'Amazon's HQ2 Was a Con, Not a Contest' (recode.net) 147
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Recode: To dozens of cities across the United States, Amazon's widely publicized search for a "second headquarters" looked like thousands of new jobs, up for grabs. To Pivot co-host Scott Galloway, it now looks like a "ruse." "I lease office space all the time for my businesses and I always tell my real estate agent, 'We can lease any office in the world as long as I can walk there from where I live,'" Galloway said on the latest episode. "Amazon is now talking about having three headquarters, Seattle, Crystal City and Long Island City. The Bezos's also own three homes, and the average distance from those three homes to a headquarters is 6.4 miles.
"This was never a contest," he added. "It was a con meant to induce ridiculous terms that they then took to the cites all along that they knew they were going to be in." In other words: By soliciting bids from lots of place where it was never going to move, Galloway alleges, Amazon was probably able to get more tax breaks from the pre-determined "winners." "I would bet, Kara, that when they pick two cities and they went to 2 and 3, they didn't say, 'Well, only half our headquarters is going there, so we're going to let you cut the tax subsidies and incentives in half,'" he explained. "This just has ill will written all over it, and I think people started to figure out what was going on ... It's the Olympics on steroids. A lot of high fives and ribbon cutting, and then 10 years later, we realize it was a bad idea."
"This was never a contest," he added. "It was a con meant to induce ridiculous terms that they then took to the cites all along that they knew they were going to be in." In other words: By soliciting bids from lots of place where it was never going to move, Galloway alleges, Amazon was probably able to get more tax breaks from the pre-determined "winners." "I would bet, Kara, that when they pick two cities and they went to 2 and 3, they didn't say, 'Well, only half our headquarters is going there, so we're going to let you cut the tax subsidies and incentives in half,'" he explained. "This just has ill will written all over it, and I think people started to figure out what was going on ... It's the Olympics on steroids. A lot of high fives and ribbon cutting, and then 10 years later, we realize it was a bad idea."
And this is why Bezos runs Amazon (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it has more to do (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: I think it has more to do (Score:1)
Is this another of those Slashdot MBA rants where we all jealously explain that these people don't have any value and he only got where he is because of privilege? Sort of like Bill Gates dad but we willfully ignore the fact that millions of kids are like that and only 2 of them built Seattle into the city it is today.
it's like the board game of Life... (Score:3)
If you graduate from high school, you're statistically likely to be a better earner than someone who doesn't, a college graduate is probably going to earn more than a high school graduate, and an Ivy league graduate is going to do better, financially, than a graduate of community college. It's no secret; there is an incremental improvement in potential outcome for each helping step up. Each step up implies one's network of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances also have improved potential outcomes. So, it
I'm OK with the notion that I can't say bye (Score:2)
We can't even agree climate change is a real thing (Score:2)
It's a damn shame citizens of the modern day Rome cannot gain the political capital to force universal healthcare... many of us actually spend more annually our god damn pets' medical welfare.
$15 per hour and a job guarantee assures the replacement of our entry-level employees with entry-stage robotic replacements, and infrastructure investment only stands a chance if the voters/political donors deem it an important plank of one of two political parties... thus, little chance at all.
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Each step up also came with a lot of extra work (think getting into an Ivy is easy and that no personality traits that would be helpful in the long run were present?).
So your âimpliedâ(TM) comment is made up and not based on any real data.
Wealth helps out with that too. Private tutors, the benefit of having accessible successful role models, the means to have kids shuffled from one after-school activity to another, even personality coaches. Even if the parents aren't good parents, the kid is probably surrounded by people whose job it is to help them be successful. The wealthy have a huge leg up on getting into top schools.
Bezos and Bezos chose the same cities! (Score:5, Insightful)
Bezos chose a couple cities where he wanted to buy a house for himself.
Later, Bezos chose a couple cities where he'd like to put his business. I'm SHOCKED that Bezos chose the same place that Bezos chose.
Hopefully the people negotiating with him in those cities realized that Bezos already had a house there, so clearly he likes that city. Therefore they wouldn't need to negotiate quite as much as another city might.
Re:Bezos and Bezos chose the same cities! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully the people negotiating with him in those cities realized that Bezos already had a house there, so clearly he likes that city. Therefore they wouldn't need to negotiate quite as much as another city might.
HAHAHAHAHA
Right.
Meanwhile in reality, government negotiators are so dumb, they probably threw in perks for Bezo's personal real estate to sweeten the deal of moving his business headquarters there.
