NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job

Your entire post just described, by definition, a race to the bottom.

Obviously the US is winning that race relative to other developed countries, but I'm staggered you think it's a good thing.

It's absurd to think Amazon is doing NY a favor by bringing more than $0.

That's like if I walk into McDonald's looking for a job and they say to me "Well, you currently earn nothing, so you should be mighty thankful we'll pay you even $1/hr".

There are laws against paying people $1/hr for a very good reason - because if they could corporations would do that to maximize profits. All the employees would suffer. The corporation would make more money.

Which is exactly what's happening with Amazon/NY.

You are right that NY will get more money now that if Amazon had not come, but that's also true that my life would be better getting $1/hr than $0/hr.

But is that a good thing? Do we want people to get paid $1/hr? Does that make for a happy and healthy society? Of course it doesn't, and letting Amazon pay less than they should is exactly the same, and has the same outcomes.

Every negotiation is "race to the bottom" for the side that is paying - they want to pay as little as possible. However, there is the natural bottom for it - as soon as the deal costs more than it brings in - in fact, as soon as the deal costs more that what it brings in, including reasonable profit - the side that is dissatisfied would refuse to make a deal. What would be the point?

> It's absurd to think Amazon is doing NY a favor by bringing more than $0.

Why is it absurd? If Amazon is doing NY a disfavor, why NY wants it? Do they hate themselves? Are they gluttons for punishment? Were they forced into the deal by a secret Amazon ninja army? No, I don't think so - I think they want the deal because the think the deal is good for them. Of course, you know better, but I think for most people your argument is not exactly obvious. Or correct.

> they say to me "Well, you currently earn nothing, so you should be mighty thankful we'll pay you even $1/hr".

They can. And you can say "go fish, I won't work for $1". And then they'd say "well, how about $10 - would you work for $10?" And you'd say "now you're talking!"

> The corporation would make more money.

No they won't - people wouldn't work for them, and corporation rarely are able to make money when having no employees. That's why only about 2% of the workforce earns minimum wage. One would expect the greedy corporations to pay absolute minimum, right? But they pay way more. You'd have to find a theory that accounts for that. I have one, but looks like you do not.

> Do we want people to get paid $1/hr?

We want people to get paid whatever they can get paid. As we can see, it's in about 98% of cases more than both $1 and minimum wage.

> and letting Amazon pay less than they should is exactly the same, and has the same outcomes.

No it does not. I welcome you to consider why business-to-business transaction is different from person-to-employer relationship (hint: people can go hungry and sick, but corporations rarely die from not being able to locate headquarters in New York). It's a business transaction, one that NY made voluntarily, and one that they expect would be very profitable for them. Of course, as everything in life, they might be wrong - sometimes business transactions go bad - but declaring this transaction is wrong because you could've gotten everything and more for free makes no sense. You couldn't have gotten it for free, and dreaming about it doesn't make current transaction destructive for society, quite the opposite - it brings jobs and investment.

And yet lots of companies pay people more than the minimum wage, for some reason. Doesn't that by itself disprove the "race to the bottom" narrative you are suggesting?

A company can't simply dictate how much it pays you, any more than you can dictate how much it pays you. It's a market - in the best case scenario, both sides have lots of alternatives, and the price you get paid is the best that both of you can do (lowest for them, highest for you).

I agree, though in this context we tend to term that "competition". In this case we are watching competition between states and localities to improve themselves and their tax bases. This strikes at the heart of how interstate commerce works and what the rights of the States are.

Sections of the country competing with one another and taking various approaches to the same problems trying to find better solutions and proving them in practice is kinda fundamental to the American Experiment...

Securing infrastructure investments with large corporations is the kind of thing that States are concerned with, and they are supposed to compete for the affection and attention of businesses. Tax code is one of the few levers they can pull in that pursuit.