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"We know the game is rigged": NYC mayor slams Amazon HQ2 reversal
In a New York Times op-ed published Saturday evening, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio condemned Amazon for its decision to pull the plug on its HQ2 expansion in Queens, calling it a byproduct of massive economic power concentrated in the hands of few wealthy corporations.
As the mayor of the nation's largest city, a place that's both a progressive beacon and the very symbol of capitalism, I share the frustration about corporate America. So do many of my fellow mayors across the country. We know the game is rigged. But we still find ourselves fighting one another in the race to secure opportunity for our residents as corporations force us into all-against-all competitions.
Amazon's HQ2 bidding war exemplified that injustice.
Previously: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Headquarters
(Score: 4, Interesting) by stretch611 on Monday February 18 2019, @06:59AM (9 children)
Take the $3 billion in incentives to Amazon.
Use it to improve city infrastructure... Roads, Subways, Water System... if there is anything leftover, maybe make a small windfarm on the river or solarfarm on some rooftops.
Using that money will add jobs to the economy. It will improve the citizens quality of life. It will do much better giving back to the citizens instead of giving the money to Amazon.
And no one should cry for Amazon... it definitely is NOT a victim:
Amazon made an $11.2bn profit in 2018 but paid no federal tax [theguardian.com]
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: -1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 18 2019, @10:14AM (8 children)
The $3 billion was a tax break against projected tax revenue of $27 billion over 10 years. There is no $3 billion in cash for DeBlabbero to spend on subways. Did you go to the same "special school" as AOC and the other socialist retards who fail basic math and economics?
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Monday February 18 2019, @12:12PM (7 children)
Well, I don't know, maybe we can create a financial product that might help us then. On a whim, lets call it a "bond." Where a municipality can borrow money based on expected future tax revenues for projects of public interest.
And spending this money creates jobs, companies with contracts earn more money meaning more tax revenue, more people are gainfully employed also creating more tax revenue. With more people working, local businesses like shops and diners get patronized more creating more ta income and possibly even creating a few more jobs.
And lets face it, if Amazon liked the area, chances are other companies would like the area too. Having better infrastructure in the area adds to the incentive of companies wanting to move in.
Giving companies with billions of profit tax breaks isn't doing any good. In fact if you read the article that I linked to above, not only does Amazon not pay federal taxes, but the federal government gives them a tax rebate... despite $10b in profit... And that is PROFIT, not revenue. So, how many individual taxpayers are out there paying for Amazon's share of taxes that it is able to write off? (at 21% that is over $2b in taxes.)
Based on the data here [taxfoundation.org], the average taxpayer paid $10,299.41 in taxes during 2015. That means a little under 195,000 individuals are taxed to get the same amount of taxes that Amazon is forgiven to pay in 2018. Thats a lot of people that are paying taxes so that Amazon doesn't have to and can pass the profits along to the shareholders. (And the majority of shareholders are wealthy and don't need the extra money.)
And, while you may try (and fail) to insult my intelligence and academic experience, unlike you I actually have the balls to associate my opinions with my account. I'm not a whiny b!tch hiding behind an anonymous coward posting.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 18 2019, @04:16PM (2 children)
Hey Stretch, this is a different person replying to your post.
Just a logic tip: posting your opinions under the made-up handle "Stretch" in no way improves your arguments. Do you really believe that your handle automatically gives you +1 in an internet argument? That's a basic debate fail.
Signed,
Fruity Loops
+1 because I used a handle
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 18 2019, @04:45PM (1 child)
The site gave him a +1 for using his handle. Complain at the right person, you fucking autist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20 2019, @04:33AM
Hey autist, he was claiming superiority in a debate because he used a handle and the other guy didn't.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday February 18 2019, @05:43PM (2 children)
The hostility of the prior commenter aside (having rightfully earned his -1 Troll) and your feeding him in your last paragraph....
"Maybe we can create a financial project," is not, "we have an inked deal that will be bringing in $24 billion in tax revenue." And using bonds as you suggest is directly equivalent to paying all your bills on your credit card without really knowing how you'll pay off that credit card. (As many cities which have gone into bankruptcy have now found out). You're counting your chickens before the eggs have been laid, where at least with the Amazon deal the eggs were in fact laid and expected to hatch, anyway. If all the peepul didn't stomp all over them.
You're also conflating the Federal government with municipalities. What Amazon gets from the Fed shouldn't matter in the slightest to cities competing for the tax revenue. I'd posit that most of the Phoenix municipal area as it is today has been built out thanks to Motorola and Intel over the last fifty years. And it's the cities which are in competition with one another in a fair imitation of the Hunger Games.
You may not like it (I don't) but municipalities have to compete for such now and the successful communities and states will lobby very hard to keep it that way. Otherwise it doesn't matter how much infrastructure you build up for them - if you won't cut their business some slack they'll go somewhere else if they're big enough to be able to. Is it good for the whole of society to operate that way? Absolutely not. But can you stem the tide of greed? Amazon is proving that even the 15th largest metropolis on Earth (and 1st in the United States) will bow to the corporate will, when they can theoretically put their headquarters at any location on Earth. Or pay the price. Because as a nation we allow that.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Monday February 18 2019, @09:08PM (1 child)
I agree, I did feed the troll. I realize that is not the best reaction, but sometimes, they do deserve it. (essentially making me a troll as well.)
I do realize that the feds are different from the municipalities and their tax revenues are completely separate. (even though occasionally, the feds will put some money for projects to local areas, usually in the form of grants or matching funding.) However, the point I was trying to make was that if a company receives a tax break from the government someone will have to make up that revenue to the government instead. Federal or Local, they do need their revenue. By giving these breaks to highly profitable corporations that really do not need them, we are essentially extending corporate welfare.... and primarily the rich benefit from this while the people that actually need help, can end up paying for it.
I agree, I do not like municipalities competing on tax breaks. It is much better to compete on the concentration of your target market, infrastructure, or labor pool. It does tend to give that same corporate welfare to those that do not need it. I wish that maybe here in the US, voters will eventually get fed up with the whole thing and make it illegal like it is in the EU.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday February 19 2019, @10:22PM
I thought I had replied to this yesterday. Maybe better, because I can short it. I didn't know that such courting of corporations was illegal in the EU, that's interesting. Over there one can also establish VAT taxes such that there's some derived tax simply out of whatever the company does and it doesn't matter if they're a goods or service producer. While I don't think the system is workable (greed in general and American greed in particular will keep the system rigged as it is - and the mayors do their part of the rigging), I agree that a county/state/nation as a whole would be better off if municipalities couldn't give breaks like that. (While also penalizing areas that might benefit from the same. What if it were rural Appalachia - if that still exists - offering a tax break to lure a company that would otherwise treat the location as a flyover at best. Would that be ethically better than New York offering it? And why or why not?)
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 18 2019, @07:15PM
Great idea, what could possibly go wrong? [usdebtclock.org]
What trickles down from 25,000+ new jobs via NY state income tax?
What you're edging towards with this line of thinking (and I would agree) is that a progressive federal capital gains tax would be more effective than increasing corporation tax or income tax.
Trumps SALT deduction limit has seen falling tax receipts in Blue states. Funny DeBlasio threatens higher taxes on the rich but that happened and the result is a $2.3 billion shortfall in NY tax receipts and this is economics 101. My barb was basically of the form that intelligent and educated people should know better.