Amazon To NYC After Reconsidering HQ2 Plans: It'd Be a Shame If Something Happened To Your Kids' CS Education 201
theodp writes: Commenting on reports that Amazon is reconsidering its plan to bring 25,000 jobs to a new campus in New York City following a wave of political and community opposition, Amazon issued the following statement: "We're focused on engaging with our new neighbors -- small business owners, educators, and community leaders. Whether it's building a pipeline of local jobs through workforce training or funding computer science classes for thousands of New York City students, we are working hard to demonstrate what kind of neighbor we will be." Yep, it'd be a shame if something happened. The Washington Post earlier reported that New York State Sen. Michael Gianaris, a strong opponent of the Amazon HQ2 deal, described the possibility that Amazon would pull out of the deal -- which totals up to $3 billion in state and city incentives -- as akin to blackmail. "Amazon has extorted New York from the start, and this seems to be their next effort to do just that," he said. "If their view is, 'We won't come unless we get three billion of your dollars,' then they shouldn't come." Over at Vice, Ankita Rao examines what Amazon infiltrating America's school system might look like.
Oh, c'mon. Be fair. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not exactly a fan of Amazon, but it's rational for them to dedicate resources to the communities where they will have a significant presence. If they don't go to New York, and go somewhere else instead, then resources they were going to spend on the community in New York will instead go somewhere else.
Re:Oh, c'mon. Be fair. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Oh, c'mon. Be fair. (Score:2)
if a parent these days want their kids to learn then they can get a raspberry pi.
I suppose buying them a hammer will teach them architecture.
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if a parent these days want their kids to learn then they can get a raspberry pi.
I suppose buying them a hammer will teach them architecture.
You are operating on the education ideal, which shows that gender studies programs make for better relationships between men and women?
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Hang on--I need to get some popcorn and watch the Rasp Pi flaming begin. (BTW, I agree with you; raspberry pi is plenty to start learning on. When you get to the limitations, you learn from them, and if necessary you can then get something "better". )
Sure won't get any Overcooked Pi's from me. Those little things are exactly what kids and adults should learn on. I think a lot of the more structured teachings try to get them into programming a bit too quickly - let 'em learn unix/linux first, then set 'em loose.
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I mostly agree with you. I learned on a commodore 64.
But i have to commend the ones learning on a Timex Sinclair or a raspberry pi. The C64 had tons of (mostly pirated) games. You did a lot of gaming, a little bit of hacking to cheat and a little bit of programming. But they were mainly gaming machines and that is what the kids enjoy.
A raspberry pi on another hand... Nice toy for nerds like yours truly but how many kids are going to play games on it ?
Besides most people need formal training. A cool gaming c
Re:Oh, c'mon. Be fair. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Mine wasn't.
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What resources are they going to spend on NY? The 3 billion they get for free from NY just to be there? You sure? You can't even blackmail Bezos with dick pics, you'd think he'd go of even 1 cent?
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OTOH, if those incentives are instead invested directly into the community, who needs the strings?
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I'm planning on visiting the states next week with my children, we'll head to Clearwater Florida, an area I know where as I lived there for about 6 years. We make lists of things to do before going there and with the exception of Disney and the Muse
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Come visit New O
Re:Oh, c'mon. Be fair. (Score:5, Informative)
also it's normal for big corporations to seek incentives from state
It's normal. That doesn't mean it's good.
, in the long run the state and population gets many times the return
No, in general not. The "long run" result is that once one company discovers that they can avoid taxes by pitting one locality against another in a bidding war, then all companies start to do that, and essentially what happens is that municipalities stop getting revenue from taxes. So they have to tax their residents instead.
Everybody loses.
Re: Oh, c'mon. Be fair. (Score:2, Informative)
Coming from Michigan I can tell you that decades of hand outs to the big three didn't keep them from closing factories here in the 70's, 80's, and 90's. Same goes for the textile industry in West Michigan.
These deals are unfair to tax payers and even unfair to businesses because they are not distributed equally to all businesses.
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Coming from Michigan I can tell you that decades of hand outs to the big three didn't keep them from closing factories here in the 70's, 80's, and 90's.
In order to pay those subsidies they had to increase taxes on OTHER businesses, driving them out of the state and hollowing out the economy. So when the Big 3 left, there was nothing else to fall back on.
