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But if you, as the city, didn't play ball and you knew for certain that the next town over wasn't going to play ball either; some city WOULD get the contract re

But if you, as the city, didn't play ball and you knew for certain that the next town over wasn't going to play ball either; some city WOULD get the contract regardless. That tax revenue is gonna get collected and someone will get to spend it, whether you give Amazon $3bn or not. I'm tired of giving money to multi-billion dollar companies, even if it does make fiscal sense. We have a poverty problem, and a shrinking middle class problem. Adding 25k jobs at $150/year would only make the housing crisis in NYC worse. So why bend over backwards? All towns should band together and just stop coming to the table. Companies have to locate themselves somewhere. I don't want my state or city to try to attract more businesses that will raise my taxes if they're not going to do anything to fix my infrastructure and my tax rate.

manfredo 8y ago
> I'm tired of giving money to multi-billion dollar companies, even if it does make fiscal sense. We have a poverty problem, and a shrinking middle class problem. Adding 25k jobs at $150/year would only make the housing crisis in NYC worse. I'm not sure I follow. How does rejecting business development and turning away thousands of high paying (and thus, paying high taxes) jobs help reduce poverty? How is rejecting well paying job opportunities supposed to help grow the middle class? Housing crises have everything to do with supply. San Francisco has a fraction the population of NYC but also has a housing crisis. You seem to be operating under the notion that the presence of wealth somehow causes poverty. This is just plain wrong. How are we supposed to help the impoverished and build the middle class if we destroy job opportunities? Your post comes off as putting more emphasis on "wealthy people stay out" rather than trying to come up with ways to help the poor
- Analemma_ 8y ago
  > I'm not sure I follow. How does rejecting business development and turning away thousands of high paying (and thus, paying high taxes) jobs help reduce poverty? Because allowing this kind of behavior creates a race to the bottom, where the end state is that no company ever pays any tax. The only way to avoid this situation, if you don't have a higher-level government entity banning it entirely, is to grow a backbone and say no. And it isn't as if NYC is hurting for jobs. > How are we supposed to help the impoverished and build the middle class if we destroy job opportunities? I can just as easily flip this question on its head: how are we supposed to help the impoverished if we allow companies to play hostage-taker with jobs and ultimately drive their tax rate to 0?
  - manfredo 8y ago
    > I can just as easily flip this question on its head: how are we supposed to help the impoverished if we allow companies to play hostage-taker with jobs and ultimately drive their tax rate to 0? Because even if their corporate tax rates are reduced, their employees still pay income and sales taxes. Other posters estimated that Amazon's NYC workers would be paying close to half a million in income taxes alone each year. Not to mention you're being intellectually dishonest as framing this as "dropping their tax rate to 0". Amazon's tax break is a temporary incentive. When the tax incentives expire, Amazon will be paying taxes like any other company. The New York government estimated that the deal would bring in 27 billion over 15 years, yielding an 800% ROI.
- zelon88 8y ago
  Ding ding ding! San Fransisco has a housing crisis BECAUSE of all the $150k jobs. How are the $65k people supposed to find an affordable place to live? You've got thousands of wealthy people, tens of thousands of high-end places to live, and hundreds of thousands of middle class people that can't afford rent. Meanwhile you've got renters who can't make a buck off poor people, and can't find any wealthy people to move in! The presence of wealth doesn't CAUSE poverty. It exacerbates poverty. It's just incompatible in the same ecosystem. You don't see any problems with the nations capital for homelessness handing $3,000,000,000 to a company that's already worth $1,000,000,000,000? Keep in mind that NONE of those homeless people will be getting job offers to work at Amazon. Amazon will truck and fly (already wealthy) talent into NYC to hire. You're not "improving" NYC poverty, you're just diluting it with existing wealth from elsewhere.
  - manfredo 8y ago
    > San Fransisco has a housing crisis BECAUSE of all the $150k jobs No, it's because there's a shortage of housing. There are plenty of places that have high incomes and low rents, because the supply of housing keeps up with demand. I doubt directional drillers in North Dakota are paying San Francisco rents. > The presence of wealth doesn't CAUSE poverty. It exacerbates poverty. It's just incompatible in the same ecosystem. I find this statement to be very dubious. Where would the homeless living in tents be if all the wealthy people had their salaries cut in half? They'd be in the exact same spot, except the government would have a lot less tax revenue to spend on social services. Do you genuinely think that it's better to be poor in a poor country than it is to be poor in a wealthy country? What kind if life does someone in the bottom 10th percentile live in a place like the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Venezuela lead? What kind of life does someone in the same finacial position lead in Switzerland or Singapore?
    - inferiorhuman 8y ago
      I doubt directional drillers in North Dakota are paying San Francisco rents. https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/North-Dakota-Has-Highest-Rents-in-the-Country-from-Bakken-Boom.html https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/North-Dak...

