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[LegendofJoe]

I'm assuming thag Amazon won't consider any location that doesn't already have a decent pool of tech talent. That will eliminate a lot of cities from contention. I think Atlanta, Raleigh, Denver, Toronto, Boston, DC, and Austin are likely the cities they're considering.

I hope they don't go with Raleigh or Denver because I have family in close proximity to both, and my wife and I are planning to move to one or the other in a few years. I want to be able to afford a decent place to live when we're ready to move.

 

[kirblar]

The point about Amazon already knowing where they want to have HQ2 is interesting, they're starting a bidding war to get their preferred location to offer even more incentives.

This was obvious from the start. There are a very limited number of places available that are going to be attractive to Amazon's potential employees.

I'm assuming thag Amazon won't consider any location that doesn't already have a decent pool of tech talent. That will eliminate a lot of cities from contention. I think Atlanta, Raleigh, Denver, Toronto, Boston, DC, and Austin are likely the cities they're considering.

I hope they don't go with Raleigh or Denver because I have family in close proximity to both, and my wife and I are planning on moving to one or the other in a few years. I want to be able to afford a decent place to live when we're ready to move.

Bezos recently bought a house in DC and they already have server farms here. It seems like a tell.

 

[LegendofJoe]

Bezos recently bought a house in DC and they already have server farms here. It seems like a tell.

DC's location seems ideal, right in the mid-atlantic and close to the most densely populated part of the country. And unlike most of the other locations their public transportation infrastructure is workable. They also have the most highly educated population of any city other than San Francisco I believe.

That said the cost of living there is also commensurate, I feel bad for anyone already struggling to pay their rent/mortgage. It won't be as bad as San Francisco, but it would be close. If you own property anywhere in Nova, DC, Silver Springs, Bethesda, etc. congratulations you will make bank if you're willing to sell.

 

[CornBurrito]

Disagree completely. You get Amazon in the door then other companies will follow along with other industry to feed/entertain the employees.

Should no businesses pay taxes?

 

[cdyhybrid]

lol, you are salty at something, I'm not going to pick at old wounds.

Just saying. Be careful what you wish for.

 

[CornBurrito]

Hollywood Duo, how is your argument anything but Trickle Down 2.0?

 

[Skellig Gra]

Should no businesses pay taxes?

Of course they should.

Hollywood Duo, how is your argument anything but Trickle Down 2.0?

If a city is on the decline for decades then drastic measures are needed to turn it around. Tax incentives can spur economic growth. Somewhere like Boston or DC would see very little benefit but a place like Newark,NJ would.

 

[Omegasquash]

Why? Corporate tax isn't the only revenue companies bring to a city. If more people are employed, if more people are earning higher wages, if more people are owning property... Responding with a lol to an RFP isn't particularly intelligent.

I think you misunderstand me. A unified "lol at those tax breaks you want" from cities would send a message to Amazon to reevaluate. And of course it won't happen, because cities DO want the influx of high earning jobs. There's ups and downs to that no doubt, but if we're looking at places like San Fran, NYC, and Boston as examples, the downs are serious. I work in Boston, I see the growth, and the gentrification taking place. Some of that is progress, but some of that is just wealth at the expense of those without.

Having these companies brings its own fair share of issues, but in Canada, they're saying Calgary for example has the best chance for a Canadian city... Currently it has
- 27% office vacancy rates
- ~8% unemployment rate
- Dwindling property tax with increasing rates

Do you think cities are really worried about the tax breaks when they're drastically diversifying and changing the dynamics of their economy when landing a big fish like Amazon? It guarantees the financial security of a city for 20+ years.

Cities and states should be worried about it, and try to get the better and best deal possible for their constituents no matter what. This isn't to assume that Amazon doesn't deal square, but it's foolish to think that Amazon, like any other entity, doesn't front load a proposal with terms that are the most favorable to them. A healthy "What?! No way, we can do X instead of Y" is part of the process.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

I have no idea why people are saying local tax incentives should be illegal. Firstly, it's one of the few weapons in a local governments armoury to enable it to incentivise companies to come to shit holes where there aren't any decent jobs. But beyond that, surely if it's a bad idea, that's up to the local electorate to decide when they vote for their local representatives in that level of government.