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The funny thing is, the companies themselves figured out that race-to-bottom price war [investopedia.com] is not good for themselves. I guess the public sector will need to repeat the learnin' of the private sector on their own.
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Not everybody loses.
Life is a competition. It just is.
it's a competition at all levels from who gets the most attractive guy/girl to who gets to be top surgeon to who gets that brand spanking new Amazon HQ2.
Yes, we put in place rules to make the competition 'fair'. I can't just kidnap the most attractive spouse I want and take them. That would be unfair.
Regions never stop getting money from taxes.
So New York gives some tax breaks to a corporation. All the workers for the corporation pay income tax, sales ta
Everybody loses [Re:Oh, c'mon. Be fair.} (Score:3)
The "long run" result is that once one company discovers that they can avoid taxes by pitting one locality against another in a bidding war, then all companies start to do that, and essentially what happens is that municipalities stop getting revenue from taxes. So they have to tax their residents instead. Everybody loses.
Not everybody loses. Life is a competition. It just is.
In a zero sum game [investopedia.com], that would be true-- in that case it's a competition, some people do better, some do worse.
Society is, however, not a zero sum game. When companies pit community against community to get the best deal to avoid taxes, at the individual level, the company has won, but at the overall level, when all the companies do that, everybody loses.
(Unless you're a radical libertarian, and think the government is evil. Then not paying taxes is a good thing in and of itself-- schools and roads and
Re:Oh, c'mon. Be fair. (Score:5, Insightful)
Their projections show that they will recoup the cost. Past experience shows these projections are usually wildly optimistic.
Tax incentives and subsidies are a Prisoner's Dilemma [wikipedia.org]. Each locale feels obligated to offer incentives because other locales are offering them. But they would be collectively better off if no one offered them. Amazon would still expand, but do so on the basis of business efficiency rather than subsidies. If NYC wants to attract more businesses, they should improve their overall friendliness to commerce, rather than lavishing subsidies on one corporation.
These subsides are a race to the bottom. This is what the Commerce Clause [wikipedia.org] in the US Constitution was designed to prevent. The CC has often been abused, but a federal ban on these subsidies would be a legitimate use, and would be an overall benefit to the country's economy, and a relief to the taxpayers.
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Re:Oh, c'mon. Be fair. (Score:5, Informative)
I don't see any way for it to NOT work.
PT Barnum loved people like you.
How many $100-$150k software engineers in NYC are currently unemployed?
Most of these employees will just be shifted from other businesses, which aren't being subsidized, forcing them to either cut back or leave the city. There may be some net job growth, but it is unlikely it is going to be worth $3 billion.
Most tech companies in NYC are already desperate for talent. The limit on creating high paying jobs is not companies willing to hire them, but housing available for people to move to the city. Approving new building permits (cost: ~$0) would do WAY more to grow the NYC economy that this handout to Amazon.
But there is one thing you can be certain of: The politicians are going to label this as a "success" by highlighting every job at Amazon, while ignoring the equivalent number of jobs destroyed elsewhere in the city.
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How many $100-$150k software engineers in NYC are currently unemployed?
It's pretty clear that Amazon will attract more people to the NY. It's also not known for its software companies, so the talent pool is not that deep.
Most of these employees will just be shifted from other businesses, which aren't being subsidized, forcing them to either cut back or leave the city. There may be some net job growth, but it is unlikely it is going to be worth $3 billion.
Nope, Amazon will increase competition which will drive up wages. Higher wages mean more income for the NYC. I still fail to see how NY would lose. And don't forget that Amazon is going to spend a lot of money in NY directly, on new building construction.
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It's also not known for its software companies
NYC is the second biggest tech cluster in the world, bested only by the SF Bay Area. The heaviest concentrations are in the Flatiron District of Manhattan, and around the multiple world class universities, including Columbia and NYU.
so the talent pool is not that deep.
There are more than 300,000 tech workers in NYC, one of the deepest and widest talent pools in the world.
I still fail to see how NY would lose.
Look at the history of corporate welfare. Count the successes. Count the failures. Apply evidence-based reasoning.
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NYC is the second biggest tech cluster in the world, bested only by the SF Bay Area.