Re: Good riddance (Score:2)
Cuomo is a tool and a crook. He never met a suitcase full of cash he didn't like.
They're a business, what do you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They're a business, what do you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not the biggest fan of Amazon, but why should they leave money lying on the table?
From their perspective: They shouldn't.
From the perspective of society: We should force them to. Because that money can pay for schools, hospitals, police, firefighters, roads, electricity, water and a hundred other useful things.
Re:They're a business, what do you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's where politicians need to step up to the plate. Instead of bending over and competing to give the biggest tax concessions, they need to grow a pair and say no.
Remember how some people predicted that Scott Walker's deal between Wisconsin and Foxconn would be bad for Wisconsin? Now it's come out that those predictions are true.
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That's where politicians need to step up to the plate. Instead of bending over and competing to give the biggest tax concessions, they need to grow a pair and say no.
How about as a consumer the people who think this way just don't fucking buy from all the abusive corporations they shit on through outlets like Slashdork and Facebitch? Seriously, step the fuck up and start voting with your dollars. Buy from only small independent businesses. Stop the two day shipping, stop the swinging on the Walmart
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Dude, I got six pairs of "Made in China" tube socks for $0.99 from Walmart, and I'm not doing anything else until I cum in all of them. Thank you for your "tell it like it is" plain talk screed. Because of you, I only have three socks to go.
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>vote with your dollars
I bet that magic spell has solved EA and Comcast by now.
Unless this sound bite is fantasy bullshit, then they're probably as big as ever.
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and lean on the government to do your dirty work
You might have missed a few centuries, but ever since we got rid of those kings and stuff, that is exactly what the purpose of the government is.
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That's where politicians need to step up to the plate. Instead of bending over and competing to give the biggest tax concessions, they need to grow a pair and say no.
Toronto (Canada) ended up on the final list--the only non-US city to do so--and I believe that they didn't offer any tax concessions. NYC didn't offer anything, but NY state did:
* https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/01/hq2-hunger-games-meet-your-tributes/551000/
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Another believer that a smoking wasteland outside of the gated communities is the natural and inevitable order of things.
"Gummint only does bad things with money..."
Re:They're a business, what do you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
The notion of 'Leaving money on the table' is the shiny side of the same coin as 'race to the bottom'.
Basically extracting as much from any given situation as possible; which just results in even greater concentrations of wealth; at the expense of people, suppliers, and society at large.
In this case though, it's especially repugnant because those 'gibs' amazon was trying to cajole local governments into granting would have to be paid for by the citizens, who get absolutely no say in the matter.
And for what? a few extra jobs (potentially!) that the bureaucrats can use for re-election fodder? Would the net tax base actually expand after all the concessions? Would Amazon's tricky bastard accountants figure out how to dodge them?
Re:They're a business, what do you expect? (Score:4, Insightful)
The notion of 'Leaving money on the table' is the shiny side of the same coin as 'race to the bottom'.
Basically extracting as much from any given situation as possible; which just results in even greater concentrations of wealth; at the expense of people, suppliers, and society at large.
In this case though, it's especially repugnant because those 'gibs' amazon was trying to cajole local governments into granting would have to be paid for by the citizens, who get absolutely no say in the matter.
And for what? a few extra jobs (potentially!) that the bureaucrats can use for re-election fodder? Would the net tax base actually expand after all the concessions? Would Amazon's tricky bastard accountants figure out how to dodge them?
It's a democracy, it can be changed. Once the idiots figure out that white privilege is a myth but wealth privilege isn't then we can move on to solving this race to the bottom. Anyone who actually believes white privilege is a useful idiot of the 1%.
Re:They're a business, what do you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you believe wealth privilege isn't real, then you're a useful idiot for the 1%. If you believe white privilege isn't real, then you're a useful idiot for white supremacists.
Solve all the problems, don't be a useful idiot for anyone.
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The problem I have with calling it "white privilege" is that there are plenty of underprivileged whites as well. Granted, the percentage of those is much lower, but those people get doubly screwed because they're told that they're privileged by the idiots who are claiming all whites are privileged. And at the other end, there are 1%er who are non-whites...should their children benefit from affirmative action, or other such programs? And yes, these are a small percentage of the total, but we need to get a
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Your incentive should be some sense of fairness or moral obligation to do good - admittedly a rare trait, especially among any privileged class.
