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Amazon expands during the pandemic when retail on line delivery has helped people reduce trips to the grocery or retail stores. Amazon hired 427,000 people to expand its workforce to 1.2 million people by November 2020, 9 months into the pandemic. Almost doubling the employee workforce. These workers are mostly at warehouses, with some software engineers and hardware specialists. This includes hiring in India and Italy and is worldwide hiring. This does not include 100,000 temporary workers for the holidays, and 500,000 delivery drivers working for contractors.  Only hiring of 230,000 people by Walmart about 2 decades a ago in one year comes close. Walmart hired 180,000 people during the pandemic. Walmart has 2.2 million employees. With the expansion underway Amazon looks to become the largest private employer in the world in 2 years, say experts.  Amazon pay is $15 an hour after an increase of $2 recently. Its coronavirus safety practices have been upgraded after early criticism in April and May. Recent expansion in Italy and in India are also part of worldwide expansion after Walmart has pulled back from its worldwide expansion. This also shows how quickly major aspects of life are changing during the pandemic as some companies in online business are becoming more prominent than others. Target and Walmart have also increased in size. Best Buy has changed its focus with its conversion into a company that leads with personal service in online plus store hybrid retail and a focus on seniors and older people for healthcare service and product delivery. Companies are changing the way they run or getting a new life in remaking their business. This is also a time when other aspects of business such as social media are becoming evident. Subtle aspects such as reports of higher rates of mental depression through use of social media platforms. There is also the awareness that information technology companies in Silicon Valley generate most of their money in advertising and this advertising of $100 billion is only a small fraction of the $12 trillion U.S. economy. Should Silicon Valley based in California decide priorities on where capital allocation should go through the part it plays in moving startups based less on America's priorities than other considerations. Healthcare, education, cities, and infrastructure have not received funding they need and capital allocation by financial markets has failed the American people, as it has failed in Europe and other parts of the world for similar reasons. This has hit hard communities and people across the U.S. and Europe and also in Latin America, Africa and Asia, with the loss of manufacturing to China and other countries from the U.S. India and Europe. ...

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Krugman points to the low productivity improvement in the U.S. since 2005, and looks at the nature of tech changes since 2005 with products from Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and other companies targeted more at consumers than at the core industrial economy. Listening to my favorite music or using smartphones does not add to productivity in the same way that changes in an earlier period improved productivity. Low productivity improvement hurts workers in the U.S., Britain and in the eurozone, as this is holding back growth in wages. Figures actually show a further deceleration in productivity since 2010 to a mere 0.3% annual growth in the U.S., from 1.3% since 2005, and 2.9% for the period from 1995 to 2005.

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With the Shiller cyclically adjusted P/E ratio CAPE at 26 for the U.S. in 2014, and the CAPE in Japan at 21, UK, Italy, Spain at about half that in the U.S., experts say international diversification is a good idea.

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The NASDAQ index reached 5000 by April 2015, a level reached in the stock market boom in 2000. Yet investment strategists who were wary of the stock market in the period before the 2000-2002 collapse of the market see this market differently. The NASDAQ itself is not what it was in 2000, with the 2015 NASDAQ component stocks being different for the most part, and the healthcare and other sectors better represented in the index. Only three of the stocks in the top ten in 2000 are in the top ten today, including Microsoft. The S&P 500 trades in April 2015 at 18.5 times its company earnings for the past 12 months, compared to an historical average of 15.5, according to research firm Bespoke. A big part of the difference today is the investment climate of low inflation, which gives the U.S. Federal Reserve flexibility in raising rates. Low rates make bonds with lower yields less attractive, and increase the present value of future earnings. The yield of the 10 year U.S. Treasury was 1.917% on April 25, 2015. In April 2000 it was 6%, and in mid 2007 it was 5.3% before the financial crisis in the two periods. James Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management oversees $347 billion in fund investments. He also was wary of the U.S. stock market in 1999, yet he does not see the similiar kind of risks today, and sees a long term bullish trend. The scenario he envisages is more of a pause or temporary decline. Paulsen has shifted money to European markets, as U.S. stocks are becoming more expensive relative to their European counterparts, a strategy that is being followed by other money managers since 2014. Higher price volatility is seen in the markets in 2015, with the S&P 500 up 2.9% for the first four months of 2015, and the Dow up 1.4%. ...