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Amazon To NYC After Reconsidering HQ2 Plans: It'd Be a Shame If Something Happened To Your Kids' CS Education
theodp writes: Commenting on reports that Amazon is reconsidering its plan to bring 25,000 jobs to a new campus in New York City following a wave of political and community opposition, Amazon issued the following statement: "We're focused on engaging with our new neighbors -- small business owners, educators, and community leaders. Whether it's building a pipeline of local jobs through workforce training or funding computer science classes for thousands of New York City students, we are working hard to demonstrate what kind of neighbor we will be." Yep, it'd be a shame if something happened. The Washington Post earlier reported that New York State Sen. Michael Gianaris, a strong opponent of the Amazon HQ2 deal, described the possibility that Amazon would pull out of the deal -- which totals up to $3 billion in state and city incentives -- as akin to blackmail. "Amazon has extorted New York from the start, and this seems to be their next effort to do just that," he said. "If their view is, 'We won't come unless we get three billion of your dollars,' then they shouldn't come." Over at Vice, Ankita Rao examines what Amazon infiltrating America's school system might look like.
I'm not exactly a fan of Amazon, but it's rational for them to dedicate resources to the communities where they will have a significant presence. If they don't go to New York, and go somewhere else instead, then resources they were going to spend on the community in New York will instead go somewhere else.
Three places where profit motive has absolutely no place in a healthy society: Healthcare, Corrections... and Education. Profit motive in these areas only subverts the public good.
>Education only works if teachers can teach instead of being bound to reciting material designed by non-educators working for billion-dollar companies that are designed to encourage dependency on their services and work advertising into lessons.
Oh, you mean like the standardized testing industry?
Kids don't need Amazon to learn computer science. Just like my dad got a Timex Sinclair to teach me, if a parent these days want their kids to learn then they can get a raspberry pi.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Keep business out of education
This was true when Carnegie/Rockefeller and the like were trying to sabotage education and it's true now.
A nation of idiots is far less of a threat to the ruling classes.
Not like they would even get hired by Amazon anyway. They prefer h-1b visas where the workers can't leave for better pay and working conditions.
Their only goal here is to flood the market with as many programmers as possible to lower their salaries. You'd think once you had more money than you could ever spend, it would be enough, but apparently not.
Hmm, will the CS curriculum say AWS is the *only* Cloud that matters?
"Amazon has extorted New York from the start, and this seems to be their next effort to do just that," he said. "If their view is, 'We won't come unless we get three billion of your dollars,' then they shouldn't come."
This is just stupid. A deal involves two parties. New York politicians want the state to back out of their half of the deal, but this guy thinks that they should be able to hold Amazon to their half.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Give them the 3 billion anyway? After the inhabitants of the city just told Amazon to go fuck themselves?
Telling someone to go fuck themself has consequences.
Yeah, like what General Motors did in Australia.
"Yeah, we need all this funding and financial support to keep car manufacturing here for the next decade. Think of the jobs!"
a year or two later
"We're shutting down all manufacturing in Australia, no you can't have your money back"
And this my friends is exactly why I am not a big fan of the argument that we should keep taxes low and rely on charities to pay for stuff.
Once the money is given by companies, or billionaire, their donations become concerns for any negotiations. Tax them and where the money is spent is no longer their decision but the public's decision.
Their projections show that they will recoup the cost. Past experience shows these projections are usually wildly optimistic.
Tax incentives and subsidies are a Prisoner's Dilemma. Each locale feels obligated to offer incentives because other locales are offering them. But they would be collectively better off if no one offered them. Amazon would still expand, but do so on the basis of business efficiency rather than subsidies. If NYC wants to attract more businesses, they should improve their overall friendliness to commerce, rather than lavishing subsidies on one corporation.
These subsides are a race to the bottom. This is what the Commerce Clause in the US Constitution was designed to prevent. The CC has often been abused, but a federal ban on these subsidies would be a legitimate use, and would be an overall benefit to the country's economy, and a relief to the taxpayers.
You can't lure a kid into programming by thinking that way. A kid can be both, I was, but in the end their interest in programming and/or gaming will be mutually exclusive. I know a kid who is gaming motivated. He likes to hack his nintendo with 3D models and at one point required a Python script. Since he's not interested in programming, he only gains a superficial knowledge of how to install Python on windows and where to put the script and run it. Only if he is interested in development would he attempt to delve into what the script does and entertain the taught of modifying it.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Saying that tax breaks are not a direct subsidy is a flat out lie. It this circumstance it's a bribe and for Amazon it's a "head I win tails you loose" proposition. It's just like building sport stadiums: a scam to loot the public treasury for private profit. (Just ask St. Louis or San Diego about the Rams and Chargers moving to LA.)
If you don't think that tax breaks are a subsidy then why not tax religion? Just suggest it. I dare you. Tax breaks are money in the pocket. Besides being declared as an agent of the devil by "legitimate" religious figures some nut job will do a drive by and put a bullet into your house or perhaps toss a Molotov cocktail in your direction.
Everyone who profits from sucking off the public teat is the same: they think their free ride is a natural law of the universe and any other option is a perversion of the natural order. Libertarians are just another set of blood sucking scamsters.
Why is Snark Required?
why not tax religion? Just suggest it. I dare you
Tax religion. Go for it. Treat them as exactly what they are: Profit generating businesses.
Better yet, regulate them. Prevent them from preying on vulnerable people and forbid them from self-policing. Maybe we can reduce the numbers of children abused.
I'd happily vote for this.