Glad you mentioned Amazon reminds me of a story.

Back in the 1990's I was working in banking and IT I had a discussion with a few colleagues about what the future of the internet would be and which businesses would be successful.

After we all had our say my colleague Tony pointed out that it didn't matter what you sold you had to be able to deliver it to the customer. He argued that to be successful the "buying, delivery and return experience" for the customer would have to be better than going to a shop. The Companies that invested in logistics would succeed.

I think he was proved right many companies failed because all they had was a website and they neglected the "getting the goods into the customers hand" part of the process. Year after year Amazon was criticised for not making a profit because they were investing in warehousing and distribution. However they have been proved right and the share price today is about $1700.

Unfortunately I ignored Tony's advice and bought a load of start-up companies all of which failed. I lost a bundle when I should have been buying Amazon.

Sadly I don't think Tony took his own advice either.

One more point

It still doesn't............but it, along with Bezos, is somehow worth a fortune?
Crypto-currency is the future, of that there is no doubt. The money pouring into this technology from many institutions proves the point.

Buy Litecoin.

Buy Litecoin.

Amazon does make a significant profit, but via Amazon web services. Questionable whether the underlying business is profitable.

Cryptos in continued decline. Not a good investment IMO. Care for a gentleman's bet on Litecoin or Bitcoin value at end 2018? I bet either will be lower than today's price. Pick the one you're more confident in.

How about a £10 donation to a charity of the winners choice?

Vive le Roy!

Game on! A worthy charity too, we have a blind chap at work and his guide dog is amazing.

Samaritans for me, in the event of my winning.

I have litecoin closing yesterday at USD 92.56, we’ll compare vs Dec 31st closing.

Vive le Roy!

One thing to remember is that people who have invested in Bitcoin are dependent on other people also investing and continuing to believe in its investment potential in order for the price to continue to rise.

Many articles highlight the parallels between Bitcoin and pyramid schemes: [Link]

Of course this sort of thing isn't isolated to Bitcoin and many people may genuinely be promoting it out of goodwill, but I would advise a healthy dose of caution.

Currencies may fall but the societies that created them don't. You have boom and bust and ultimately in the worst cases societies can just restructure the debt or refuse to pay it back and wipe it.

Systems fall, societies don't fall because the financial system...like all the other sectors has to have somewhere to go. So you get cycles of feast and famine.

The Euro is a terrible currency which mainly benefits Germany (because it's really the Mark) but the death of the current EU will have more to do with its anti democratic nature and terrible policies on immigration.

Edited by Stirlingsays (17 Jun 2018 2.20am)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)