'Amazon's HQ2 Was a Con, Not a Contest' (recode.net)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Recode: To dozens of cities across the United States, Amazon's widely publicized search for a "second headquarters" looked like thousands of new jobs, up for grabs. To Pivot co-host Scott Galloway, it now looks like a "ruse." "I lease office space all the time for my businesses and I always tell my real estate agent, 'We can lease any office in the world as long as I can walk there from where I live,'" Galloway said on the latest episode. "Amazon is now talking about having three headquarters, Seattle, Crystal City and Long Island City. The Bezos's also own three homes, and the average distance from those three homes to a headquarters is 6.4 miles.

"This was never a contest," he added. "It was a con meant to induce ridiculous terms that they then took to the cites all along that they knew they were going to be in." In other words: By soliciting bids from lots of place where it was never going to move, Galloway alleges, Amazon was probably able to get more tax breaks from the pre-determined "winners." "I would bet, Kara, that when they pick two cities and they went to 2 and 3, they didn't say, 'Well, only half our headquarters is going there, so we're going to let you cut the tax subsidies and incentives in half,'" he explained. "This just has ill will written all over it, and I think people started to figure out what was going on ... It's the Olympics on steroids. A lot of high fives and ribbon cutting, and then 10 years later, we realize it was a bad idea."

Comments

And this is why Bezos runs Amazon

[presidenteloco]

and you don't.

They're a business, what do you expect?

[kalpol]

I'm not the biggest fan of Amazon, but why should they leave money lying on the table? If they can negotiate concessions, they are perfectly within their rights and duties to do so. The cities obviously thought there was a net benefit somewhere or they would never have negotiated.

Re:They're a business, what do you expect?

[Tom]

I'm not the biggest fan of Amazon, but why should they leave money lying on the table?

From their perspective: They shouldn't.

From the perspective of society: We should force them to. Because that money can pay for schools, hospitals, police, firefighters, roads, electricity, water and a hundred other useful things.

Re:They're a business, what do you expect?

[rogoshen1]

The notion of 'Leaving money on the table' is the shiny side of the same coin as 'race to the bottom'.

Basically extracting as much from any given situation as possible; which just results in even greater concentrations of wealth; at the expense of people, suppliers, and society at large.

In this case though, it's especially repugnant because those 'gibs' amazon was trying to cajole local governments into granting would have to be paid for by the citizens, who get absolutely no say in the matter.

And for what? a few extra jobs (potentially!) that the bureaucrats can use for re-election fodder? Would the net tax base actually expand after all the concessions? Would Amazon's tricky bastard accountants figure out how to dodge them?

Re:They're a business, what do you expect?

[whoever57]

From the perspective of society: We should force them to. Because that money can pay for schools, hospitals, police, firefighters, roads, electricity, water and a hundred other useful things.

That's where politicians need to step up to the plate. Instead of bending over and competing to give the biggest tax concessions, they need to grow a pair and say no.

Remember how some people predicted that Scott Walker's deal between Wisconsin and Foxconn would be bad for Wisconsin? Now it's come out that those predictions are true.

Re:They're a business, what do you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's where politicians need to step up to the plate. Instead of bending over and competing to give the biggest tax concessions, they need to grow a pair and say no.
 
How about as a consumer the people who think this way just don't fucking buy from all the abusive corporations they shit on through outlets like Slashdork and Facebitch? Seriously, step the fuck up and start voting with your dollars. Buy from only small independent businesses. Stop the two day shipping, stop the swinging on the Walmart nutsack, stop crying that you can't stream every fucking episode of the latest dorkfest on Netflix.
 
Why is it you cunts cry that things should magically work some way and lean on the government to do your dirty work then turn around and piss and moan about how the government treats you like cattle?
 
Put on your big boy underoos and stop sucking at the teat of society while simultaneously crying that society is fucked up and you hate it.

Re:They're a business, what do you expect?

[liquid_schwartz]

The notion of 'Leaving money on the table' is the shiny side of the same coin as 'race to the bottom'.

Basically extracting as much from any given situation as possible; which just results in even greater concentrations of wealth; at the expense of people, suppliers, and society at large.