Look at this the other way around. Yes, it can help the individual cities. But with just a few big companies opening new headquarters, and a multitude of cities who'd like to house them, the companies have all the bargaining power.

In theory, if these tax incentives were illegal on a city level, companies wouldn't get away with this crap. I'm not an economist and I'd imagine a rule like this could have tons of other effects, but in theory it seems like a reasonable idea.

Edit: I also think corporate tax is stupid. If you want to tax rich people, just tax rich people. Mind you, that would involve actively raising taxes on the rich, not just gutting corporate taxes and calling it a day.

 

[CyclopsRock]

I have no idea why people are saying local tax incentives should be illegal. Firstly, it's one of the few weapons in a local governments armoury to enable it to incentivise companies to come to shit holes where there aren't any decent jobs. But beyond that, surely if it's a bad idea, that's up to the local electorate to decide when they vote for their local representatives in that level of government.

 

[Skellig Gra]

The thing is that Amazon has all the leverage, so expecting cities/states to play hardball isn't realistic.

 

[CyclopsRock]

Look at this the other way around. Yes, it can help the individual cities. But with just a few big companies opening new headquarters, and a multitude of cities who'd like to house them, the companies have all the bargaining power.

In theory, if these tax incentives were illegal on a city level, companies wouldn't get away with this crap. I'm not an economist and I'd imagine a rule like this could have tons of other effects, but in theory it seems like a reasonable idea.

Edit: I also think corporate tax is stupid. If you want to tax rich people, just tax rich people. Mind you, that would involve actively raising taxes on the rich, not just gutting corporate taxes and calling it a day.

... as opposed to? Deciding where to invest a lot of money is always fought over, whether it's researchers fighting for grants or cities fighting for companies or countries fighting for defence contracts. The power will be in the hands of those that are spending all the money anyway - how can the power possibly be in the recipients hands?

 

[Aureon]

The issue is that Amazon was going to built HQ2 anyway. This is just squeezing the government for money for something that would've happened anyway.
It may be a deal for a single city, but everyone ends up poorer to line some investor's pocket.

What specifically should be outlawed?

Local\State aid to corporations, much like EU rules prohibit such behavior.

 

[Cymbal Head]

Won't these greedy fat cat cities think of poor struggling Amazon with no money to pay tax bills.

 

[Coppanuva]

The thing is that Amazon has all the leverage, so expecting cities/states to play hardball isn't realistic.

So we should be happy when they choose to play along? Amazon has leverage in that they can choose where they want to build their HQ yes. I am going to be PISSED if my city bends over backwards to help welcome them and lowers taxes on them. Fuck that. You want Amazon to want to build a HQ there? You make laws that encourage that already, and you don't do it because 1 specific company asks you to.

 

[Skellig Gra]

So we should be happy when they choose to play along? Amazon has leverage in that they can choose where they want to build their HQ yes. I am going to be PISSED if my city bends over backwards to help welcome them and lowers taxes on them. Fuck that. You want Amazon to want to build a HQ there? You make laws that encourage that already, and you don't do it because 1 specific company asks you to.

Never said anyone has to be happy about it. It's just the reality of the situation.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

... as opposed to? Deciding where to invest a lot of money is always fought over, whether it's researchers fighting for grants or cities fighting for companies or countries fighting for defence contracts. The power will be in the hands of those that are spending all the money anyway - how can the power possibly be in the recipients hands?

Um, well not in this case with Amazon. Follow the story.

Companies would still have to decide where to build their headquarters, it just wouldn't be done on the basis of who is offering the most extra special tax break.