manfredo 8y ago

> I'm tired of giving money to multi-billion dollar companies, even if it does make fiscal sense. We have a poverty problem, and a shrinking middle class problem. Adding 25k jobs at $150/year would only make the housing crisis in NYC worse. I'm not sure I follow. How does rejecting business development and turning away thousands of high paying (and thus, paying high taxes) jobs help reduce poverty? How is rejecting well paying job opportunities supposed to help grow the middle class? Housing crises have everything to do with supply. San Francisco has a fraction the population of NYC but also has a housing crisis. You seem to be operating under the notion that the presence of wealth somehow causes poverty. This is just plain wrong. How are we supposed to help the impoverished and build the middle class if we destroy job opportunities? Your post comes off as putting more emphasis on "wealthy people stay out" rather than trying to come up with ways to help the poor

Analemma_ 8y ago
> I'm not sure I follow. How does rejecting business development and turning away thousands of high paying (and thus, paying high taxes) jobs help reduce poverty? Because allowing this kind of behavior creates a race to the bottom, where the end state is that no company ever pays any tax. The only way to avoid this situation, if you don't have a higher-level government entity banning it entirely, is to grow a backbone and say no. And it isn't as if NYC is hurting for jobs. > How are we supposed to help the impoverished and build the middle class if we destroy job opportunities? I can just as easily flip this question on its head: how are we supposed to help the impoverished if we allow companies to play hostage-taker with jobs and ultimately drive their tax rate to 0?
- manfredo 8y ago
  > I can just as easily flip this question on its head: how are we supposed to help the impoverished if we allow companies to play hostage-taker with jobs and ultimately drive their tax rate to 0? Because even if their corporate tax rates are reduced, their employees still pay income and sales taxes. Other posters estimated that Amazon's NYC workers would be paying close to half a million in income taxes alone each year. Not to mention you're being intellectually dishonest as framing this as "dropping their tax rate to 0". Amazon's tax break is a temporary incentive. When the tax incentives expire, Amazon will be paying taxes like any other company. The New York government estimated that the deal would bring in 27 billion over 15 years, yielding an 800% ROI.
zelon88 8y ago
Ding ding ding! San Fransisco has a housing crisis BECAUSE of all the $150k jobs. How are the $65k people supposed to find an affordable place to live? You've got thousands of wealthy people, tens of thousands of high-end places to live, and hundreds of thousands of middle class people that can't afford rent. Meanwhile you've got renters who can't make a buck off poor people, and can't find any wealthy people to move in! The presence of wealth doesn't CAUSE poverty. It exacerbates poverty. It's just incompatible in the same ecosystem. You don't see any problems with the nations capital for homelessness handing $3,000,000,000 to a company that's already worth $1,000,000,000,000? Keep in mind that NONE of those homeless people will be getting job offers to work at Amazon. Amazon will truck and fly (already wealthy) talent into NYC to hire. You're not "improving" NYC poverty, you're just diluting it with existing wealth from elsewhere.
- manfredo 8y ago
  > San Fransisco has a housing crisis BECAUSE of all the $150k jobs No, it's because there's a shortage of housing. There are plenty of places that have high incomes and low rents, because the supply of housing keeps up with demand. I doubt directional drillers in North Dakota are paying San Francisco rents. > The presence of wealth doesn't CAUSE poverty. It exacerbates poverty. It's just incompatible in the same ecosystem. I find this statement to be very dubious. Where would the homeless living in tents be if all the wealthy people had their salaries cut in half? They'd be in the exact same spot, except the government would have a lot less tax revenue to spend on social services. Do you genuinely think that it's better to be poor in a poor country than it is to be poor in a wealthy country? What kind if life does someone in the bottom 10th percentile live in a place like the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Venezuela lead? What kind of life does someone in the same finacial position lead in Switzerland or Singapore?
  - inferiorhuman 8y ago
    I doubt directional drillers in North Dakota are paying San Francisco rents. https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/North-Dakota-Has-Highest-Rents-in-the-Country-from-Bakken-Boom.html https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/North-Dak...