Funny, I've heard a lot of stories lately about Amazon Seller Services cracking down and shutting people's accounts down for no reason with strong-arm tactics. Hubris... watch the next few years.
There's always a reason. It's bad business to act arbitrarily like that (unless you're the gubment). The same thing goes on at eBay. Sellers violate some TOU clause, get frozen and go crying to the message boards about how unfair they are. Paypal (really = eBay) does the same thing. There's a lot of fine print in the TOU for these services. It's pretty easy to naively trigger some red flag that makes you look like a money launderer, international terrorist or whatever.
Right, a conservative move for Bezos. AMZN stock has increased 6x since 3/2009. WPO up 2x since 3/2009.
Can you show me any of these trophy purchases that <b>took place in</b> March 2009? When they would have been fantastic value. Agreed, WPO is less of a bubble than AMZN but my question has not been answered.
The NJ Nets were sold in 2009 the the russian guy. The markets were overvalued in 2009! Bezos spending a tiny fraction of his wealth to buy an American institution is not the sign of a top. I know you are bearish. But stop looking at every signal as sell signal will cloud your judgement.
Bezos' business is not buying American institutions. This is an 'ego' purchase. It reminds me of ebay buying that offline auction house.