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> It's Amazon's fault for bringing in high-paying jobs. That's not a fair description of the criticism. Amazon isn't "bad" for providing people high-paying jo

> It's Amazon's fault for bringing in high-paying jobs. That's not a fair description of the criticism. Amazon isn't "bad" for providing people high-paying jobs, Amazon is bad for dumping the financial pollution from their high-paying jobs in downtown Seattle. Those are not the same thing. It's possible to recognize that high wages for employees are great, but to also to recognize that these high-wage earners drive the cost of living up for all nearby residents, and since those residents can't also work for Amazon they have no recourse.

manfredo 8y ago
"Financial pollution?" No, high paying jobs do not drive up the cost of living. Unwillingness to accommodate growing populations and reluctance to building housing is what is what is driving up costs of living. Most cities would kill for this so-called "financial pollution".
- maxsilver 8y ago
  > No, high paying jobs do not drive up the cost of living. They absolutely do. Higher income folks can outbid and outpay for all basic essential services, driving the price of those services higher. Compare the cost of daycare in Seattle, for example, to the equivalent cost in say Michigan. > Unwillingness to accommodate growing populations Seattle is #1 in urban housing construction, nationwide. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/seattle-tops-the-nation-in-tower-cranes-for-third-straight-year-as-construction-reaches-new-peak/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/seattle-to... This isn't California, blaming lack of housing construction is not a valid argument. > Most cities would kill for this so-called "financial pollution". Their governments would, true. Most of their residents would not, because they'd have to bear the cost of the higher income residents. (See how most people's reaction to the Amazon HQ2 search was, "please not here")
  - manfredo 8y ago
    > They absolutely do. Higher income folks can outbid and outpay for all basic essential services, driving the price of those services higher. By why does bidding have to happen in the first place? Because there isn't enough supply. If increase of supply matches increase of demand, the price doesn't go up. Cities like Seattle have built a lot of housing but there's still more to be done. Seattle only built one unit of housing for every 3 jobs added. At least it's not as bad as San Francisco where only one unit of housing has been added for every 6 jobs. > Their governments would, true. Most of their residents would not, because they'd have to bear the cost of the higher income residents. (See how most people's reaction to the Amazon HQ2 search was, "please not here") Er, no, most people really did want Amazon to move there. New York is the exception not the norm, probably because the fallacious belief that well paying jobs causes costs to rise is generally more prevalent among so-called progressives (which disproportionately live in liberal cities).
    - rmah 8y ago
      The only objection to Amazon opening a facility in NYC was the tax breaks it got. Otherwise, no one in NYC would have cared much at all.
      - manfredo 8y ago
        True. Though I think there was a lot of misinformation about the Amazon deal. Lots of people thought that New York was actually giving Amazon 3 billion dollars, when in reality it was just waiving 3 billion worth of taxes over several years. It's like discounted rent as a move-in incentive.
    - maxsilver 8y ago