In the US, the median white family has nearly 10x the wealth of the median black family, and this gap has not been steadily decreasing. Broadly speaking there are only two possible explanations, one acknowledges racism (that slavery's legacy is still hurting people today and minorities are still discriminated against - IOW, white privilege is real) and the other is
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The gap between the average and the top 1% is steadily increasing too, I wonder what effect this has on that metric considering the complexion of most of the worlds ultra rich.
Whilst the above metric might be true, it can still solved by taking from the rich and giving to the poor.
TBH I haven't witness any overt racism in many years, and most of what I have heard is from rich old white people. I suspect these metrics will disappear after 20-50 years once the older generations die.
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The "legacy of slavery" theory would be a lot more convincing if it explained why blacks in the U.S. were steadily improving on lots of things like income, poverty, jobs, family stability, out of wedlock births, etc... from the civil war up until Johnson started his "War on Poverty".
It's a lot more difficult to explain why slavery and resulting racism somehow has a worse effect on black prospects today than it did on them 60 or 70 years ago.
Not to mention the differences in outcomes between native blacks an
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In the US, the median white family has nearly 10x the wealth of the median black family, and this gap has not been steadily decreasing. Broadly speaking there are only two possible explanations, one acknowledges racism (that slavery's legacy is still hurting people today and minorities are still discriminated against - IOW, white privilege is real) and the other is racist (that there is some inherent difference between races that produces this huge inequality independently of any possible societal biases). Choose one.
HINT: Racist beliefs are ethically and scientifically wrong bullshit for dimwits.
First off your either / or is wrong because it is a false dilemma. A few Bill Gates do a lot to pull up the average. This is why averages, even when true, are misleading. It's also true that while Bill Gates and other billionaires are white it helps me exactly zero. No privilege there. This is obvious. Your going to have to do better to prove your case about white privilege than just averages.
Under your racial privilege paradigm Obama's daughters are far less privileged than a poor white child. Does
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First, you need to learn the difference between median and mean. I didn't even ambiguously say "average," I said "median." So Bill Gates and the Obamas are not a factor here. Next, if you think a bit of college admission preference etc. is actually giving black people an overall advantage, you're kidding yourself and the numbers confirm it.
I agree it's more beneficial to seek justice for the 99% than the 11%, but not if it comes at the cost of massively deferring or abandoning the 11% getting justice. If th
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I agree it's more beneficial to seek justice for the 99% than the 11%, but not if it comes at the cost of massively deferring or abandoning the 11% getting justice. If the alt-right is pursuing this tactic it could possibly even make sense to join forces with them on this goal and go back to fighting them tooth and nail after it's achieved. But you have to be very careful about joining forces with the worst people operating with the worst intentions.
I suspect that the definition of "alt-right" is as muddy as hacker these days. In any case the sooner the tactic of pitting one racial group against another, and thus fragmenting the 99%, the sooner we can get on with economic policies that actually do favor the 99%. There has been ~50 years of trying to get progress for minorities by way of special handouts. It hasn't worked. Two generations later that should be obvious. Let's get back to progress for the 99% and the 11% will by definition get progres
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They aren't treating you like you are black.
So they are, but you just take it for granted.
The rich are just like you, but at a higher level of privilege.
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The current estimate is ~50,000 jobs...just a bit more than "a few", and then you have to think about how much that will equate to in supporting jobs. In other words, if you open a 50,000 job business, someone is going to feed all of those people...those will be new jobs. Someone is going to teach those folks kids, those will be new jobs, etc., etc.
Not sure how the GP's idea of forcing businesses into not doing this would work since businesses can move anywhere. If your city wants the jobs, then suck it
same thing with foxconn wisconsin (Score:3)
Scott walker sold us works out and stuck them with the tax bill.
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At least that asshole's out the door. I Love the irony of him signing that law banning a recount in an election decided by greater than 1% ( he lost by 1.1%).
I regret reading TFA (Score:2, Informative)
Normally, like so many slashdotters, I skip the article and read the comments.
This time I made the mistake of reading the article (as Chicago was one of the cities used in the ruse, I was interested in reading a detailed bit of journalism on Amazon's malfeasance. Instead I get an inane interview with someone who knows (or whose comments certainly indicate) he knows nothing about politics, has a superficial knowledge of other matters, and while I agree with his suspicions about Amazon, doesn't really offer u
really ? (Score:5, Interesting)
And you woke up to that now?
