6 ms·

I don't understand the outrage towards Amazon. 1. No one forced any of these states/cities to join this bidding contest. They willingly participated. "How dare

I don't understand the outrage towards Amazon. 1. No one forced any of these states/cities to join this bidding contest. They willingly participated. "How dare Amazon put cities against one another in a bidding war?!" Yeah, I put five dealers against one another in a bidding war to get my business the last time I shopped for a car. Amazon can do the same thing. 2. "Jeff Bezos doesn't need our tax breaks!" I bet he doesn't. I don't think Jeff Bezos personally helped elect all the leaders who offered all these tax breaks. At the end of the day, Amazon will create jobs. Will it gentrify these cities? Yes, absolutely. So would Google, Apple, or Facebook moving into a new area. "But those other companies didn't ask for tax breaks." They literally hold hundreds of billions in wealth overseas. I'm not arguing in favor of tax breaks for Amazon. I am saying, however, Amazon didn't stage a coup against these mayors and governors and threaten to hurt them if Amazon didn't get tax breaks. NYC officials (at least some) openly invited Amazon. Good on Amazon for walking out. Private companies don't owe you anything. The system is broken. Neither party has done anything to fix it. You have a company taking advantage of the perfectly legal rules that the system set up. OH GAWD better grab pitchforks. Yet, all the same lying Congressional leaders get re-elected election after re-election. This de Blasio character openly invited Amazon. Now that they've backed out, he's angry that Amazon had cities bid against each other and that it was so wrong? Are you kidding me? de Blasio is a prime example of what's wrong with American politics.

