Naseema McElroy: How do we get so conditioned Marie? I'm just like dang like this is straight up conditioning
[00:15:37] Marie Thomasson: It's a hundred percent conditioning and that's why Amazon Prime exists like we've now been conditioned To expect you know this type of service even on the backs of kind of knowing what it takes On the back end from a, from a company perspective to, to get us our products and what appears to be, like simple, easy, click it and it's on my doorstep the same day, if not two days and because you don't see what it takes to make that happen.
It's really easy to just. Forget about it. Right. Right. Yeah. So I don't know. I mean, to me, it's almost you have to make a very willful decision to say, you know what this, so, for me, I'm trying really hard not to shop at Amazon, but I love Reddit and I love the like the skincare stuff.
Threads on reddit and I love all these sunscreens that are like, you know from korea or japan Because they're better I think and so I cannot find them somewhere else there's koreatown There's little tokyo in la and i've searched the stores and I can't find them and so it's okay Those things i'm going to buy on amazon But when I do i'll buy like six at a time and i'll buy them all at once and you know Is there stuff like the Amazon basics?
It means that I can probably find it at somewhere like Costco, which has much better labor practices. They pay their team members who they call team members a living wage. They give them holidays, there's, there are companies that are. On the margin, much better. Costco is not.
I
[00:17:21] Naseema McElroy: love Costco. I love Costco. Costco gets me now. Amazon ain't got nothing on Costco. Okay. Like for real like money spent wise. I like looked at my statement. Like how you spent 14, 000 a year at Costco. It's pretty ridiculous.
[00:17:41] Marie Thomasson: I know, but you walk in. It's, it's hard not to. Okay. It's almost, it's almost always at least triple digits.
[00:17:48] Naseema McElroy: Oh my God. Always. And I'm just like, I was really disciplined. Like when I was paying off my debt, like I would go in there, I would have the cash in my hand that I was going to spend. And then that was it. But then I got a Costco card and you get all this cash back and you'd get all these incentives and it's just so easy.
[00:18:07] Marie Thomasson: It is easy, and at least if you're going to be easy with your money, spend it at Costco and not Yeah, not Amazon. And not Amazon. Yeah. That is a perfectly acceptable alternative, costco has been well documented for its very positive labor practices and, people haven't wanted to unionize there because they are treated well.
Yeah,
[00:18:34] Naseema McElroy: they have good benefits too. Yeah, they pay really good. Good benefits. Good labor practices. Yeah, I love Costco. But, but this is why Amazon is the like, this is the hard button. This is a hard trigger to pull, like to not buy from Amazon because of like we said, the conditioning and because of, The two day shipping and all these things that we've been accustomed to, now, I mean, it's our new model of reality.
And so the only way that you can kind of change our style of shopping at places like this is to kind of change our model of reality, which we know is like super hard for people because we're people of, we're usually people that deal in circumstance and not out of, taking control.
[00:19:15] Marie Thomasson: Yeah. So exactly.
It
[00:19:16] Naseema McElroy: takes a lot of control of being in control in order to kind of change the way that you, you move around, especially how you consume, especially when it's so convenient and you have kids running around and you have all these other things that you're trying to worry about. The last thing you want to think about is like walking around the store, searching for an item that they may or may not have.
So yeah, I get
[00:19:39] Marie Thomasson: it. I know, and and that's why this is just one of many things that we're talking about, right? For some people, it may not be within your control, right, as right now, or in the future, or whatever, to, to have the luxury to be like, I'm not going to do that, but maybe what you can do, I know it takes a little time, and I'm, by the way, I'm in the process, I've got my, my Appointment set up with the self help federal credit union to switch all my business accounts over nice like you yeah But you can you can do something.
Yes, you don't have to do everything and that's why we've got options because the struggle is real For
[00:20:19] Naseema McElroy: all of us. Oh, guess what? I got moved up to number 45 for Greenwood. Did you? Yes. I don't know how I think it was our episode.
[00:20:29] Marie Thomasson: It's possible. You never know. Oh, that's true. Because the more people you recommend, yeah, the higher it will move up.
Yeah. The more you move up. So there you go. I have to have to check my number in line. Yeah. Check your
[00:20:42] Naseema McElroy: number. Well, okay, you guys. So we know this is super hard thing to do. It's super hard for me. But just be conscious. And if that means that I have to spend more at Costco, I mean, hey, I'll make that sacrifice, but anyway, Marie, thank you so much for this.
It definitely, like I said, it's a paradigm shift, especially right now. And who would have thought 10 years ago, this wouldn't even be an issue, but conditioning is real and it can shift really fast. But yeah. I want you guys to be in control of the shift as opposed to letting these big corporations shift your mindset about the way that you move because it has totally changed the way that we move, conduct business, think all these kinds of things.
And so if we can take control of that and shift it for ourselves, we take our power back. So I hope this was helpful.
[00:21:31] Marie Thomasson: Exactly. And I will just add, because this isn't something we, we touched on, but you have to remember that, Jeff Bezos is a billionaire, right? And billionaires are the people who control legislation and regulation.
So if you want to control regulation and legislation or change it, change who's in control of it. There's only one way to do that. And it's actually that's probably simpler than getting Congress.
[00:22:00] Naseema McElroy: Yeah, it is. I mean, because who controls Congress? Elections. Oh, that's another topic for another day. Oh, it sure is.
[00:22:13] Marie Thomasson: All right. So thank you for letting me get that slide that in.
[00:22:17] Naseema McElroy: No, but that was, that's, that's where it's at. That's the truth. A hundred percent the truth, but yeah, the only way to really affect changes to affect people's pockets and he wouldn't be a billionaire if we didn't consume the way that we did.
So just food for thought and just leave you with that because it's really something to think about. So thank you guys. Thank you Marie so much and can't wait. For next week where we talk about investing.
[00:22:41] Marie Thomasson: Yes. I can't wait.
[00:22:42] Naseema McElroy: Yes, yes. All right. See you then.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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