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'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."
"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."
And you woke up to that now?
Is being retarded a requirement for holding a public office or does it just help a lot? Half of the times a large company is "searching for a cooperation partner" or some such, they already have a winner in mind. They just need to go through the motions for regulatory or political purposes. And it is quite common to make invitations to tender as a means to press the price of your favorites down somewhat. Even if they understand they are your preferred choice, the competition will force them into making a better offer.
Been there, done that.
The Amazon search was never an open-ended search and anyone with three working brain cells understood that. At best they had only favorites and it maybe might have been possible to sway them. More likely, two spots were already certain and one was a "maybe". Wouldn't be surprised if all of them were certain at the start.
Seriously, to expect any kind of "fair play" behaviour from an international corporation only shows that whatever you are smoking needs to be made illegal. Profit is the only ethics of a corporation, because the entire system is set up like that.
Simple way to stop it - don't allow externalities anymore. Put a price on pollution, on negative social impact, on any behaviour you want to discourage and companies will follow the money. They're like drug addicts. You could start by stopping to compete for company favors and make them compete for your grace again. I've always thought it absurd that counties or cities compete against each other to attract a company.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Tax exemptions are NOT almost always a bad thing. In fact they are a tool, unfortunately a tool in the hand of government. Lets face it, the people in government are not the sharpest tools in the shed. So they make bad deals. Try this: Before you offer tax exemptions to someone run simulations for the life of the exemptions and see if you can afford it. Did Seattle try this?
And yes I'm a native Washingtonian. I've stumped the Amazon streets. You should know it's illegal according to our state constitution to have an income tax, so the politician knew about this. Also, why would you want capital gains tax on stocks? You want your 401K to be taxed for gains, or your pension? Almost everything would be impacted by a capital gains tax.
Of course you missed the one source of income. Oh, right 40,000, each making over 6 figures running around Seattle spending money on goods which have one of the highest sales tax in the country. (~10.1%)
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? Hope the new "HQs" are running these numbers. Let the dumb ones over bid. It's like in sports with the new free agent. You usually regret it as the contract goes on.