Is being retarded a requirement for holding a public office or does it just help a lot? Half of the times a large company is "searching for a cooperation partner" or some such, they already have a winner in mind. They just need to go through the motions for regulatory or political purposes. And it is quite common to make invitations to tender as a means to press the price of your favorites down somewhat. Even if they understand they are your preferred choice, the competition will force them into making a better offer.
Been there, done that.
The Amazon search was never an open-ended search and anyone with three working brain cells understood that. At best they had only favorites and it maybe might have been possible to sway them. More likely, two spots were already certain and one was a "maybe". Wouldn't be surprised if all of them were certain at the start.
Seriously, to expect any kind of "fair play" behaviour from an international corporation only shows that whatever you are smoking needs to be made illegal. Profit is the only ethics of a corporation, because the entire system is set up like that.
Simple way to stop it - don't allow externalities anymore. Put a price on pollution, on negative social impact, on any behaviour you want to discourage and companies will follow the money. They're like drug addicts. You could start by stopping to compete for company favors and make them compete for your grace again. I've always thought it absurd that counties or cities compete against each other to attract a company.
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I honestly don't remember. But you know, you could have easily checked before posting that comment. Too much effort?
Amdahl made $Million coffee mugs like that (Score:3)
Amdahl used to help its prospects pull the same maneuver on IBM, way back. They made IBM-compatible mainframes, back when mainframes were really expensive and IBM owned the market. Cheaper and faster drop-in replacements, but most IT execs didn't take them seriously.
An Amdahl sales team would worm their way into getting a meeting when they got wind that someone was eyeing a new mainframe, knowing they didn't stand a chance. They'd leave the IT manager an Amdahl-logo coffee mug worth a million dollars. "How
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Is being retarded a requirement for holding a public office or does it just help a lot?
People are all too happy to assume incompetence rather than malice for politicians. Oh, politicians are such idiots! Yes, even the ones that graduated from a top school, convinced millions of people to vote for them, and their "mistake" seldom costs them any votes while being immensely beneficial to someone connected to them -- at the taxpayer's expense, not their own.
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Most politicians are little more than the same type of people you elected as prom king and queen. They were the ones with charisma, life of the party, a great smile, etc. And, quite often, as dumb as a soap dish. But, they had friends, and sometimes those friends are smart enough to know that hoping on the bandwagon will also get them invited to the party.
I'm not saying this is the majority, but certainly, it also isn't a tiny fraction of the whole.
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More commonly willing agents. I believe in win-win situations and I've made years of successful career manufacturing them.
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I wish they'd leave Oregon as well. Of course there's eastern OR/WA (or west Idaho, depending on your outlook) -- But then again, apparently Boise is getting infested with them now too.
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Ah well. I've lived in silicon valley most of my adult life and I'm really hoping to move up to Oregon or Washington someday. Sorry to cramp your style.
I remember back in 1994 at my first job an older woman lamenting the prices and traffic in the bay area and actually quitting and moving to Oregon with her husband. At the time I just didn't understand. But wow, 25 years later, a) it seems quaint to think that conditions in the bay area in 1994 were something even remotely worth getting away from given h
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I too grew up in eastern OR (umatilla county) and yeah, for someone from SV, there isn't much there that they'd enjoy.
Well, I can see them moving a few miles north to Walla Walla and getting into the snobby wine scene, so there's that.
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Capitalism at its finest. People want to be left alone and stay in their quiet rural/suburban place, but tell me, would you, in a 1000 years, turn down someone offering you an awesome bonus because you have something they want? Would you turn down a job that was a 200% raise because someone felt your skills were perfect for what they need?
Capitalism demands you improve or die. Steady state is another word for stagnation and sooner or later someone passes you by. Nothing wrong with this, just it leads to tho
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I've turned down that kind of raise to do work I considered dangerous or immoral. But I had the resources to make that choice. Some of us have family or other obligations that force us to make such choices, choices like supporting family with enormous needs.
And no one cared because everyone already knew.... (Score:2)
Lies (Score:2)
My offer included a sofa bed in my living room for him and I still apparently lost. Though I'm still holding out for these reports to be false.
Tax exemptions are almost always a bad thing (Score:5, Informative)
One of the problems in Seattle's South Lake Union is that 2/3 of all the buildings are paying no taxes, so there are no funds to support infrastructure costs, so it ends up getting subsidized by the rest of the city.
Every time I hear someone new say how great it is, I ask them where they live. Chances are they don't even live in Seattle, so they don't realize what the real impact is.