Nope, Seattle is bigger. NY labor dept puts the number of IT personnel at 73 thousand: https://www.labor.ny.gov/stats... [ny.gov] , Seattle and Bellevue have about 100k IT workers.
IT in the Seattle area got so big that software developers are now more numerous than retail workers: https://www.seattletimes.com/s... [seattletimes.com] , NYC is nowhere close to that.
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Look at the history of corporate welfare. Count the successes. Count the failures. Apply evidence-based reasoning.
Actually, there are plenty of successes. Boeing, SpaceX, Tesla - all got big in part because of corporate welfare.
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Actually, there are plenty of successes. Boeing, SpaceX, Tesla - all got big in part because of corporate welfare.
Good job! Now count the failures.
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It's also not known for its software companies, so the talent pool is not that deep.
I take it you've never heard of Silicon Alley [wikipedia.org].
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Unlikely, Amazon is a parasite. Anything that they get as an incentive to move there is going to be a lot less than what they contribute to the local area.
They've done a pretty thorough job of destroying Seattle and yet those folks in other parts of the country were willing to compete for the same treatment. If Amazon being here was such a great thing, Bezos wouldn't be constantly looking over his shoulder when he's out in public.
Once they are there, you can count on them extorting the locality for whatever
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They've done a pretty thorough job of destroying Seattle
The last time I looked, Seattle is still there.
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Re:Oh, c'mon. Be fair. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, like what General Motors did in Australia.
"Yeah, we need all this funding and financial support to keep car manufacturing here for the next decade. Think of the jobs!"
a year or two later
"We're shutting down all manufacturing in Australia, no you can't have your money back"
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Here, the government had the 10 years in writing so roughly on the 10th year+1 day, they announced they were moving and thanks for the billions of dollars. Actually, they didn't even bother saying thanks
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We pay 25% of the cost of every "international" film or TV series produced here, with no cap, so James Cameron is going to make a bunch of Avatar movies, and we're going to pay him millions to do it.
The Minister in charge made noises about turning money tap off last year, but quickly backed down because I assume threats were made behind closed doors.
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Don't worry, Amazon won't be filming the LOTR series here.
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Your Minister probably backed down because the accountants showed him the math. Why do you assume the worst?
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If we made a profit somehow I'm sure the tourist people would be crowing from the rooftops about it, but instead the talk was all about the jobs that would be lost.
As far as I am concerned, any business that needs taxpayer's money to stay afloat is not really a business.
Re: Oh, c'mon. Be fair. (Score:2, Informative)
America the land of low paid homeless people and corporate welfare, where the rich galavant the world paying no taxes and the poor die because they can't afford healthcare.
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Define "long run".
Quite often the companies get tax reductions or outright eliminations for N years and then close up and move somewhere else after N-1 years. IIRC, IBM did that in N. Carolina. Motorola did that in Illinois---more than once: the never really completed Harvard manufacturing plant, abandoning the large, long-lived facility in Schaumburg for Chicago and other suburbs that offered sweet tax deals. I'm sure more examples can be found. This business of playing states (and cities) against each ot
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Re: Oh, c'mon. Be fair. (Score:2, Insightful)
Hmm, will the CS curriculum say AWS is the *only* Cloud that matters?
Keep business out of education (Score:5, Interesting)
It's critical that resist efforts of companies like Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon who want to exploit public education for profit. Amazon doesn't want to help students, they want to make money and getting their hooks into lucrative contracts with schools is a core part of that.
We've already seen Bill Gates make repeated attempts to ruin education for profit, Zuckerberg is attempting to enter that market, and now Bezos wants to do the same.
Education only works if teachers can teach instead of being bound to reciting material designed by non-educators working for billion-dollar companies that are designed to encourage dependency on their services and work advertising into lessons. Kids don't need that, and we must reject it.
Re:Keep business out of education (Score:5, Insightful)
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Undoing misclicked mod.
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How about Amazon just gives the government for education and then everyone keeps doing what they are best at.
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Well, if a corporation refuses to PAY taxes they owe, I doubt they'll be in business very long.
However, all businesses (and rightly so) try to minimize their tax obligations by every legal means available.
A company is created with the sole intention of making a profit. That's it, plain and simple.
And especially if it is a publicly traded company, they are legally obligated to their shareholders to try to maximize the profit
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>Education only works if teachers can teach instead of being bound to reciting material designed by non-educators working for billion-dollar companies that are designed to encourage dependency on their services and work advertising into lessons.
