Amazon a "destroyer" of bookshops

France's culture minister has branded online retailer Amazon a "destroyer" of bookshops in the latest confrontation between the Socialist government in Paris and America's giants of the digital economy. "Today, everyone has had enough of Amazon, which, by dumping, slashes prices to get a foothold in markets only to raise them once they have established a virtual monopoly," Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti said.

"It is destructive for bookshops," the minister told a conference of booksellers Monday in the southwestern city of Bordeaux.

Filippetti said that she would be examining measures that could curb Amazon's growth in France by restricting the American giant's ability to combine offers of free deliveries with discounts of up to five percent on cover prices, which is the maximum allowed in France under existing legislation designed to protect small booksellers.

The attack on Amazon is the latest in a series of disputes between the French government and American companies including Google, Yahoo! and Apple. French authorities are already embroiled in a dispute with Amazon over a $252 million tax bill related to the company's sales in France between 2006 and 2010. Read more >>

CNBC’s Ratings Lowest Since 2005

CNBC likes to tout its tagline that it’s “First in Business Worldwide.” And while it may be true that the financial news network has the biggest reach among its peers, viewers continue to slip through CNBC’s fingers.

In case you don’t like mixed metaphors, I’ll just give it to you straight: Nielsen stats show CNBC’s ratings for the quarter were the lowest since 2005. That says it all about where investors are at these days.

CNBC, part of NBC Universal and now owned by Comcast, is one of the biggest outlets in business news, reaching nearly 100 million households in the U.S. and countless offices, restaurants and hotels. But reach doesn’t matter in a battered market like this and high uncertainty about the eurozone, American unemployment and other issues. A lot of folks have no money, and many more have absolutely no interest in investing news right now. Read more >>

10 More Reasons Not To Trust The Government

Although I changed the title, I found this little tidbit of useful information from Yahoo's Tech-Ticker, who in turn condensed it from Mortimer Zuckerman's WSJ piece. Zuckerman says, "The recent unemployment numbers have undermined confidence that we might be nearing the bottom of the recession." I would add that it's the government's willful subterfuge in masking the recent unemployment numbers that undermines confidence not just in the economy, but it in the government itself.

"The Bureau of Labor Statistics preliminary estimate for job losses for June is 467,000," writes Zuckerman, "which means 7.2 million people have lost their jobs since the start of the recession. The cumulative job losses over the last six months have been greater than for any other half year period since World War II, including the military demobilization after the war. The job losses are also now equal to the net job gains over the previous nine years, making this the only recession since the Great Depression to wipe out all job growth from the previous expansion.

"Here are 10 reasons we are in even more trouble than the 9.5% unemployment rate indicates" [condensed]:

• 185,000 workers in the June number were the product of statistical sampling, but could not be verified by the government.
• Companies are asking employees to take unpaid leave.
• 1.4 million unemployed workers weren't counted because they're not searching for work.
• Part-time employment has doubled to 9 million.
• The work week is 48 minutes shorter than when the recession began.
• The number of long-term unemployed (4.4 million) is at an all-time high.
• There were no wage gains in June.
• The goods-producing sector lost over 223,000 jobs just in June.
• When business picks up, businesses will just add hours to existing workers, rather than create new jobs.
• Old business lines are being eliminated entirely, not shrunk down, decreasing the odds that the unemployed will be able to find work.

Now read this from Ilargi:

Whitney...provides the worst unemployment prediction emanating to date from a "serious" finance source: 15%. U3, that is. Which would, if you allow me the back on the envelope, take U6 to around 30%, and Shadowstats' alternate U6 likely between 35% and 40%. If Whitney's right, the US economy would fall into what can only be called a pitch black hole.