321–330 of 359 posts
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Because making people worse off to enrich yourself is called "greed". Greed is something I and many other people frown on.
In this scenario, who is making whom worse off to enrich themselves? I don't follow this argument.
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> A trillion dollar company is not supposed to pay anything to New York. The minimum NY was getting is $0. That's the starting point. 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 w…
> [That] post just described, by definition, a race to the bottom. 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 app…
And I'm really happy when there is competition between Apple and one of their suppliers.
What is really sick about what you're talking about, is that it's competition between trillion-dollar Amazon and regular ordinary tax payers.
When Amazon get the upper hand, they get more money, while the tax payers get crappier schools and government programs.
You are literally talking about a corporation taking ('negotiating') bread from hungry people like it's a good thing.
1) Incentives are not given up front. They are given proportional to the results Amazon has achieved. Amazon must make a report each year detailing their progress before any award is given. 2) The city-level incentives are available to any business. State-level incentives (I think 300m) are not. 3) Amazon has pledged to invest in the local community as part of the deal. There are plans for an elementary school and te…
If you believe this, I hear Amazon also has a bridge they'd like to sell you...
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3) why is this left to Amazon or am I misunderstanding how this is managed?
They're using a Payment in Lieu of Tax (PILOT) program [0]. I've been trying to understand why these programs exist for corporations but having trouble finding definitive answers. My hunch is that it's a marketing trick to help people stomach the tax breaks and go "oh, well at least they're building a school". Possible that it also allows for legal negotiation of terms like amount and payment schedule that can't be a…
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The proof of this is what happened elsewhere. the Dallas and Houston metro areas grew more in each of the last two decades the Bay Area has grown total since 1980. But prices haven’t skyrocketed because development has been permitted.
Why Amazon didn't choose Dallas or Houston?
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> Please tell me what about this is bad. Opportunity costs? You list several benefits, but benefits don't tell us where a choice ranks in the list of possible alternatives. For example, the alternative where we get all those benefits, but where there weren't any incentives at all, seems strictly better. Why not that? You'd probably protest that it's not realistic. We can't get there in the current system, where power…
> Much of the Western canon on governance obsesses about the importance of the rule of law: the idea that the laws should apply to commoners and kings (or powerful companies) equally. Does it mean that everybody has the same taxes and the same governmental benefits/incentives? For examples, if somebody buys an electric car (in California), they get government subsidy and the benefit of unrestricted use of a carpool l…
If carpool lanes were built for the exclusive use of Patrick Stewart, widely loved though he may be, as an inducement to live in California, then yes, we would have the same problem.
> Good luck passing that through the legislature.
Social change is hard, it doesn't mean it's not worth discussing.
There has been periodic political interest in fixing this, and some regions have actually opted out:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/15/shoul...
I don't think they've nailed the right formulation yet for a broader fix. Definitely a hard problem. But if economists universally oppose some practice, and it's also widely unpopular, it's not the craziest thing to imagine a potential for change.
> And if this doesn't happen, targeting specifically Amazon deal makes little sense.
I'm not targeting one deal specifically, all of these arrangements bother me. But if that's the incentive that happens to dominate the news it will frame the conversation. If the media blitz was about the breaks Tesla got in Nevada, that would be the backdrop here.
Amazon created this media circus with the competition, it gets to be the poster child for the broken system. It's not that big of a hardship, no one is calling for Amazon to be broken up or fined to fix this broader issue.
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The gov's job is to govern. Period. How about we let it get that right before it starts branching off into things it's has little or no expertise in. Again. The gov created the housing bubble __and__ the student loan bubble. I don't say they should be in the job buying biz. __The Gov__ has said that. Whether you're listening or not is up to you.
Neoliberalism, Milton Friedman and the free market crowd have been demonizing government for decades now and successfully lobbied for the removal of regulations since the 80s leading to the housing bubble, education loans and exploding tuition costs, buybacks and rampant financialization. This banking crisis, fraud, education loan bubble is the direct result of 30 years of neoliberal free market policies. Yet instead…
Um. Wasn't it the gov that committed to policy of more home ownership? It was the leader here. It helped to craft and define the direction once it opened up the dereg gates.
It's important to note: "Dereg" !== free market. Dereg is a nice word politicians like to toss around, but ultimately, that typically translates into some other set of rules, typically favoring some entity over another.
The gov is VERY fond of taking sides, gaming markets, etc. It might be presented otherwise, but it's still trying to exert unnatural influence.
And didn't it do the same for making cheap student loans available to more students? Students who weren't really "college material"? Wasn't BHO still championing higher edu __for all__ - because it plays well in the polls - all the while knowing the monster that had been created and still wasn't properly fixed? Yes, such antics are great for buying votes but it ultimately drives up the price.
If the gov (read: votes) is involved - as it was with this Amazon deal - then the market __is__ being manipulated. Anything beyond that is lip stick on the proverbial pig.
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The gov's job is to govern. Period. How about we let it get that right before it starts branching off into things it's has little or no expertise in. Again. The gov created the housing bubble __and__ the student loan bubble. I don't say they should be in the job buying biz. __The Gov__ has said that. Whether you're listening or not is up to you.
> The gov created the housing bubble __and__ the student loan bubble. I don't say they should be in the job buying biz. More specifically, you should believe based on your examples that they shouldn't be in the money management business. Because they are really bad at it. I can definitely sympathize with those applauding them for taking less as a way to promote growth.
How so? One is within a reasonable scope of governing. That is, most citizens want and expect a reasonable amount of economic stability. The others are outside of scope and simple a tool that politicians use to buy votes. And if that's going to be the case, then the least we can do is be honest about it. Denial doesn't make it any better.
Just because something has persisted doesn't make it right.
The fact is, Amazon (and others) played __our__ elected officials/ representatives against each other __at our collective expense (read: to Amazon's benefit).__
Not only that, __we__ paid to help Amazon find a new HQ location. So now imagine all the communities that did __not__ win.
Finally, imagine is that time and money was not put into a roll of the dice?
This was a __big__ win for Amazon. This was a big win for politicians. As for the taxpayers all across the country and going forward, the true benefits should be questioned. If we dare.
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How is not free market for polities to compete for attractive employers?
Because only one company is benefiting from these tax breaks.
If a given community put out a RFP / RFQ that said, "Here are our assets. Here are something things we might be able and willing to offer...Which of you are interested in coming here?"
Perhaps not free market, but certainly closer to fair and less corrupt.