 

[Ether_Snake]

The location may already be decided because only some places can attract talent to move to or have a pre-existing base for talent. If it were so easy to move talent, Silicon Valley companies would have left highly-taxed California and the expensive Bay Area years ago. The idea that a company could be kingmaker and establish a tech hub by itself is wishful thinking. That’s why they are guessing Amazon already has an idea about where they want to be, they are just putting a process in place to allow them to ask the location for a favorable deal. They can say that X city has offered Y, can you match that to make your city more competitive?

If anyone is so sure Amazon has no choice but to pick them, then they have the upper hand over Amazon in the negotiations. That is how negotiations work, you are never told by the buyer “What a great offer! I have no choice but to pick you!”, you push for all of those making an offer to make the one most favourable to you, since they are trying to make the offer that is most favorable to themselves. All sides try to get the most favorable outcome for themselves. Period.

 

[boingball]

Amazon already knows where they want to go, they just want a sweet deal.
There is no need for any city to bid anything, in the end Amazon must pick a winner anyway.
I can foresee that this might actually be a bad idea for all the cities who bid an loose.
Another company can then come in and say: Hey, City X, we want to bring 1000 jobs to your city. Give us the same deal as you wanted to give Amazon and we are in.

 

[ShowDog]

I have no idea why people are saying local tax incentives should be illegal. Firstly, it's one of the few weapons in a local governments armoury to enable it to incentivise companies to come to shit holes where there aren't any decent jobs. But beyond that, surely if it's a bad idea, that's up to the local electorate to decide when they vote for their local representatives in that level of government.

The elected representatives have no fucking chance when dealing with sophisticated, billion dollar corporations. It’s like playing chess against a parrot.

It’s just a race to the bottom to see who’s dumb enough to give out a terrible deal. As these incentives become more and more common there won’t be anyone left paying taxes except the little guys, who are already outgunned trying to compete against the behemoths with their handouts from the taxpayers.

It’s easy to see why regulating these incentives on a federal level is at least something to think about.

 

[AbortedWalrusFetus]

Do you know how much money cities and states get from Amazon not being located there? Zero.

I get that it sucks that Amazon gets to bend these cities over the barrel and get their way with them, but for many cities finding jobs for their labor force, expanding their local tax base, and attracting even more business or startups to their region is important. As long as the presence of Amazon in the city is not actively COSTING the city money, which seems very far fetched to me, then it's a win for a city that is trying their damnedest to grow its local economy.

This to me is especially true for the rust belt. We're talking about cities that lost 25% of their population in the last 50 years, not cities that have already grown. Places that actually HAVE the infrastructure already in place, but don't have the same size population that the infrastructure was designed to actually serve. Places where they've got great educational institutions but watch their young promising workers move to other cities and thrive because they can't get a job locally due to a weak local economy.

I'm pulling for my city, Philadelphia, to get Amazon because it's exactly what the city needs. The city has TONS of space. We lost 500,000 population over the last 50 years. We've got the space to build and to do it affordably--we know it because we did it before. We've got the educated population as we've got one of the largest university clusters in the country. We've got a transit infrastructure that is struggling to see ridership numbers it had 30 years ago. We've had to close 27 schools because there were no students to go to them, and we didn't have the tax base to afford to keep them open.

Maybe the city doesn't get any tax revenue directly from amazon, but 20k high earning families moving to the neighborhood is going to increase the property tax base, it's going to increase the wage tax base, and it's going to increase the taxes collected from sales tax and other local taxes, but it's not going to cause a significantly higher strain on many of our infrastructure aspects because they were built and designed to handle 500,000 more people than they do.

 

[Luke_Wal]

DC's location seems ideal, right in the mid-atlantic and close to the most densely populated part of the country. And unlike most of the other locations their public transportation infrastructure is workable. They also have the most highly educated population of any city other than San Francisco I believe.

That said the cost of living there is also commensurate, I feel bad for anyone already struggling to pay their rent/mortgage. It won't be as bad as San Francisco, but it would be close. If you own property anywhere in Nova, DC, Silver Springs, Bethesda, etc. congratulations you will make bank if you're willing to sell.