By the way, we have no state or county or city income tax, or capital gains tax on stocks, so it's not like we get any real money to pay for all this.
Re:Tax exemptions are almost always a bad thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Tax exemptions are NOT almost always a bad thing. In fact they are a tool, unfortunately a tool in the hand of government. Lets face it, the people in government are not the sharpest tools in the shed. So they make bad deals. Try this: Before you offer tax exemptions to someone run simulations for the life of the exemptions and see if you can afford it. Did Seattle try this?
And yes I'm a native Washingtonian. I've stumped the Amazon streets. You should know it's illegal according to our state constitution to have an income tax, so the politician knew about this. Also, why would you want capital gains tax on stocks? You want your 401K to be taxed for gains, or your pension? Almost everything would be impacted by a capital gains tax.
Of course you missed the one source of income. Oh, right 40,000, each making over 6 figures running around Seattle spending money on goods which have one of the highest sales tax in the country. (~10.1%)
I'm saying I totally disagree with your points, I just think our leadership has for so long not thought of our tax dollars like a business does. Run the numbers. Does this tax break offset the full cost, and what does the city/county/state get in return? Hope the new "HQs" are running these numbers. Let the dumb ones over bid. It's like in sports with the new free agent. You usually regret it as the contract goes on.
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Lol, you don't even realize our State Constitution allows a flat single exemption state, county, or local income tax.
come back when you actually read it.
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I'm saying I totally disagree with your points, I just think our leadership has for so long not thought of our tax dollars like a business does. Run the numbers. Does this tax break offset the full cost, and what does the city/county/state get in return?
I often wish this logic was applied to illegal immigration. Is it a good idea to let in millions of people with few skills who don't speak the language? They cost the state tons of money, a smart person would minimize the hell out of that demographic.
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They come because they are cheap labor. Question, if there was a fine (think 1K, 2K, 4K, 8K...) for each illegal immigrant you hire, how long do you think it would take for a biz to stop hiring? Question, ever have a roof redone? Think any were US born? Ever seen houses constructed, US born? Ever go to a restaurant? The problem is not that illegals are a burden, the problem is they work harder than the citizens for less money, and don't complain if they get the shaft.
Re:Tax exemptions are almost always a bad thing (Score:4, Informative)
Apparently, your personal biases are more important to you than facts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Not if their goal is demographic war. Just because right-wing paranoids noticed that first does not make it untrue.
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Do they though? The only natural experiment we've had was during the Reagan years when he allowed amnesty. The influx of immigrants actually stimulated the economy. Because it's not like you have a population moving in, sucking up government resources, and never spending a thin dime. That's assuming they get state resources, which isn't a given when you don't speak the language. Ever try navigating a bureaucratic form? Try doing that in a language you don't speak. So what money they do make, such as getting
Re:Tax exemptions are almost always a bad thing (Score:4, Insightful)
" Also, why would you want capital gains tax on stocks? You want your 401K to be taxed for gains, or your pension?"
Just to answer this nugget: anyone who proposes fairer or better tax structures is implicitly agreeing that taxing everyone (including themselves) for the common good (including themselves) is the right call.
So yes, if it's fair and beneficial to the state as a whole, I would support a tax on my 401k and/or pension.
I'm not saying one way or another whether these particular taxes are justified; I am speaking more to the sentiment you seem to be raising where it doesn't make sense for anyone to decide that taxes which would affect their own assets are a good idea.
It is the inability of lots of people to understand and accept a common sacrifice that is the heart of alot of social problems we have.
Of course, it's also the spend-whatever-you-can-and-then-ask-for-more attitude of most government that is at the heart of alot of other social problems we have.
A sensibly run government intelligently taxing the right amount to get the best bang-for-buck and do the most with the least possible? A pipe dream for sure ... but what a dream ...
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Yeah, I guess if you're going to believe in fairy tales, you really should go all the way.
Are we ever going to let companies and the 1% (Score:4, Insightful)
True fact: Scott Adam's of Dilbert fame cracked jokes about a CEO moving the headquarters to be near his parents home for free babysitting. It's even more ironic when you realize Adam's would now (given his political views) probably side with Bezos.
Man up (Score:2)
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, but it's a price we can pay pretty easily. We can close the loop holes but raising the top marginal rates back to 90%. We can elect politicians who won't be bought by demanding ones that refuse corporate PAC money and passing L
And there's the Wisconsin Foxconn factory (Score:5, Insightful)
a more relevant plot against job applicants (Score:2)
Isn't it interesting that after this story many Slashdotters are eager to tell us that they knew it all along? Where were they yesterday with all their insight?
