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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?

#251

Post by lovich »

krapp wrote: post #234
untog wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Homelessness is not Amazon's problem. Not directly, no. But Amazon is based in a city that has a large homeless population. It is in the interest of their employees to see that population fall, therefore it also ought to be in Amazon's interest. > Automation is good. Do you want us to ride horses to work? Of course it is. But I see this reaction a lot - that anyone asking questions about our automated future is som…

>It is in the interest of their employees to see that population fall, therefore it also ought to be in Amazon's interest. Amazon is not a humanitarian organization. They are only concerned about the interests of their employees to the degree that the law requires, and their only interest, otherwise is in increasing shareholder value. Amazon doesn't care about the homeless... except maybe as a potential source of che…

Not caring about the environment you operate in, whether its so much pollution that your rivers light on fire or the human element that might make your workers depressed, just because it doesn't show up on a spreadsheet is an incredibly short sighted move that can and will reduce profits in the long term.

And if a company was willing to fuck over everything as long as it increases shareholder value then it should be regulated. You already implicitly agree with that viewpoint unless you believe that Amazon should be allowed to murder or enslave people as long as it increases shareholder value

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

#252

Post by gerbilly »

randomdata wrote: post #187
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 practi…

>Yet, I constantly hear Canadian workers complain about how they are unfairly compensated compared to

You have to look at total compensation.

We don't go bankrupt in Canada from medical bills.

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

#253

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

philwelch wrote: post #193
jknoepfler wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Cars are pretty terrible, but horses are even worse, if you can imagine it. Think about all the traffic problems with cars, except the street is covered ankle-deep in manure. And you can't install catalytic converters in their butts to reduce pollution, either.

There's a thing called manure bag which you hang from the saddle and over the horses rump to catch manure on the fly.

Image search the internet for horse manure bag for various examples.

Other problems mitigated by horses as a means of transport include, but are not limited to, the relative rarity of high speed collisions. Although, falling off a horse can be quite traumatic.

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

#254

Post by flukus »

randomdata wrote: post #187
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 practi…

> 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.

Sure you're comparing like for like? For people on the high end like software devs you can definitely get paid more in the US, but in most of the developed world no one serving fries is crying out for US wages. It's the latter that are more likely to be unionized.

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

#255

Post by gerbilly »

refurb wrote: post #243
bomb199 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wealthier are paying a lower percent of their wealth/income, it's just they make so much more than the masses it doesn't matter. Should think of the marginal utility of their funds. If a $20,000 a year person pays $5,000 - it's much worse than a $10,000,000 paying $100,000.

Again, not true. Look at the effective tax rates. The lowest quintile pays single digit percentage (negative income tax when you account for the EITC). Top quintile pays an effective rate of over 30%.

For some reason the bottom quintile doesn't seem to make use of offshore tax shelters quite as much, as the top quintile.

To those who have much, more will be given...

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

#256

Post by bhickey »

refurb wrote: post #118
twostoned wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what it is. Agreed. I got a bit excited and should add more detail: we're in a time when taxes are being shifted more and more away from those who have (rich & corporations) to those who have not. A public/private partnership seems insane to people because it is. The private companies have all the resources and need to leverage further their wealth from the public sector. They can easily front this by…

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…

> Actually the exact opposite is happening.

You're mistaken and given your responses elsewhere I think you're either confused or arguing in bad faith.

The mean tax rate paid by the top 0.1% of earners in 1979 was just over 40%. This fell to about 25% in 2010.[1] Marginal rates followed a similar trend. Meanwhile the US Gini coefficient rose from .415 in 1979 to .476 in 2012.[2] This implies that the top quintile pays a greater share of Federal taxes because they're proportionally richer than the other quintiles. The poor don't pay much Federal tax because you can't get blood from a stone.

[1] http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/r42729_0917..., page 3

[2] https://www.citylab.com/life/2014/05/mapping-three-decades-i...

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

#257

Post by krapp »

lovich wrote: post #251
krapp wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is in the interest of their employees to see that population fall, therefore it also ought to be in Amazon's interest. Amazon is not a humanitarian organization. They are only concerned about the interests of their employees to the degree that the law requires, and their only interest, otherwise is in increasing shareholder value. Amazon doesn't care about the homeless... except maybe as a potential source of che…

Not caring about the environment you operate in, whether its so much pollution that your rivers light on fire or the human element that might make your workers depressed, just because it doesn't show up on a spreadsheet is an incredibly short sighted move that can and will reduce profits in the long term. And if a company was willing to fuck over everything as long as it increases shareholder value then it should be…

I do agree with it, but... Amazon is regulated. They're already not allowed to murder or enslave people - and they still come as close to wage slavery as they legally can in their warehouses. The law doesn't require them to care about the homeless, and the market doesn't seem to care about them caring about the homeless, so Amazon doesn't care about the homeless.

Their culture is legendary for its relentless focus on cutting costs and driving employees hard for the sake of the bottom line, at all levels. I cannot see them spending a dime on fighting homelessness, even as a PR move, unless they expected to make a dollar back, that's just the way they operate.

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

#258

Post by sien »

zanny wrote: post #235
matchbok wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Homelessness is only not Amazons problem because corporate charters annul the company of any moral responsibility. Amazon had 135B revenue and 540k employees in 2016. By comparison (according to the UN) that would have made Amazon the 60th largest economy in 2016, after Hungary (138B / 9.5m people) and before Ukraine (132B / 42m, which has been dropping considerably since). That is an insane amount of wealth to throw…

GDP shouldn't be compared to revenue. Revenue is flow through a company from customers.

It could even be for a loss. If you did 1Bn in revenue but paid 2Bn for the goods you're selling it's not really a win.

GDP is more like the value add of a country. Profit is a better comparison. However, profit is tricky as companies often use it to grow rather than pay out profit.

Amazon's profit was 4B. Even saying, reasonably that they used 20Bn than they made in profit and diverted to growth it makes them much, much smaller compared to a country.

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

#259

Post by rdlecler1 »

Because Amazon will make a point to go to the one or two defectors. Iterated Prisoners Dilema dynamics only work when you have iterated interactions. In large economies where you don’t have repeated interaction with other players there is incentive to cheat.

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

#260

Post by prepend »

na85 wrote: post #205
794CD01 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would never trust a corporation to do anything they're not contractually obligated to do.

Automating executive jobs would increase profit. Trust corporations to maximize shareholder equity, as they are legally obligated to do.
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