They wouldn't be collectively better off since they are not a collective. Only one gets the benefit.
Only one gets this facility. But hundreds of companies make relocation decisions every year, and plenty of them are offered tax incentives that are effectively subsidies. Many states and cities have bureaucracies to manage all the payouts.
It is a rotten inefficient and unfair system (small companies rarely get the subsidies), that provides no net benefit to the public. This sort of self-destructive race-to-the-bottom is exactly why the commerce clause exists in the US Constitution. Congress should ban these deals.
The subsidies have to come from somewhere. If you tax the town residents 10% of their income to subsidize the nickel smelter, that is equivalent to giving the smelter NO subsidy, and them just paying their workers 10% less, and then those workers will have 10% less to spend on other goods and services in the town.
The result is the same, except without the overhead and inefficiency of the government collecting the taxes and paying the subsidies.
Without the subsidies, it would also be easier for other business to locate in the town and offer alternative jobs that didn't require a subsidy. A big problem with subsidies, is that once they are in place, they come to be seen as entitlements, and are politically difficult to turn off.
Is there any evidence that any of these big subsidy deals to bring companies, sport franchises, etc have ever worked out to the benefit of the population of the municipality?
It is hard to say because each scheme is different, and you can't roll the experiment forward and then roll it back and try it again without the subsidy. Reality only has one timeline.
But we can say that on average they are a net loss. Amazon was going to expand no matter what. Without the subsidy they would have chosen the location based on the best business efficiency. So all the subsidy did was pay to pull the potential HQ from one city to another.
These subsidies are a Prisoner's Dilemma. Each city feels compelled to offer subsidies because the other cities are doing the same. But they would be collectively better off if none of them did so.
In one case you're spending money, in the other you're just not getting the money to spend.
People that believe this should not have credit cards.
See, the $3B invoice you don't send still nets you $27B in paid invoices, so you end up with a huge net positive.
No you don't. Those 25,000 highly skilled workers are not going to sit at home unemployed. NYC has record low unemployment. They are going to work for other companies that will pay the full $30B in taxes.
They were going to pay $27 billion instead of $30 billion. Now they will pay $0 billion.
Good. Now the land and labor is available to businesses willing to operate with subsidies.
Instead of a $3B giveaway to one business, NYC should be spending the money to improve their infrastructure, and remove the bureaucratic barriers to commerce. That will help all businesses in the city, rather than just one.
there were once predictions that the future would be a time of leisure, with a two-day work week.
These predictions were based on the assumption that demand for goods was constant, and people were mostly satisfied with what they had. Instead, leisure has only slightly increased because people prefer more goods and services rather than more time off.
Since 1950, the average house size in America has doubled, while family size has gone down. On average, people today have three times the living space. In 1950, a family would have either zero or one car. Today, there is a car for every driver.
you should look at the industrial revolution and what it did to unemployment levels.
Unemployment went down during the industrial revolution, while living standards soared. One driving force for farm automation was rural workers migrating to the city for better jobs and a better life than the grinding rural poverty they were leaving behind.
Between 1800 and 1900, American household income quadrupled.
Since then, it has quintupled again.
Similar growth happened in every country that industrialized, and no countries that didn't (except for petro-states).
Automation neither creates nor destroys jobs. What it does is make workers more productive, and thus more valuable. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, living standards in the Western World have gone up twenty-fold. To assert that "automation causes poverty" requires an astounding degree of blindness to historical reality.
Should non-technicians just go starve in the streets?
Good point. Some people aren't aware of how automation leads to starvation. That is why countries that have automated such as America, Western Europe, and Japan, are impoverished and starving, while the smart countries that avoided the "productivity catastrophe" such as Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Mozambique, are thriving and prosperous with plenty of well paying jobs for everyone.
You should publish a newsletter to help get the word out.
The problem is that the value produced by the robots goes to profits earned by the people owning the robots
This is only true if competitors don't also install robots. If everyone automates, the profit margins are competed away, and the added value goes primarily to consumers.
Of course, this is only true if we have free markets. Removing barriers to competition is the real solution, not slowing the adoption of automation.
that is, the rich people.
The biggest owners of capital in America are pension funds. So if you have a 401k or an IRA, that means you.
Shortly there will be no entry-level jobs, and after that there will be no jobs, period.
