Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theintercept.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 286 posts

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

#181

Post by throwaway1748 »

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?

Yes, but Amazon and the companies that spring up around HQ2 will enable many landless people to become landed.

And if that happens to an extreme degree where it becomes unsustainable, maybe an HQ3 would be in order?

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

#182

Post by kazinator »

ChristianBundy wrote: post #125
40acres wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon also provides high wage workers who are taxed on their income, and who generate economic activity which can also be taxed and used by municipalities to try to solve homelessness. On net I wonder what the benefit / determent of Amazon moving to a city would have on homelessness.

But this isn't how it works. Political leverage increases with income, and people who don't have to work to survive realized long ago that it's much more efficient to lobby for tax decreases than it is to "generate economic activity". Our current top tax rate is ~40%, less than half of what it was under Eisenhower, and the owning class continues to push for tax breaks under the guise of trickle-down economics. Please…

Lobbying is work; obviously, what happens is that some professional lobbyists get paid.

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

#183

Post by wmil »

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…

> has home-grown homelessness that is rising

I'd be curious to see any stats on this. How many of the current homeless were actually living in the city 10 years ago?

I'd expect that many Seattle's homeless are migrants from parts of the US with harsher winters.

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

#184

Post by jld »

wmil wrote: post #183
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…

> has home-grown homelessness that is rising I'd be curious to see any stats on this. How many of the current homeless were actually living in the city 10 years ago? I'd expect that many Seattle's homeless are migrants from parts of the US with harsher winters.

It's not a perfect metric, but 86% of people accessing publicly-financed homelessness services in 2016 reported that their last residence was located in King County.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/king-coun...

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

#185

Post by nielsole »

The reason is game theory. Every city has an incentive to leave the bargaining group and make its own proposal.

Taxes in general are a similar topic.

In a functioning democracy, the government/legislator should set the taxes as they see fit, yet with increasing globalization, countries become price takers (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/pricetaker.asp), because many taxable goods become more mobile.

This is in line with this observation:

> Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., has also offered a dissent to the process.

> “Something is deeply wrong with our economy & democracy when local government offer up their

> tax base to a corporation worth over $500 billion,” he wrote on Twitter.

Game theoretic constructs, where the social optimum solution is not reached can be seen in other topics as well. Take climate change for example, where a lot of governments know what the best outcome for the world(and thereby themselves) is, yet act in their own best interest and emit CO2. A collective "bargaining" solution would make sense, but has yet to happen.

Finding solutions for this is challenging and not as easy as the article puts it.

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

#186

Post by dragontamer »

nielsole wrote: post #185

The reason is game theory. Every city has an incentive to leave the bargaining group and make its own proposal. Taxes in general are a similar topic. In a functioning democracy, the government/legislator should set the taxes as they see fit, yet with increasing globalization, countries become price takers ( https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/pricetaker.asp ), because many taxable goods become more mobile. This is i…

> The reason is game theory. Every city has an incentive to leave the bargaining group and make its own proposal.

Except 3: Montgomery County, Washington DC, and Northern Virginia.

If Virginia gets Amazon, the other two benefit with increased commercial activity. Even if the taxes aren't directly collected from Amazon HQ2, the increased shopping, increased services, and all that will lead to major benefits for the entire region.

There's one group that can collectively bargain, and benefit even if its rivals win over. That gives that particular group a major edge.

Its unusual that three of the top20 positions are within a 20-mile radius. Amazon must be really considering that area.

https://i0.wp.com/www.thedailychronic.net/wp-content/uploads...

"Northern Virginia" is basically Arlington. As you can see, Arlington / DC / Montgomery County are literally next to each other.

------

Newark NJ and New York City are the other city-grouping that could work together on the Amazon deal.

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

#187

Post by randomdata »

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…

> Workers used to do better when a larger percentage of them collectively bargained.

What I find interesting is that the unionization rate in Canada today is more or less on-par with the peak unionization in the USA, and is one of the strongest unionized countries in the world. Yet, I constantly hear Canadian workers complain about how they are unfairly compensated compared to Americans, where unionization has practically disappeared, doing the same job.

Most Canadians I talk to seem to think that labour declined in the late 70s-early 80s, which is actually when Canadian unionization was at its peak. However, those are the years we really started to see union decline in the USA. American workers could understandably make that claim. Canadian workers shouldn't. Those should have been the best years for labour ever, based on union strength.

Is this entirely grass is greener syndrome? Canadians do tend to focus on American media more than their own, and the decline of unionization in the USA may have led them to believe that the decline also applied to Canada. Or are their points valid and higher unionization doesn't bring the effects we like to think it does?

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

#188

Post by bookbinder »

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.

Are you not familiar with lobbying (aka bribery)?

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

#189

Post by unethical_ban »

Kalium wrote: post #115
joeax wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a city like San Antonio. Austin is 80 miles north. Amazon puts HQ2 in the northern suburbs and suddenly you have a major tech corridor along I-35 that will bring growth and investment along with it, bridging the two cities ala San Francisco-San Jose-Berkeley. You would have a similar effect with Milwaukee and Chicago. Sometimes a city becomes so outgrown and gentrified (like Seattle, hence the new HQ) it makes s…

I can definitely think of worse places than San Marcos. Though being outside Austin proper means giving up anything remotely resembling usable public transit. And in all honesty, Austin could be reasonably characterized as outgrown and gentrified already. Plus, SA has already played this game. It got them Rackspace. Which, uh, could maybe be going better.

Rackspace is one example of that business, but Amazon is not going anywhere. And there is STILL a lot of space all around San Antonio (far west, anything east) as well as New Braunfels and even (if Amazon spent the $$$ to get land) plenty of space within a mile or two of downtown for a large campus.

I've thought for a while that commuter rail lines:

Along the freeways: 35, 10, 281, 151

Between big retail spots: Downtown, Quarry, Rim, Stone Oak, 1604/Bandera, Forum

Big Business: Rackspace, USAA, Downtown (again), Amazon, Lackland AFB, Kelly AFB, Brooks

And new parking areas near big residential centers: Bandera/Tezel, Helotes, Boerne, Stone Oak, Great Northwest, Brooks City Base

Along with parks renovation, school improvements on the South Side and small business incentives would make San Antonio the best place to live in the country.

There's a lot of potential here.

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

#190

Post by seanmcdirmid »

wmil wrote: post #183
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…

> has home-grown homelessness that is rising I'd be curious to see any stats on this. How many of the current homeless were actually living in the city 10 years ago? I'd expect that many Seattle's homeless are migrants from parts of the US with harsher winters.

Seattle has always had homeless people, from the time "skid row" meant the place where you skid freshly cut logs to the waterfront to be cut. Likewise, Portland, Vancouver (BC), and (to a lesser extent) Spokane have and have had very similar homeless problems of roughly the same nature. Basically, these three cities have acted as a catchment for almost anyone in BC, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, that fall through the cracks (and ya, you'll find homeless people from places like Bonners Ferry).

Basically, its the red rural areas around these cities exporting their problems to the cities that actually provide services to deal with them. Couple that with kids from these areas with little education going to Seattle to make it, and not making it.

Post reply on HN