But there's another, similar, scam more relevant to Slashdot: When governments (and certain corporations) advertise a job opening- beware. There is often a policy that requires HR to give at least three interviews before hiring. This is ostensibly a way to assure that they don't just hire the first applicant. But in reality, it is almost always misus
Re: a more relevant plot against job applicants (Score:1)
LMAO, look at dudes post history and you find this. I wonder why he never gets hired.
https://m.slashdot.org/thread/57576524
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Or, it could be that they have somebody like me in mind. I'm a senior citizen, i'm a veteran and I'm partially disabled, allowing me to fill three quotas all by myself. And, if there's a quota for people who's disability is service connected, that's a fourth, right there. If I weren't also retired, I could probably hold down a good job doing nothing more than filling quotas.
Give proportional handouts to ALL businesses (Score:2)
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no
throw your imagined "fairness" in the trash, those tiny businesses are a gnats fart in a hurricane for employment and tax revenue.
your idea would just piss away money
the adult world doesn't work by your "every should get a blue ribbon" rules
really? (Score:1)
didn't get deals (Score:1)
They chose the government center of the country, and the financial center of the country, and divided the headquarters between the two. Yes, it's now obvious that it was the plan all along. They wanted a presence in the corridors of power, and now they have it.
But I seriously doubt they got any sweet financial deals. NYC and DC don't give out pa
Like getting a blood transfusion from yourself (Score:3)
Put yourself in a politician's shoes. You love the power. How do you keep it? You make your constituents lives better and make sure they know about it. But cut to the chase even further - really, you only need to make your constituents think you're making their lives better. If you are, it's secondary. The most important thing is making them think that. That's how you get the precious votes.
Cue a sports stadium or a megacorp like Amazon. Big headline jobs numbers, construction spending, infrastructure spending. But how do you pay for it? Taxes, redeploying money from other priorities, and bond sales. Maryland for example, created a nearly 9 billion dollar subsidy/incentive package for Amazon [google.com]. Baltimore, in Maryland, has two spectacular stadiums at the gateway to the city. But the rest of the city is a mess, with the highest murder rate of any large city in the country [usatoday.com], on a par with Ciudad Juarez [wikipedia.org], a cartel war zone [google.com] in a semi-failed state.
Who really knows for sure what the net economic benefit will be? I suspect it's a lot like sports stadiums [google.com]. Realize that the economy is a competition for resources and Amazon is a very successful competitor. And that politicians are not spending their own money, only trying to make their constituents think they are making those constituents' lives better.
Ultimately I think it's like a blood transfusion to yourself - diverting resources away from other priorities and taking on debt to pay for the shiny now. Ultimately, the source of wealth is creating things that people value. Does Amazon create value? I guess so. But they are also very good at retaining that value for themselves. Think of the WalMart effect [google.com]. Or Facebook lights-out datacenters [mashable.com]. These competitors are much better at retaining value they generate than any politician, whose primary skills like in raising money and getting votes. And they're also quite good at sloughing off costs on others, like the environmental polluters of yore. But this is "financial pollution" - company keeps the profits and socializes the losses, like WalMart and foodstamps [google.com]. Or most famously, Wall Street after the financial crisis and bailouts [google.com].
Don't get me wrong, technology increases the productivity of people, which leads to the "Consolidation of the production of value." [slashdot.org] It's been going on since before the Industrial Revolution, but it leaps forward with the various technological revolutions. But just because a company is big doesn't mean that landing in your area is going to bring a prosperity windfall, and should get vast subsidies in anticipation of such.
Nothing new (Score:3)
What was once HP (after the founders died) played the same game with their manufacturing.
The end game was they pulled all manufacturing out of California.
The deal was made in Houston and it all went there.
California (however) is a very business-unfriendly state.
If Crystal City and Long Island City don't like it (Score:3)
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They deserve it (Score:2)
Communities who elect leadership that sells them out for corporate tax breaks deserve what they get. People are ignorant. Everyone with half a brain knows using tax breaks to attract business is a sucker's game.
Color me happy (Score:2)
Happy they didn't chose Dallas or the DFW suburbs. Too much traffic already with all the new HQs located here. No thanks, Amazon..
Consistent with a study on corporate moves that (Score:2)
Cities fell for it (Score:2)
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