I'd be a bit scared to go there, simply due to the ease at which you can get yourself in serious trouble
The chance of a foreigner getting in trouble are very remote. Just follow these two simple rules:
1. Don't smuggle drugs 2. Don't get involved in local politics
The military is focused on suppressing the Thaksin supporting "Yellow Shirts" in the northwest, and the muslims in the extreme south. They have little presence in tourist areas like Phuket and Pattaya. Tourism is big business in Thailand, and the generals are well aware of that. The businesses that rely on tourism are mostly in urban "Red Shirt" areas, and are part of the regime's power base.
Slashdot Mirror
Without the subsidies, the businesses just clump together and nobody benefits but the already-rich.
I see. So corporate welfare is actually a way to keep the rich in line. Thanks for clarifying that.
They wouldn't be collectively better off since they are not a collective. Only one gets the benefit.
Only one gets this facility. But hundreds of companies make relocation decisions every year, and plenty of them are offered tax incentives that are effectively subsidies. Many states and cities have bureaucracies to manage all the payouts.
It is a rotten inefficient and unfair system (small companies rarely get the subsidies), that provides no net benefit to the public. This sort of self-destructive race-to-the-bottom is exactly why the commerce clause exists in the US Constitution. Congress should ban these deals.
The subsidies have to come from somewhere. If you tax the town residents 10% of their income to subsidize the nickel smelter, that is equivalent to giving the smelter NO subsidy, and them just paying their workers 10% less, and then those workers will have 10% less to spend on other goods and services in the town.
The result is the same, except without the overhead and inefficiency of the government collecting the taxes and paying the subsidies.
Without the subsidies, it would also be easier for other business to locate in the town and offer alternative jobs that didn't require a subsidy. A big problem with subsidies, is that once they are in place, they come to be seen as entitlements, and are politically difficult to turn off.
Is there any evidence that any of these big subsidy deals to bring companies, sport franchises, etc have ever worked out to the benefit of the population of the municipality?
It is hard to say because each scheme is different, and you can't roll the experiment forward and then roll it back and try it again without the subsidy. Reality only has one timeline.
But we can say that on average they are a net loss. Amazon was going to expand no matter what. Without the subsidy they would have chosen the location based on the best business efficiency. So all the subsidy did was pay to pull the potential HQ from one city to another.
These subsidies are a Prisoner's Dilemma. Each city feels compelled to offer subsidies because the other cities are doing the same. But they would be collectively better off if none of them did so.
Are you Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in disguise?
AOC would not be advocating for less bureaucracy.
In one case you're spending money, in the other you're just not getting the money to spend.
People that believe this should not have credit cards.
See, the $3B invoice you don't send still nets you $27B in paid invoices, so you end up with a huge net positive.
No you don't. Those 25,000 highly skilled workers are not going to sit at home unemployed. NYC has record low unemployment. They are going to work for other companies that will pay the full $30B in taxes.
They were going to pay $27 billion instead of $30 billion. Now they will pay $0 billion.
Good. Now the land and labor is available to businesses willing to operate with subsidies.
Instead of a $3B giveaway to one business, NYC should be spending the money to improve their infrastructure, and remove the bureaucratic barriers to commerce. That will help all businesses in the city, rather than just one.
Salted rain ? What could possibly go wrong with that ?
Not much. It is 10 m^3/sec of seawater. On a global scale that is an infinitesimal amount of salt, and is harmless.
Methane from cows is a serious problem
That is true, but most of the cow methane comes from belching, not farting.
I am a prominent New Yorker, and I want these imbeciles to stay away from New York
They have the right to locate their business in NYC on the same terms as any other company: Unsubsidized and paying their fair share of taxes.
Yes, as long as someone can figure out how to profit from having them do work.
Open your eyes, and look at reality.
Average income in America: $59,039
Average income in Ethiopia: $783
Are you seriously claiming that lack of automation leads to higher incomes?
We don't automate "jobs", we automate "tasks". These productivity improvements make workers more valuable, not less, and leads to higher incomes.
This has happened repeatedly all over the world for centuries, and has raised the incomes of billions of people.
To claim that rising productivity causes poverty, rather than relieving it, is so ridiculous that you make flat earthers look intelligent.
there were once predictions that the future would be a time of leisure, with a two-day work week.
These predictions were based on the assumption that demand for goods was constant, and people were mostly satisfied with what they had. Instead, leisure has only slightly increased because people prefer more goods and services rather than more time off.