For what it's worth, I live in Northern Virginia and worked at Best Buy until a couple of months ago. All of the people who worked in Geek Squad while I was there just got hired by AWS, including the manager, but they "Don't have an office to work out of right now." They've been told that "for now," they're mostly working from home or moving between server farms. It seems like a no-brainer.

But my God, as somebody who already is having a hard time finding even remotely affordable housing in my area (Fairfax, specifically), I can't even imagine what a bunch of Amazon people moving to the area would do to the housing market. There are already plenty of areas and neighborhoods that have been gentrified.

 

[kirblar]

For what it's worth, I live in Northern Virginia and worked at Best Buy until a couple of months ago. All of the people who worked in Geek Squad while I was there just got hired by AWS, including the manager, but they "Don't have an office to work out of right now." They've been told that "for now," they're mostly working from home or moving between server farms. It seems like a no-brainer.

But my God, as somebody who already is having a hard time finding even remotely affordable housing in my area (Fairfax, specifically), I can't even imagine what a bunch of Amazon people moving to the area would do to the housing market. There are already plenty of areas and neighborhoods that have been gentrified.

I have to imagine they'd be located up in Loudoun (hopefully close to the silver line endpoint), there's just no space in Fairfax.

 

[Darryl M R]

For what it's worth, I live in Northern Virginia and worked at Best Buy until a couple of months ago. All of the people who worked in Geek Squad while I was there just got hired by AWS, including the manager, but they "Don't have an office to work out of right now." They've been told that "for now," they're mostly working from home or moving between server farms. It seems like a no-brainer.

But my God, as somebody who already is having a hard time finding even remotely affordable housing in my area (Fairfax, specifically), I can't even imagine what a bunch of Amazon people moving to the area would do to the housing market. There are already plenty of areas and neighborhoods that have been gentrified.

God I really hope it is not in VA but DC proper. I'm not sure how space is looking in Southeast and Northeast.

 

[dionysus]

I am normally against top down fed heavy solutions to problems but in this case under the interstate commerce clause I wish there was a federal solution. A law that says there can be no carve outs to tax rates or direct subsidies benefiting individual or groups of businesses that is not available to all businesses in that class.

A few states actually have this on the state level, but have been ineffectual at enforcing it. Arizona comes to mind as the subsidies to various sports teams have basically been upheld even though there are laws against government subsidies to businesses.

 

[DiscoJer]

Are there large corporations that don't do this? It's scummy, but that's how corporatism works.

 

[WarLox]

Amazon knows where they are going. They are using other cities to get a better deal from the place they want.

I dont understand why that is wrong. People continue to interview after getting a job offer at a place they want to work at, to get a higher salary when it comes time to negotiate. People wait until the end of the month to buy cars because they know salesmen have quotas to make.

Same can be said for many other haggle type situations.

I dont get why people are getting bent over something everyone does in their daily lives.

...and the goal of these ceos is to minimize expenses and maximize profits. These companies aren't in business to make the world a better place for everyone.

Do you expect amazon to go out of their way to pay more to build their hq2? Lol

 

[Dingens]

What specifically should be outlawed?

how about back-door deals?
the same laws should apply to everyone.
If they want to compete, they should do so by providing infrastructure and other things EVERYONE benefits from.
The way they behave right now is borderline parasitic.

 

[antonz]

Major companies pull this shit all the time. Apple was under fire for the shit they pulled in North Carolina promising huge amounts of jobs then delivering barely any while reaping insane benefits from the state.

 

[CornBurrito]

I have no idea why people are saying local tax incentives should be illegal. Firstly, it's one of the few weapons in a local governments armoury to enable it to incentivise companies to come to shit holes where there aren't any decent jobs. But beyond that, surely if it's a bad idea, that's up to the local electorate to decide when they vote for their local representatives in that level of government.

How the fuck are you a libertarian that also believes the government should pick and choose winners? lol