      > Because there isn't enough supply. No, Seattle proves that even if you get everybody with a pulse building apartment buildings, you still can't build enough supply to soak up the excess capital. For example: Why is there a shortage of daycare in Seattle? There's no shortage of space for it. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/developers-struggle-to-get-ground-floor-retail-leases/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/developers-struggle-to... There's no shortage of demand for daycare - https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/you-should-get-on-a-waiting-list-seattles-child-care-crunch-takes-toll-on-parents-providers/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/you-should-get-on-... . And all those Amazon employees are flush with cash. "Daycare centers will just pay more for labor, to hire more people" you say. "This money will trickle down to everyone that way" -- except it doesn't work that way - https://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/broken-economics-for-preschool-workers-child-care-sector https://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/broken-economic... . Just because Amazon people can afford high rates, doesn't mean everyone can. So daycare becomes broken for everyone, despite the "benefits" of the extra cash. It turns out that situations can be more complicated than "ECON 101: everything is just supply vs demand". I'm using daycare as an example above, but you can repeat this for lots of things (healthcare, housing, transportation, etc). This is how high income earners can "break" an economy with higher cost of living, despite not doing anything wrong themselves. And this isn't a hypothetical situation, this is how the problem is actually playing out today, across most mid-sized to major cities in the US nationwide.
  - smn1234 8y ago
    capitalism and greed renders the costs of goods and services. If an establishment wants to charge more because rich people are shopping, so be it. You don't necessarily have to, however. There's the option (hopefully given the opportunity) to expand and maintain the price. Alternatively, you can offer a lower tier of product or service at lower cost. I appreciate supply and demand, but no one forces you to raise your prices as demand increases. Many cultures choose not to accommodate increased demand, just to keep the quality as it was, for the set supply they've always accepted. How is it Amazon's issue?
  - WalterBright 8y ago
    On the other hand, many cities (like Cincinnati) have not made locals happy when their major employer left.
  - WalterBright 8y ago
    > outbid and outpay for all basic essential services There has been a rise in Seattle restaurant prices, but that was clearly due to the many new burdens placed on them by the city government. If there's money to be made from increased demand, businesses will appear to satisfy it, resulting in no increase in prices. In other words, prosperity does not cause inflation. The price rises in Seattle are in real estate, and that's because the government artificially restricts the supply of it.
    - reallydude 8y ago
      > There has been a rise in Seattle restaurant prices, but that was clearly due to the many new burdens placed on them by the city government. Not clearly. Much of the Seattle boom had a lot to do with Chinese investment. This recently took a downturn, with new Chinese politics and policies. Investment crashed, along with a bunch of luxury services and businesses (within the last year). Now you have areas that were traditionally high income, fueled by a combination of high-tech, medical, foreign investment, etc and fewer and fewer jobs and opportunities. The areas like Bellevue are struggling to keep expanding the high income standards without collapsing under the low-income needs and with fewer resources to power the bubble. Talking about AMZ is an abstract, since anyone blaming AMZ has a misunderstanding of the economics, for a partisan fairy tale. A high tide caused prices (and taxes) to rise and not all of them have fallen with the economic churn. While some of it is the govt, not all of it, imo.
  - jhall1468 8y ago
    > Compare the cost of daycare in Seattle, As someone in Seattle that pays for daycare, that's a terrible example if you're trying to prove your point. Seattle has some of the highest daycare costs in the country, and it's largely because the overhead costs (due to intense bureaucracy) means Seattle's supply of daycare is absolutely terrible for a city of its size.
  - ng12 8y ago
    > See how most people's reaction to the Amazon HQ2 search was, "please not here" I think this was only true for other deeply NIMBY cities like NYC and Boston. Other places are desperate for "financial pollution"/"economic opportunities".