Oh, you mean like the standardized testing industry?
Re: Keep business out of education (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep business out of education
This was true when Carnegie/Rockefeller and the like were trying to sabotage education and it's true now.
A nation of idiots is far less of a threat to the ruling classes.
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Oh, noes. (Score:2, Flamebait)
It would be *impossible* to prepare the kiddies for a future career in STEM without corporate support and branding.
Maybe it's not that bad of a deal (Score:2)
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Perhaps it’s advantageous for you in some states given your unique circumstances, but on average you’re better off finding states which spend the least as on average they’ll tax you least regardless of how they go about it.
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Alaska. They pay you to be there actually. But that's another thing entirely and I agree with your post, just wanted to point out that such a place actually exists and really does pay you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
By all accounts the Amazon HQ is a boondoggle (Score:2, Flamebait)
Let 'em go. Jeff Bezos has enough of my tax money already.
The computer science donations (Score:2)
were only for 240 "underprivileged" high schools, which is a drop in the NYC public school system bucket.
The additional income from additional city taxes gained from the new employees is a much bigger bucket.
Indentured servants (Score:2, Insightful)
Not like they would even get hired by Amazon anyway. They prefer h-1b visas where the workers can't leave for better pay and working conditions.
Their only goal here is to flood the market with as many programmers as possible to lower their salaries. You'd think once you had more money than you could ever spend, it would be enough, but apparently not.
losing game (Score:2)
Whether this takes some restructuring of government at the state + federal levels and maybe some amendments to lower our expectation of individual rights compared to overall societal good, whatever. Government is being outmatched by the power of corporati
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The totalitarian instinct; make them conform to my will! Even if it's a bad idea; make them conform anyway if only to assert power.
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SubjectsSuck (Score:5, Insightful)
"Amazon has extorted New York from the start, and this seems to be their next effort to do just that," he said. "If their view is, 'We won't come unless we get three billion of your dollars,' then they shouldn't come."
This is just stupid. A deal involves two parties. New York politicians want the state to back out of their half of the deal, but this guy thinks that they should be able to hold Amazon to their half.
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At no level is the politician saying Amazon must come to NYC; he's merely calling their bluff.
The politician claims it's extortion. The implication is that refusing to come to NYC is evil to the point where it should be a crime, not just that it's a negotiation where he's calling their bluff.
The Slashdot headline uses language like "it'd be a shame if something happened", which is associated with extortion, and "from the technically-blackmail dept".
Calling Amazon's refusal to come to NYC "extortion" *is* saying that Amazon must come to NYC.
Three billion dollars? (Score:5, Informative)
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In Washington, Alexandria to be exact, Amazon is going to plunk down another HQ. Washington has the worst traffic in the nation and they decided to put right in the middle to attract even more traffic via roads that simply cannot handle what they already have. There's no reason it needs to be there and lot of reasons why it is a stupid idea.
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The reason it's there is they get 4+ senators (VA, MD, to some extent WV) and local DC interests/lobbyists on their side. It's a smart strategic play by Amazon
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What is Amazon supposed to do? (Score:3, Insightful)
Give them the 3 billion anyway? After the inhabitants of the city just told Amazon to go fuck themselves?
Telling someone to go fuck themself has consequences.
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Amazon doesn't want to give anyone 3 billion.
They want New York City to give them 3 billion, for the privilege of letting them move in.
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So... how is Amazon blackmailing them with their own 3 billion?
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Because they originally agreed to $1.5B, now they say they won't come unless they get $3B and officials are getting fed up.
Taxes and Donations (Score:5, Insightful)
And this my friends is exactly why I am not a big fan of the argument that we should keep taxes low and rely on charities to pay for stuff.
Once the money is given by companies, or billionaire, their donations become concerns for any negotiations. Tax them and where the money is spent is no longer their decision but the public's decision.
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How about we actually go for goals without partisan bickering and namecalling?
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In 1973 the UK top rate of tax was raised to 83%. There was an additional 15% on investment income, so effectively a 98% tax on investments.
That 83% didn't drop until 1979 and even then dropped to 60%.
If the next UK election votes in a government headed by Jeremy Corbyn and Joe McDonnell then I wouldn't bet against comparable rates being reintroduced. Too fucking right we currently have low taxes.
