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Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon's HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain?

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Re: Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon's HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain?

#141

Post by xienze »

dylan604 wrote: post #124
Robotbeat wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost of housing going up also increases the wealth of homeowners in the area. This is not purely bad.

House prices going up is only a good thing when you are selling your house. Otherwise, it's just a larger tax payment the owner endures. I know several people that lost their house because values went up in the neighborhood, but their salaries did not increase to match the new monthly tax allotment requirements.

> House prices going up is only a good thing when you are selling your house. Otherwise, it's just a larger tax payment the owner endures.

Well then you just pass something like Prop 13. Oh wait...

Re: Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon's HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain?

#142

Post by notyourday »

jroseattle wrote: post #139

This entire thought process assumes that tax incentives and such are the difference maker in this process. That it's an auction that goes to the highest bidder. This is highly inconsistent with Amazon's approach for long-term projects. Do they want their HQ2 home to have some skin in the game? For sure. But what form does that take? Suppose a city could offer Amazon $50MM in tax credits over some duration of time. Su…

I say biggest gift basket wins. Newark, NJ

Re: Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon's HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain?

#143

Post by jknoepfler »

matchbok wrote: post #64
lucas_membrane wrote: post #59

Large corporations often make deals with other large corporations, and they prosper. Workers used to do better when a larger percentage of them collectively bargained. But somehow, the possibility that citizens, who are represented by various local governments, would use those governments to cooperate with each other across the lines on the map sounds like science-fiction and is disparaged as far-fetched and unworkab…

Homelessness is not Amazon's problem. Automation is good. Do you want us to ride horses to work? Agreed. Agreed.

I certainly don't want you riding a car into a crowded downtown. I personally walked to work in downtown Seattle (to Amazon, ironically). I'd vote for any local candidate who pushed for an aggressive pedestrian-only zone in the city with a strategy for expanding mass transit access and park and rides. The technology for affordable mass transit is almost a century old; I think incremental, sustainable progress on that technology is better than anything the Tesla has to offer. Wide-spread single-user cars are one of the worst things to happen to this country.

And homelessness can, in fact, be reasonably construed as Amazon's problem (or a problem caused by Amazon if we're a city thinking of letting Amazon in). The exacerbation of homelessness is an externality caused in part by Amazon's concentration of high-wage jobs in a small city and the subsequent skyrocketing of property values combined with mindless gentrification. So it's both a cause for concern when courting Amazon, and it's a form of pollution that they bring to town that it is not a priori unreasonable to hold them accountable for (to the extent that they are responsible for it).

Re: Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon's HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain?

#144

Post by telchar »

refurb wrote: post #110
s73ver_ wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably they're trying to divert tax monies to be spent on themselves instead of the other problems the city faces, so it is on Amazon. And they're blamed because they are largely a cause of exacerbating those problems. It's not just a pure good for them to come. Like I said, they cause housing prices to skyrocket. That's on them, and the increased homelessness that would result would be on them, too.

Sorry to say, but if a city gives away so much to Amazon that it's a net negative, it's their own dam fault. Maybe they should take some negotiations or financial modeling classes. Amazon doesn't control the zoning laws, the city does. If housing prices increase, it's the city's fault. People act like Amazon is some all-powerful entity that can railroad an entity like a city council that has the power to change laws.

Your opinion here goes beyond "caveat emptor" right to "vae victus". Although you seem to support the idea of cities bargaining with Amazon here, your statements make a good argument for cities to decline.

Re: Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon's HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain?

#145

Post by aeorgnoieang »

PKop wrote: post #91
aeorgnoieang wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why aren't cities and towns already doing this then? Every new business or new resident, of any size or wealth or income, is a potential new "net positive" contributor to their tax base.

What on Earth makes you think they aren't doing this? There's no single corp announcing a possible move to anywhere as big as Amazon to illustrate the incentive to compete, at almost any price. In other words, construct a hypothetical move for a hypothetical corporation to some example town, and I'm sure that town could come up with an incentive package that would be beneficial to its citizens in place of having the…

I am almost perfectly certain that they're not doing this because I was referring to all of the organizations, and individuals, that are not as big as Amazon.

I'm claiming your argument is suspicious because it seems to only really apply to organizations of Amazon's size. Maybe you disagree, but it sure doesn't seem like any cities or towns are interested in luring an Amazons worth of businesses and tax-payers that aren't a single organization. The argument seems pretty agnostic; why is no one else?

Re: Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon's HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain?

#146

Post by [deleted] »

apercu wrote: post #53
zaroth wrote: post #28

I completely disagree with the “race to the bottom” framing of the idea that cities shouldn’t compete to provide the best services for the commercial enterprises which reside there. At the 50-75 year timeframe we are talking about at least hundreds of billions of dollars of economic value, if not trillions. The clustering effect of becoming Silicon Valley 2 cannot be overstated. My personal opinion is cities should b…

Devils advocate: It's possible that Amazon will be a drain on a region. The cost of housing goes up for everyone. The best and the brightest of the region get sucked back to HQ1 The startup ecosystem in the region gets drained to work at/for Amazon

[deleted]

Re: Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon's HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain?

#147

Post by [deleted] »

bufordsharkley wrote: post #85
Robotbeat wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost of housing going up also increases the wealth of homeowners in the area. This is not purely bad.

When something is good for the landed and bad for the landless... it's generally bad. Now, we could reform our policies so that the landless get a fair shot, but realistically, what are the chances of this happening?

[deleted]

Re: Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon's HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain?

#148

Post by 794CD01 »

lucas_membrane wrote: post #59

Large corporations often make deals with other large corporations, and they prosper. Workers used to do better when a larger percentage of them collectively bargained. But somehow, the possibility that citizens, who are represented by various local governments, would use those governments to cooperate with each other across the lines on the map sounds like science-fiction and is disparaged as far-fetched and unworkab…

Other companies might balk at it, but I trust Bezos' Amazon to automate away executive jobs if they can find a way to do so effectively.

Re: Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon's HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain?

#150

Post by refurb »

haikuginger wrote: post #134
refurb wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we're in a time when taxes are being shifted more and more away from those who have (rich & corporations) Actually the exact opposite is happening. The top quintile is pay a bigger share of taxes than before.[1] In 1960, the top quintile paid 56.5% of all federal tax revenue. In 2005 it was 69%. Care to revise your position based on that? [1] http://www.nbcnews.com/id/29861648/ns/politics-capitol_hill/... (table on r…

The stat you cite is actually 1979, but if you look at the income proportions[1] at that time relative to current by-quintile income proportions, the growth in taxation of the top quintile between 1979 and 2005 is slightly greater than linear with that income growth. [1] https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p...

Thanks for the correction on the year.

Income growth can definitely explain the increase in tax burden, but my point still stands, no? The tax burden is not shifting from the wealthy to the poor.

And if you look at the bottom quintile, their tax burden has fallen, even though income continues to rise.

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