Facebook offers to pay Menlo Park $600k to hire a cop • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook offers to pay Menlo Park $600k to hire a cop

#71

Post by e12e » Mon, Mar 03, 2014, 1:34 AM UTC

lutusp wrote: post #63

jmccree wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By off duty, I mean fully in department issued uniform, badge, gun, and radio with full police authority same as on duty.

> By off duty, I mean fully in department issued uniform, badge, gun, and radio with full police authority same as on duty. Don't you understand that an off-duty police officer may not be in uniform, that that's illegal? In some jurisdictions an off-duty police officer is expected to carry his gun, but he may not exercise police powers. In short, when a police officer goes off shift, he loses his police powers. Being…

Apparently not, in many (most?) jurisdictions.

Re: Facebook offers to pay Menlo Park $600k to hire a cop

#72

Post by e12e » Mon, Mar 03, 2014, 7:09 AM UTC

bertil wrote: post #60

e12e wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying taxes would be a start?

They don’t escape tax at a local level.

Are you aware of any documentation on this? I'm not sure how state tax works for businesses -- surely they're not paying percentages of revenue? If that revenue is already exported through tax loop-holes out of the country, how can they pay taxes on it in-state?

I'm not disputing the claim, I've just never seen any discussion on state tax (except for Amazon trying(?) to dodge it).

Re: Facebook offers to pay Menlo Park $600k to hire a cop

#73

Post by pdkl95 » Mon, Mar 03, 2014, 7:20 AM UTC

driverdan wrote: post #57

pdkl95 wrote: post #33

Add this data point to Facebook setting up their own dorm/apartment project[1] and their efforts prevent employees from having any free time outside of work[2] so they can undo the last century or so of social progress that gave us stuff like "(classic) feminism" and "unions"[3]. Facebook is trying to set up their own Company Town . Usually, the response to this interpretation is to dismiss the possibility, with the…

There is a huge difference between a company town, feudalism, and Facebook building company housing. Comparing FB to them is an insult to the people that suffered under those systems. First of all FB employees are paid very well. If they decide they don't want to work for FB anymore they could find a new job in less than a day. They can easily afford housing elsewhere. FB doesn't own all the businesses in the area an…

> Paid very well

They pay well... if you're and engineer. And male.

From the article I linked above:

"I was promoted to a more demanding managerial position. But there would be no raise. “You’ve already doubled your salary in a year and it wouldn’t be fair to the engineers who haven’t had that raise” (never mind that a year earlier engineers had been earning anywhere from $70,000 to $140,000, as opposed to $38,000 like I had)"

$38k doesn't go terribly far in Silicon Valley. After doubling it with a promotion.

And I direct you to my other replies, where I yet again point that I didn't say it was there NOW. Instead, we face a very bad risk of them becoming a Company Town in the future. They are exhibiting dangerous warning signs, and nobody in power even attempting to stop even their flagrantly illegal activities.

Re: Facebook offers to pay Menlo Park $600k to hire a cop

#74

Post by Pxtl » Mon, Mar 03, 2014, 3:56 PM UTC

e12e wrote: post #54

Pxtl wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the problem is that the neighboring cities have completely failed to manage growth. The tax-bases of these places are positively exploding, but what have they done with them? Have they improved intensification in the urban core? With property values skyrocketing, builders would be lined up around the block to make condos for all these young, single developers. Better transit? Ultimately, when the local mu…

> And if you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself. Especially when you don't pay any taxes, and therefore can't expect the municipality to take the cost? http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2012/12/27/facebook-m... http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-sho...

They and heir employees pay property tax, and considering the insane land-values in the valley, they pay lots of it. And property taxes are what pays municipalities run on. You can blame their tax evasion for the state-level troubles in Cali, but not the city-level ones.