(I'd leave the country and work elsewhere rather than pay 83% tax. Sorry but there are limits. I'd move back to
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In the UK currently, by the time yo
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someone earning £50k+ whose company spends £10k more employing them might see around 30% of that
While I do think tax is rather high, that's just flat out wrong. Someone earning £50k/year will take home £37k/year, and that's assuming they aren't taking advantage of things like tax free pension contributions.
the loss of child tax credits
On what fucking planet is 'loss of tax credits' a tax? How about giving nobody any fucking tax credits for adding to the overpopulation of this island.
Impact of the introduction (Score:3)
Oh the irony (Score:2)
Guess Bezos can only handle being the extorter, not the extortee.
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The PI he hired thinks the extortion is being carried out by a government agency. At first I thought 'china/russia/NK' but now I wonder...
What money are they asking for? (Score:2)
I'm just making a guess but by 'incentives' what is usually meant is 'not being required to pay taxes'.
I've always thought it a highly disingenuous attitude suggest that someone is 'getting something for free' by not paying money. It is the idea that we somehow 'owe' taxes of a certain amount to the government, because THEY provide 'Services'. Honestly I would be happy a a LOT fewer 'services' and a lot more of my own money , that I can then either spend as needed , or use to help people I know personally
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And when they come, somebody will have to pay for infrastructure upgrades to make it all work. If Amazon gets to keep the money they would have paid in taxes, it won't be them paying for it, now let's think a minute who might be left holding that bag...
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If I am shopping and I have a cart worth $100, I can't leave unless I either pay $100 or put my goods back on the shelves. Assume I want my stuff, I'm out $100. Now a perky young thing comes up to me and says "Congratulations, you're our zillionth shopper, here's a voucher for $100".
How much money did I get given? According to you, nothing at all, because I was merely getting my money back.
Idiot.
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Your cart of goodies is the services you get from the government. The checkout lane is tax time. The in-store voucher action is politicians giving you a tax break.
Now do you get it, or do I have to cast in 'See Spot Run' terms to get closer to your level?
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That's because many of those services are necessary to keep you from infringing on others. If we make it a direct fee for a service, some jackass will (for example) decline the garbage pickup service and dump it in a stinking heap downwind of his house but upwind of his neighbor's. Or he'll put it in his neighbor's trash can.
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The taking part happens when the infrastructure has to be expanded to acommodate Amazon moving in. It still has to be paid for, it's just that Amazon doesn't end up doing the paying.
Note, I'm not one of those /.ers that tends to call everyone idiot or retard just because they're not singing my party line.
Re:The left failed economics (Score:4, Insightful)
Saying that tax breaks are not a direct subsidy is a flat out lie. It this circumstance it's a bribe and for Amazon it's a "head I win tails you loose" proposition. It's just like building sport stadiums: a scam to loot the public treasury for private profit. (Just ask St. Louis or San Diego about the Rams and Chargers moving to LA.)
If you don't think that tax breaks are a subsidy then why not tax religion? Just suggest it. I dare you. Tax breaks are money in the pocket. Besides being declared as an agent of the devil by "legitimate" religious figures some nut job will do a drive by and put a bullet into your house or perhaps toss a Molotov cocktail in your direction.
Everyone who profits from sucking off the public teat is the same: they think their free ride is a natural law of the universe and any other option is a perversion of the natural order. Libertarians are just another set of blood sucking scamsters.
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There's a big difference between building a stadium and building a company. A stadium hardly takes up any jobs, people go there to spend money (taking money OUT of the local economy), people don't want to live near it and generally, once the venture goes bankrupt it leaves the city to clean up and maintain an otherwise useless building.
Tax breaks are just there to bring the company, sure it's a benefit to the company but indirectly and long term, it's a good deal unless the business goes bankrupt. In this c
Re:The left failed economics (Score:4, Insightful)
why not tax religion? Just suggest it. I dare you
Tax religion. Go for it. Treat them as exactly what they are: Profit generating businesses.
Better yet, regulate them. Prevent them from preying on vulnerable people and forbid them from self-policing. Maybe we can reduce the numbers of children abused.
I'd happily vote for this.
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they said that about Sears also at one point.
but like all things, it ebbs and flows