In this case though, it's especially repugnant because those 'gibs' amazon was trying to cajole local governments into granting would have to be paid for by the citizens, who get absolutely no say in the matter.

And for what? a few extra jobs (potentially!) that the bureaucrats can use for re-election fodder? Would the net tax base actually expand after all the concessions? Would Amazon's tricky bastard accountants figure out how to dodge them?

It's a democracy, it can be changed. Once the idiots figure out that white privilege is a myth but wealth privilege isn't then we can move on to solving this race to the bottom. Anyone who actually believes white privilege is a useful idiot of the 1%.

Re:They're a business, what do you expect?

[GameboyRMH]

If you believe wealth privilege isn't real, then you're a useful idiot for the 1%. If you believe white privilege isn't real, then you're a useful idiot for white supremacists.

Solve all the problems, don't be a useful idiot for anyone.

I think it has more to do

[rsilvergun]

with the fact that he graduated from Princeton. Not that he isn't bright, but It's naive to think the contacts he got from going to an Ivy league school didn't help matters.

Are we ever going to let companies and the 1%

[rsilvergun]

stop doing this to us? There's plenty of ways to stop them, and we can debate which are the best, but we're not even trying. In fact I'll wager a good number of people on this forum consider this kind of behavior praiseworthy as opposed to the anti-social and outright destructive policy it is.

True fact: Scott Adam's of Dilbert fame cracked jokes about a CEO moving the headquarters to be near his parents home for free babysitting. It's even more ironic when you realize Adam's would now (given his political views) probably side with Bezos.

And there's the Wisconsin Foxconn factory

[Streetlight]

There was a promised $3 billion cash subsidy that's now at $4.1 billion, the cost to the community of additional infrastructure such as roads, utilities, etc., 13,000 jobs that are now many fewer, a change in what's produced, and a governor who's soon to be out of office as a result of the recent election. I wonder if that project will be decommissioned.

Re:Tax exemptions are almost always a bad thing

[liquid_schwartz]

I'm saying I totally disagree with your points, I just think our leadership has for so long not thought of our tax dollars like a business does. Run the numbers. Does this tax break offset the full cost, and what does the city/county/state get in return?

I often wish this logic was applied to illegal immigration. Is it a good idea to let in millions of people with few skills who don't speak the language? They cost the state tons of money, a smart person would minimize the hell out of that demographic.

Bezos and Bezos chose the same cities!

[raymorris]

Bezos chose a couple cities where he wanted to buy a house for himself.

Later, Bezos chose a couple cities where he'd like to put his business. I'm SHOCKED that Bezos chose the same place that Bezos chose.

Hopefully the people negotiating with him in those cities realized that Bezos already had a house there, so clearly he likes that city. Therefore they wouldn't need to negotiate quite as much as another city might.

Re:Bezos and Bezos chose the same cities!

[NaCh0]

Hopefully the people negotiating with him in those cities realized that Bezos already had a house there, so clearly he likes that city. Therefore they wouldn't need to negotiate quite as much as another city might.

HAHAHAHAHA

Right.

Meanwhile in reality, government negotiators are so dumb, they probably threw in perks for Bezo's personal real estate to sweeten the deal of moving his business headquarters there.

Re:Tax exemptions are almost always a bad thing

[Bryan Ischo]

" Also, why would you want capital gains tax on stocks? You want your 401K to be taxed for gains, or your pension?"

Just to answer this nugget: anyone who proposes fairer or better tax structures is implicitly agreeing that taxing everyone (including themselves) for the common good (including themselves) is the right call.

So yes, if it's fair and beneficial to the state as a whole, I would support a tax on my 401k and/or pension.

I'm not saying one way or another whether these particular taxes are justified; I am speaking more to the sentiment you seem to be raising where it doesn't make sense for anyone to decide that taxes which would affect their own assets are a good idea.

It is the inability of lots of people to understand and accept a common sacrifice that is the heart of alot of social problems we have.

Of course, it's also the spend-whatever-you-can-and-then-ask-for-more attitude of most government that is at the heart of alot of other social problems we have.

A sensibly run government intelligently taxing the right amount to get the best bang-for-buck and do the most with the least possible? A pipe dream for sure ... but what a dream ...