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The sad irony is that the very thing that drew Amazon to the D.C. area is the very thing that makes it too expensive for regular people to live here: The bloated, overbearing, overgenerous, overregulating federal leviathan.
The three wealthiest counties in America, and 7 of the top 12, are within commuting distance of the U.S. Capitol. One result is inflated housing prices across the region.
The D.C. area is so expensive because the federal government is too big and powerful. The $4 trillion budget of the federal government makes the Beltway a very profitable place to live and do business. In 2015, the D.C. area federal civilian payroll was $57 billion. Take a Commerce Department bureaucrat married to a civilian at the Pentagon, and if they’re both GS-14s, they can easily earn $250,000, and know that a cushy pension and taxpayer-provided healthcare await them in retirement.
But given how D.C. works, at least one of those two will truly monetize their public service, cashing out to become lobbyists and consultants. That consulting class is what mostly underlies the obscene wealth of the region.
And here lies the real crime. Big companies like Amazon feel the need to invest in former congressmen, Pentagon lifers, and ex-bureaucrats to lobby, finagle, massage, and navigate the sprawling and complex web of taxes, regulations, handouts, and mandates.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wisconsin-...ry?id=59166523
First Bezo's buys a newspaper to leverage himself toward molding opinion and influencing of publicity whores and decision makers in government, now they want their HQ as close as possible to the DC power center to hire ex officials to game the economic system for them and grease the wheels of Amazon, Inc. New York City is part of DC as far as policy and influence goes, and for Amazon it is close enough.
We have been asleep for the last 40 years, as monopolies have suffocated the country. Amazon is only the most egregious in it's drive to make humans compete with robots, not to improve its humans, but to improve its robots. The other facet of the elitist jewel is "big data", selling advertising paths to our subconscious based on what we discuss in private in our correspondence and searches.
The rats in the maze have it better. They get a food pellet at the end. Welcome to your future.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wisconsin-...ry?id=59166523
First Bezo's buys a newspaper to leverage himself toward molding opinion and influencing of publicity whores and decision makers in government, now they want their HQ as close as possible to the DC power center to hire ex officials to game the economic system for them and grease the wheels of Amazon, Inc. New York City is part of DC as far as policy and influence goes, and for Amazon it is close enough.
We have been asleep for the last 40 years, as monopolies have suffocated the country. Amazon is only the most egregious in it's drive to make humans compete with robots, not to improve its humans, but to improve its robots. The other facet of the elitist jewel is "big data", selling advertising paths to our subconscious based on what we discuss in private in our correspondence and searches.
The rats in the maze have it better. They get a food pellet at the end. Welcome to your future.
https://youtu.be/5HS2TstPfW4
I know john oliver isnt popular amongst the right but watch this 15 minute piece about the swamp which came out 3 days ago please.
Meanwhile, 25000 jobs have been created in DC and another 25,000 in NY along with the economic benefits of that, including MORE taxes collected (several different kinds of taxes).
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wisconsin-...ry?id=59166523
First Bezo's buys a newspaper to leverage himself toward molding opinion and influencing of publicity whores and decision makers in government, now they want their HQ as close as possible to the DC power center to hire ex officials to game the economic system for them and grease the wheels of Amazon, Inc. New York City is part of DC as far as policy and influence goes, and for Amazon it is close enough.
We have been asleep for the last 40 years, as monopolies have suffocated the country. Amazon is only the most egregious in it's drive to make humans compete with robots, not to improve its humans, but to improve its robots. The other facet of the elitist jewel is "big data", selling advertising paths to our subconscious based on what we discuss in private in our correspondence and searches.
The rats in the maze have it better. They get a food pellet at the end. Welcome to your future.
Hmm... but at what cost? The 'deal' initially advertised was Amazon HQ2 and 50K 'new' jobs in exchange for who knows what in incentives at public expense. The 'deal' in actuality turned out to be for only part of that - Amazon HQ.22% and maybe half (or less) that many jobs but a the same (full?) public expense for each added HQ site.
Amazon said that one HQ2 would bring 50,000 jobs. What difference does it make if they split that into two HQ2's at 25,000 jobs each?
The public didn't lose anything. The public actually gained. And even you yourself said "who knows"? Nothing was there before Amazon, collecting zero dollars in corporate taxes so, any tax deals that were made, even at zero dollars in corporate taxes, brings in the exact same as they had before, zero. But, now we will have increased economies in the area helping businesses and those businesses will do more business, paying more in corporate taxes and products will bring in increased sales taxes. And, the jobs provided will bring income and other payroll taxes from those jobs. Everyone is a winner from Jeff Bezos on down the line.