Since 1950, the average house size in America has doubled, while family size has gone down. On average, people today have three times the living space. In 1950, a family would have either zero or one car. Today, there is a car for every driver.
you should look at the industrial revolution and what it did to unemployment levels.
Unemployment went down during the industrial revolution, while living standards soared. One driving force for farm automation was rural workers migrating to the city for better jobs and a better life than the grinding rural poverty they were leaving behind.
Between 1800 and 1900, American household income quadrupled.
Since then, it has quintupled again.
Similar growth happened in every country that industrialized, and no countries that didn't (except for petro-states).
Automation first brings jobs, then it kills them.
Automation neither creates nor destroys jobs. What it does is make workers more productive, and thus more valuable. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, living standards in the Western World have gone up twenty-fold. To assert that "automation causes poverty" requires an astounding degree of blindness to historical reality.
Should non-technicians just go starve in the streets?
Good point. Some people aren't aware of how automation leads to starvation. That is why countries that have automated such as America, Western Europe, and Japan, are impoverished and starving, while the smart countries that avoided the "productivity catastrophe" such as Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Mozambique, are thriving and prosperous with plenty of well paying jobs for everyone.
You should publish a newsletter to help get the word out.
The problem is that the value produced by the robots goes to profits earned by the people owning the robots
This is only true if competitors don't also install robots. If everyone automates, the profit margins are competed away, and the added value goes primarily to consumers.
Of course, this is only true if we have free markets. Removing barriers to competition is the real solution, not slowing the adoption of automation.
that is, the rich people.
The biggest owners of capital in America are pension funds. So if you have a 401k or an IRA, that means you.
Shortly there will be no entry-level jobs, and after that there will be no jobs, period.
Too late. The McCormick Reaper already destroyed all the jobs.
and li-ion batteries and the devices that contain them are allowed in the mail.
There are restriction on Li-ion batteries in airmail and priority mail. There are limits on size, and the package must be specially marked.
Compressed to 700 bar
No compression is needed: Just use cryogenic hydrogen with aerogel insulation.
Flying LA-Vegas or Boston-NYC is idiotic when you could build a train or hyperloop
Airports already exist. High-speed rails and hyperloops don't.
Flying requires expending energy to climb to altitude, whereas trains run on the surface
The air density, and thus the drag, is far higher on the ground than at 30,000 feet.
Trains are not much better than current aircraft at energy efficiency, so electric planes will be better than trains. And the planes don't need a trillion dollars of new infrastructure.
Progress on electric buses and short-haul electric planes was part of the reason California killed their SF-LA high-speed rail project.
Good luck doing that with a battery designed to hold enough energy to power an aircraft on a 9 hour flight.
Battery tech is improving by leaps and bounds. Reliability is way better than it was even 5 years ago.
Also, nobody is going to use batteries for a 9 hour flight. Electric planes will be used for short hops, like LAX to Las Vegas, or Boston to NYC.
Long flights may go to hydrogen, but certainly not batteries.
Given it doesn't apply to carry-on baggage, I'm not sure safety is the point either.
A fire in the cargo hold is difficult to detect and contain.
A fire in a passenger's pocket or backpack is immediately obvious and can be quickly isolated and extinguished by crew members.
we failed to keep the Internet out of the hands of national governments.
The Internet was created by a national government.
I'd be a bit scared to go there, simply due to the ease at which you can get yourself in serious trouble
The chance of a foreigner getting in trouble are very remote. Just follow these two simple rules:
1. Don't smuggle drugs
2. Don't get involved in local politics
The military is focused on suppressing the Thaksin supporting "Yellow Shirts" in the northwest, and the muslims in the extreme south. They have little presence in tourist areas like Phuket and Pattaya. Tourism is big business in Thailand, and the generals are well aware of that. The businesses that rely on tourism are mostly in urban "Red Shirt" areas, and are part of the regime's power base.
We used to have an internet that put power in the hands of people.
When was that? Do you mean when the NSF dictated policy, almost nobody had access, and most requests for domains were denied?
Why don't you guys worry first about the fact that you're a military dictatorship
Indeed. It is silly to worry about a slippery slope when you are already at the bottom.
The generals are running the country, there are soldiers on the street corners, and they are worried about "potential" abuse of power?
It is also probable they had knowledge of the lever
Monkeys use levers.
Birds use levers to pry bark off trees to get at the insects underneath.