manfredo 8y ago

"Financial pollution?" No, high paying jobs do not drive up the cost of living. Unwillingness to accommodate growing populations and reluctance to building housing is what is what is driving up costs of living. Most cities would kill for this so-called "financial pollution".

maxsilver 8y ago
> No, high paying jobs do not drive up the cost of living. They absolutely do. Higher income folks can outbid and outpay for all basic essential services, driving the price of those services higher. Compare the cost of daycare in Seattle, for example, to the equivalent cost in say Michigan. > Unwillingness to accommodate growing populations Seattle is #1 in urban housing construction, nationwide. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/seattle-tops-the-nation-in-tower-cranes-for-third-straight-year-as-construction-reaches-new-peak/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/seattle-to... This isn't California, blaming lack of housing construction is not a valid argument. > Most cities would kill for this so-called "financial pollution". Their governments would, true. Most of their residents would not, because they'd have to bear the cost of the higher income residents. (See how most people's reaction to the Amazon HQ2 search was, "please not here")
- manfredo 8y ago
  > They absolutely do. Higher income folks can outbid and outpay for all basic essential services, driving the price of those services higher. By why does bidding have to happen in the first place? Because there isn't enough supply. If increase of supply matches increase of demand, the price doesn't go up. Cities like Seattle have built a lot of housing but there's still more to be done. Seattle only built one unit of housing for every 3 jobs added. At least it's not as bad as San Francisco where only one unit of housing has been added for every 6 jobs. > Their governments would, true. Most of their residents would not, because they'd have to bear the cost of the higher income residents. (See how most people's reaction to the Amazon HQ2 search was, "please not here") Er, no, most people really did want Amazon to move there. New York is the exception not the norm, probably because the fallacious belief that well paying jobs causes costs to rise is generally more prevalent among so-called progressives (which disproportionately live in liberal cities).
  - rmah 8y ago
    The only objection to Amazon opening a facility in NYC was the tax breaks it got. Otherwise, no one in NYC would have cared much at all.
    - manfredo 8y ago
      True. Though I think there was a lot of misinformation about the Amazon deal. Lots of people thought that New York was actually giving Amazon 3 billion dollars, when in reality it was just waiving 3 billion worth of taxes over several years. It's like discounted rent as a move-in incentive.
  - maxsilver 8y ago
    > Because there isn't enough supply. No, Seattle proves that even if you get everybody with a pulse building apartment buildings, you still can't build enough supply to soak up the excess capital. For example: Why is there a shortage of daycare in Seattle? There's no shortage of space for it. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/developers-struggle-to-get-ground-floor-retail-leases/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/developers-struggle-to... There's no shortage of demand for daycare - https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/you-should-get-on-a-waiting-list-seattles-child-care-crunch-takes-toll-on-parents-providers/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/you-should-get-on-... . And all those Amazon employees are flush with cash. "Daycare centers will just pay more for labor, to hire more people" you say. "This money will trickle down to everyone that way" -- except it doesn't work that way - https://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/broken-economics-for-preschool-workers-child-care-sector https://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/broken-economic... . Just because Amazon people can afford high rates, doesn't mean everyone can. So daycare becomes broken for everyone, despite the "benefits" of the extra cash. It turns out that situations can be more complicated than "ECON 101: everything is just supply vs demand". I'm using daycare as an example above, but you can repeat this for lots of things (healthcare, housing, transportation, etc). This is how high income earners can "break" an economy with higher cost of living, despite not doing anything wrong themselves. And this isn't a hypothetical situation, this is how the problem is actually playing out today, across most mid-sized to major cities in the US nationwide.
- smn1234 8y ago
  capitalism and greed renders the costs of goods and services. If an establishment wants to charge more because rich people are shopping, so be it. You don't necessarily have to, however. There's the option (hopefully given the opportunity) to expand and maintain the price. Alternatively, you can offer a lower tier of product or service at lower cost. I appreciate supply and demand, but no one forces you to raise your prices as demand increases. Many cultures choose not to accommodate increased demand, just to keep the quality as it was, for the set supply they've always accepted. How is it Amazon's issue?
- WalterBright 8y ago
  On the other hand, many cities (like Cincinnati) have not made locals happy when their major employer left.
- WalterBright 8y ago
  > outbid and outpay for all basic essential services There has been a rise in Seattle restaurant prices, but that was clearly due to the many new burdens placed on them by the city government. If there's money to be made from increased demand, businesses will appear to satisfy it, resulting in no increase in prices. In other words, prosperity does not cause inflation. The price rises in Seattle are in real estate, and that's because the government artificially restricts the supply of it.
  - reallydude 8y ago
    > There has been a rise in Seattle restaurant prices, but that was clearly due to the many new burdens placed on them by the city government. Not clearly. Much of the Seattle boom had a lot to do with Chinese investment. This recently took a downturn, with new Chinese politics and policies. Investment crashed, along with a bunch of luxury services and businesses (within the last year). Now you have areas that were traditionally high income, fueled by a combination of high-tech, medical, foreign investment, etc and fewer and fewer jobs and opportunities. The areas like Bellevue are struggling to keep expanding the high income standards without collapsing under the low-income needs and with fewer resources to power the bubble. Talking about AMZ is an abstract, since anyone blaming AMZ has a misunderstanding of the economics, for a partisan fairy tale. A high tide caused prices (and taxes) to rise and not all of them have fallen with the economic churn. While some of it is the govt, not all of it, imo.
- jhall1468 8y ago
  > Compare the cost of daycare in Seattle, As someone in Seattle that pays for daycare, that's a terrible example if you're trying to prove your point. Seattle has some of the highest daycare costs in the country, and it's largely because the overhead costs (due to intense bureaucracy) means Seattle's supply of daycare is absolutely terrible for a city of its size.
- ng12 8y ago
  > See how most people's reaction to the Amazon HQ2 search was, "please not here" I think this was only true for other deeply NIMBY cities like NYC and Boston. Other places are desperate for "financial pollution"/"economic opportunities".