Hmm... but at what cost? The 'deal' initially advertised was Amazon HQ2 and 50K 'new' jobs in exchange for who knows what in incentives at public expense. The 'deal' in actuality turned out to be for only part of that - Amazon HQ.22% and maybe half (or less) that many jobs but a the same (full?) public expense for each added HQ site.
Plenty, if it got a 'deal' based on adding 50K jobs in each location. Much like if I put in a bid for building you a 20' x 40' deck, get a material draw and then say for the same price that I will now only build you a 20' x 20' deck.
25000 Jobs at a salary of probably over $100 000, will generate a significant amount of economic activity in each region. Add on another 40 000 jobs at lower pay rates in for local jobs created due to spending by those 25 000 people and it could. Then you get the network effect of having other companies locate to those regions to be "close" to Amazon and perhaps poach some Amazon employees for a tech boost for themselves.
Overall a much better economic deal than the Billion dollar sports stadiums that local governments usually pony up for.
Mr. Bezos isn’t going to be paying someone 100K to fold in a box, drop a product in it and add worms. The ones who do that might get 10 bucks an hour tops.
States/politicians have been giving monetary advantages to businesses to attract them for a long time. In fact, quite a lot of conservatives here have bragged about things like low tax rates and low minimum wages in red states, jeering about how blue states are going to lose out when businesses move away.
Quite odd to see some people turn around and suddenly go hey....those states are giving cushy deals to Amazon to win the HQ bid
And anti-trust enforcement? Yeah, that has been lax for a long time. Disappointingly so under Obama, but expected under GOP administrations. After all, one of their core tenets for the last several decades has been appeasement of Deep Pocket Entities, whether it's looking the other way in the anti-trust context, doling out tax and similar advantages, or even straight-up tax cuts weighted to the wealthiest (and most recently, corporations).
We're suddenly upset about Amazon and worried?
Hey wait a minute....is Bezos a liberal? Is that what's going on here?
But subsidies for companies is usually a right wing play. Liberitarians are against corporate giveaways but republicans in general are all about being business friendly and bending over backwards.I think if you asked around you would find most conservatives are not in favor of the corporate giveaways of the scale they are at now. The get cities to compete against each other using taxpayer money. If it's too high for Amazon, then it's too high for everyone else.
California is even waiving environmental obstacles for stadiums, etc. They can't deal with the burden everyone else shoulders daily.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wisconsin-...ry?id=59166523
First Bezo's buys a newspaper to leverage himself toward molding opinion and influencing of publicity whores and decision makers in government, now they want their HQ as close as possible to the DC power center to hire ex officials to game the economic system for them and grease the wheels of Amazon, Inc. New York City is part of DC as far as policy and influence goes, and for Amazon it is close enough.
We have been asleep for the last 40 years, as monopolies have suffocated the country. Amazon is only the most egregious in it's drive to make humans compete with robots, not to improve its humans, but to improve its robots. The other facet of the elitist jewel is "big data", selling advertising paths to our subconscious based on what we discuss in private in our correspondence and searches.
The rats in the maze have it better. They get a food pellet at the end. Welcome to your future.
The bit with the pump was spot on - replacing which cronies get greased (more) is closer to the reality of Trump's "swamp draining" attempts.
Isn't this what Rupert Murdoch did?
Bought the Sun, Times, New York Post, The Herald, and Fox news...All exclusive pump his personal political agenda and his ideology.
Why do you have issue with one billionaire who owns one news paper and not another billionaire who owns a huge Media empire and actively prompting his own political views?
Diving Mullah
Plenty, if it got a 'deal' based on adding 50K jobs in each location. Much like if I put in a bid for building you a 20' x 40' deck, get a material draw and then say for the same price that I will now only build you a 20' x 20' deck.
Sorry if I get the technicalities wrong, in regards to that new agency formed by making the regulation of oil drilling not being the same agency that collects money from those same companies.... it used to be filled by navy and scientific specialists and is now filled by an oil lobbiest.....I get that, but the things he is blaming Trump for not doing, no one else has tried to do either. No president in our country has done anything. If anything the video is more “whataboutism”. We need Trump to get bipartisan support energize the justice department to get cracking on anti trust, but as long as the tech giants are supporting on one side or the other, there will never be bipartisan support.
Tech isn’t making computers any more, it is in control of everything we view and most of what we read.
The deal they got, at least the big one from New York (Excelsior program), was based on a percentage of wages, so the deal is smaller if the number of jobs they bring in is smaller.
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