bilbo0s 8y ago
>Private companies don't owe you anything... Money quote. These are businesses, not charities. So they have to make business decisions. Amazon was right to walk away. (And yes, I realize that the same business reality will oblige Amazon to put several more thousand jobs in NYC in any case. But guess what? I'd bet any money they won't put as many as they would have. They will put several more thousand in DC instead.) Before anyone gets mad at Amazon for behaving in this manner, yell at your political leaders for making these offers in the first place.
baddox 8y ago
> Yeah, I put five dealers against one another in a bidding war to get my business the last time I shopped for a car. Amazon can do the same thing. Surely the reason most upset people are upset is that these deals with governments tend to involve tax breaks, and taxpayers have every right to concern themselves with tax policy. I doubt many of those people would also be upset with your car negotiations.
- nickonline 8y ago
  They offered Amazon $3B tax breaks, while the city would have profited $27B. The city would have a net gain of $24B. Now the city doesn't gain anything.
  - baddox 8y ago
    That seems overly simplistic. I doubt that Amazon are the only ones with any likelihood of bringing new jobs to New York in the near future.
    - lamarpye 8y ago
      > I doubt that Amazon are the only ones with any likelihood of bringing new jobs to New York in the near future. Not anymore. Why would a company want the hassle? Go to New York and have an idiot bartender trash our goodwill or go somewhere else where they roll out the red carpet for us.
    - smsm42 8y ago
      That jobs would come with or without Amazon (more likely with Amazon, since Amazon HQ would be a huge business attractor for smaller companies) - nobody would say "well, we're going to open office in NYC but since Amazon is already there we won't". Other companies would open anyway, yes. But Amazon won't. It's not a fixed pie, it adds up. And NYC just took a huge piece of this pie and threw it into the river. To spite Bezos. Hope it's worth $24B to them.
_bxg1 8y ago
"You have a company taking advantage of the perfectly legal rules that the system set up. OH GAWD better grab pitchforks." People aren't allowed to be upset about something just because it's not illegal?
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  Be mad... at the people who made it, "not illegal". That's not Amazon. The anger, to the extent that it's justified, is misplaced.
- boron1006 8y ago
  Most of the tax breaks Amazon used are open for pretty much any company, and have been around for a very long time. But no one seems to want to repeal or fix these laws. In all of this, I haven't seen a single person talk about them. You can't agree to a set of rules then complain when someone actually follows them.
  - _bxg1 8y ago
    Many people may not even know about them. Encouraging people to channel these feelings into the ballot is well and fine, but let's not pretend there's anything close to a direct coupling between the will of the people and the will of their representatives, much less preexisting laws. People are allowed to be dissatisfied; they don't have to simply lie in the bed that they only had a partial hand in making.
    - pochamago 8y ago
      I don't think anyone saying people shouldn't be dissatisfied. It's just that targeting Amazon with that ire is ineffective when it's the laws on the books that are the problem
      - _bxg1 8y ago
        Ineffective without other action, but not misdirected.
zaptheimpaler 8y ago
It is exploitative. Any company founded in the US is going to use the resources US provides - roads, trade & economic power, the USPS, the talent pool etc for Amazon. When their success is built on that foundation, they owe it to the government (& taxpayers) to return the favor and show some goodwill. Instead, taxpayers subsidize them when they're growing, then they want to cheat as much as legally possible on their taxes when they're grown up. If you advocate letting Amazon get those tax breaks, yet yelling at the politicians who allow them, thats a basic mismatch between what you say and your revealed preferences. Don't blame politicians when they cater to those preferences.
- openloop 8y ago
  In a nutshell. To add insult to injury look at the major shareholders. They are tied to banks that are helping to destroy the global economy as a result of said investment. This company is the result of bankers whose primary function is to scalp real wage earners. Once another major competitor looks good to these fraudsters they’ll dump Amazon like it’s bad news too.
- jvreagan 8y ago
  > then they want to cheat as much as legally possible on their taxes when they're grown up. If it's legal, it isn't cheating...
  - zaptheimpaler 8y ago
    Only if you believe there is no difference between whats legal and whats moral.
    - pathseeker 8y ago
      So why isn't your outrage with the government that adds tax incentives for businesses? It's like being pissed off at people who live in section 8 housing for not paying enough rent...
      - 8y ago
objektif 8y ago
I also wanted AMZN to come to the city. Yes you are right its doing whats best for them by taking advantage of the tax code. However you can’t just say that the system is broken and Amazon is just a bystander taking advantage of it. Amazon is partly responsible, through lobbying, for why the system is broken.
bobthepanda 8y ago
> No one forced any of these states/cities to join this bidding contest. They willingly participated. This lacks context. Bill de Blasio and Andrew Cuomo participated in the bidding context, basically by themselves. They didn't have a mandate to do this from anybody, since no one ever mentioned groveling on their feet to shovel tax breaks at a corporation. (In fact, Bill de Blasio was pretty much elected on a 'soak the rich' platform, which is a line he is more than happy to push when he knows there is no realistic chance of it actually happening.) They then conspired to do an end run around the legislative branches of their respective jurisdictions, and almost succeeded. American states and cities are not authoritarian or run by a single emperor. There are built in checks and balances, and quite frankly everyone involved misjudged the pushback they would get by openly trying to ignore all of that.
dingaling 8y ago
> I put five dealers against one another in a bidding war to get my business the last time I shopped for a car Now try the same trick with five Bentley dealers. Nope, no discount because they know you can afford list price. I don't mind that there are incentives for SMEs. I do mind that behemoths like Amazon can drain the pool to the detriment of others.

bilbo0s 8y ago

>Private companies don't owe you anything... Money quote. These are businesses, not charities. So they have to make business decisions. Amazon was right to walk away. (And yes, I realize that the same business reality will oblige Amazon to put several more thousand jobs in NYC in any case. But guess what? I'd bet any money they won't put as many as they would have. They will put several more thousand in DC instead.) Before anyone gets mad at Amazon for behaving in this manner, yell at your political leaders for making these offers in the first place.

baddox 8y ago

> Yeah, I put five dealers against one another in a bidding war to get my business the last time I shopped for a car. Amazon can do the same thing. Surely the reason most upset people are upset is that these deals with governments tend to involve tax breaks, and taxpayers have every right to concern themselves with tax policy. I doubt many of those people would also be upset with your car negotiations.

nickonline 8y ago
They offered Amazon $3B tax breaks, while the city would have profited $27B. The city would have a net gain of $24B. Now the city doesn't gain anything.
- baddox 8y ago
  That seems overly simplistic. I doubt that Amazon are the only ones with any likelihood of bringing new jobs to New York in the near future.
  - lamarpye 8y ago
    > I doubt that Amazon are the only ones with any likelihood of bringing new jobs to New York in the near future. Not anymore. Why would a company want the hassle? Go to New York and have an idiot bartender trash our goodwill or go somewhere else where they roll out the red carpet for us.
  - smsm42 8y ago
    That jobs would come with or without Amazon (more likely with Amazon, since Amazon HQ would be a huge business attractor for smaller companies) - nobody would say "well, we're going to open office in NYC but since Amazon is already there we won't". Other companies would open anyway, yes. But Amazon won't. It's not a fixed pie, it adds up. And NYC just took a huge piece of this pie and threw it into the river. To spite Bezos. Hope it's worth $24B to them.

_bxg1 8y ago

"You have a company taking advantage of the perfectly legal rules that the system set up. OH GAWD better grab pitchforks." People aren't allowed to be upset about something just because it's not illegal?

bilbo0s 8y ago
Be mad... at the people who made it, "not illegal". That's not Amazon. The anger, to the extent that it's justified, is misplaced.
boron1006 8y ago
Most of the tax breaks Amazon used are open for pretty much any company, and have been around for a very long time. But no one seems to want to repeal or fix these laws. In all of this, I haven't seen a single person talk about them. You can't agree to a set of rules then complain when someone actually follows them.
- _bxg1 8y ago
  Many people may not even know about them. Encouraging people to channel these feelings into the ballot is well and fine, but let's not pretend there's anything close to a direct coupling between the will of the people and the will of their representatives, much less preexisting laws. People are allowed to be dissatisfied; they don't have to simply lie in the bed that they only had a partial hand in making.
  - pochamago 8y ago
    I don't think anyone saying people shouldn't be dissatisfied. It's just that targeting Amazon with that ire is ineffective when it's the laws on the books that are the problem
    - _bxg1 8y ago
      Ineffective without other action, but not misdirected.

zaptheimpaler 8y ago

It is exploitative. Any company founded in the US is going to use the resources US provides - roads, trade & economic power, the USPS, the talent pool etc for Amazon. When their success is built on that foundation, they owe it to the government (& taxpayers) to return the favor and show some goodwill. Instead, taxpayers subsidize them when they're growing, then they want to cheat as much as legally possible on their taxes when they're grown up. If you advocate letting Amazon get those tax breaks, yet yelling at the politicians who allow them, thats a basic mismatch between what you say and your revealed preferences. Don't blame politicians when they cater to those preferences.

openloop 8y ago
In a nutshell. To add insult to injury look at the major shareholders. They are tied to banks that are helping to destroy the global economy as a result of said investment. This company is the result of bankers whose primary function is to scalp real wage earners. Once another major competitor looks good to these fraudsters they’ll dump Amazon like it’s bad news too.
jvreagan 8y ago
> then they want to cheat as much as legally possible on their taxes when they're grown up. If it's legal, it isn't cheating...
- zaptheimpaler 8y ago
  Only if you believe there is no difference between whats legal and whats moral.
  - pathseeker 8y ago
    So why isn't your outrage with the government that adds tax incentives for businesses? It's like being pissed off at people who live in section 8 housing for not paying enough rent...
    - 8y ago

objektif 8y ago

I also wanted AMZN to come to the city. Yes you are right its doing whats best for them by taking advantage of the tax code. However you can’t just say that the system is broken and Amazon is just a bystander taking advantage of it. Amazon is partly responsible, through lobbying, for why the system is broken.

bobthepanda 8y ago

> No one forced any of these states/cities to join this bidding contest. They willingly participated. This lacks context. Bill de Blasio and Andrew Cuomo participated in the bidding context, basically by themselves. They didn't have a mandate to do this from anybody, since no one ever mentioned groveling on their feet to shovel tax breaks at a corporation. (In fact, Bill de Blasio was pretty much elected on a 'soak the rich' platform, which is a line he is more than happy to push when he knows there is no realistic chance of it actually happening.) They then conspired to do an end run around the legislative branches of their respective jurisdictions, and almost succeeded. American states and cities are not authoritarian or run by a single emperor. There are built in checks and balances, and quite frankly everyone involved misjudged the pushback they would get by openly trying to ignore all of that.

dingaling 8y ago

> I put five dealers against one another in a bidding war to get my business the last time I shopped for a car Now try the same trick with five Bentley dealers. Nope, no discount because they know you can afford list price. I don't mind that there are incentives for SMEs. I do mind that behemoths like Amazon can drain the pool to the detriment of others.