So Amazon turns down NYC -

[Teenwolf]

So to the folks like AOC, who have actually lived in tiny shared overpriced apartments, and earned minimum wage, and have actually experienced the massive struggle of living in a major city... you all call the rejection of Amazon idiotic. Hilarious. Amazon needed NYC more than the inverse. Stop parroting MSM, all of you. They're mad because they're friends with property speculators who just lost a bunch of money, or they invested themselves. You support subsidizing a billionaire's helipad? You support the continuation of crushing the right for workers to unionize, instead favoring brutal and inhumane treatment of workers? You support a monopoly that not only didn't pay taxes on $11 Bn, but actually received hundreds of millions through tax loopholes... receiving more tax breaks? All in the name of supporting increased monopolization, and increased automation, the 2 biggest threats to the job market?
I call that much more idiotic than AOC's claim about investing the money in public infrastructure.

But I definitely don't have the patience of Feral Slasher to jump back into this pit with you all hurling personal attacks while claiming "I just want legitimate discussion". Like 10 pages of pissy-pants personal attacks. What a farce. Have fun, y'all.

Michael Brooks summarizes it all in the video.

[Judge Jude]

Amazon paid more than $1B in state, local, and international taxes in 2018.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/am...too-2019-02-15

it is true that they paid less than nothing in federal taxes.

meanwhile, I called AOC's idiotic statement idiotic - but not necessarily the rejection of Amazon's bid. I need actual data before reaching a conclusion, as old-fashioned as that is.

[Teenwolf]

Amazon paid more than $1B in state, local, and international taxes in 2018.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/am...too-2019-02-15

it is true that they paid less than nothing in federal taxes.

meanwhile, I called AOC's idiotic statement idiotic - but not necessarily the rejection of Amazon's bid. I need actual data before reaching a conclusion, as old-fashioned as that is.

I appreciate your position. Here's my take:

AOC has consistently shone a light on the reality of living on poverty wages in NYC, and what the Amazon deal would mean for those living there. Gentrification eliminates affordable housing as a core principle.

As someone who averaged earning under $35K/yr living in Vancouver, being "renovicted" multiple times, seeing my friends all forced out of their apartments for the same BS excuse to get around tenancy rights... I've experienced all of the garbage that AOC talks about, living as part of the servant class for the elites in an ultra rich city and seeing rent increase 300% in a decade on foreign investment property hoarding... you're damn right I care a lot more about what AOC is fighting for than supporting corporate welfare.

Can anybody else here relate to that gentrification paradox? My friend is paying $2100/month for a 1 bedroom apartment so he can see his daughter on weekends and he sleeps on the couch... even the middle class struggle in these monopolized mega cities. Most of my friends live with multiple roommates into their 40's. So yeah, those people with housing insecurity have legitimate cause to protest corporate welfare that would impact the sustainability of living there.

You want to quibble over the comment about spending the $ on public infrastructure as opposed to billionaire helipads?? Fine. But understand what AOC is talking about rather than slamming the slight inaccuracy of the assumption you could spend money on public infrastructure just as easily as you could on corporate handouts. I think her point is a lot more valid than the attack on the specificity of her claim.

[The Feral Slasher]

This has been a fun read, thanks guys. A couple of comments.

My concern with the large tax breaks is the fluid, uneven playing field. My city was a finalist in this bizarre competition but its bid (which was a public one) included zero tax incentives. That meant that we weren't seriously going to win, but I'm okay with that. I don't like the idea of every company considering relocating here getting a personalized deal.

And since the original intent of the thread seemed to largely be to take a shot at a politician saying things that had no basis in reality, aren't you guys immune to that kind of thing by now? (maybe we shouldn't be taking what politicians say literally, we should take them figuratively )

Glad someone enjoyed it, ha ha. The concern with an uneven playing field was, I thought one of the principles of free market ideology, which is why I can't understand BG's position on all this. AOC's policy position to not offer subsidies is entirely consistent with the Libertarian Party platform.

Below is a link to the Libertarian Party platform, with a couple of pertinent points. Really strange to see BG argue against the points so doggedly.

https://www.lp.org/platform/

2.0 Economic Liberty

Libertarians want all members of society to have abundant opportunities to achieve economic success. A free and competitive market allocates resources in the most efficient manner. Each person has the right to offer goods and services to others on the free market. The only proper role of government in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected. All efforts by government to redistribute wealth, or to control or manage trade, are improper in a free society.

2.8 Marketplace Freedom

Libertarians support free markets. We defend the right of individuals to form corporations, cooperatives and other types of entities based on voluntary association. We oppose all forms of government subsidies and bailouts to business, labor, or any other special interest. Government should not compete with private enterprise.

https://www.lp.org/platform/

[DMT]

Pragmatic libertarianism is an oxymoron but here we are.

And a little bit of quasi makes it all ok.

[nots]

Pragmatic libertarianism is an oxymoron but here we are.

And a little bit of quasi makes it all ok.

Troll on

[baldgriff]

Glad someone enjoyed it, ha ha. The concern with an uneven playing field was, I thought one of the principles of free market ideology, which is why I can't understand BG's position on all this. AOC's policy position to not offer subsidies is entirely consistent with the Libertarian Party platform.

Below is a link to the Libertarian Party platform, with a couple of pertinent points. Really strange to see BG argue against the points so doggedly.

https://www.lp.org/platform/

2.0 Economic Liberty

Libertarians want all members of society to have abundant opportunities to achieve economic success. A free and competitive market allocates resources in the most efficient manner. Each person has the right to offer goods and services to others on the free market. The only proper role of government in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected. All efforts by government to redistribute wealth, or to control or manage trade, are improper in a free society.

2.8 Marketplace Freedom

Libertarians support free markets. We defend the right of individuals to form corporations, cooperatives and other types of entities based on voluntary association. We oppose all forms of government subsidies and bailouts to business, labor, or any other special interest. Government should not compete with private enterprise.

https://www.lp.org/platform/

So this transaction is different in many ways as the Government appears to be Voluntarily participating in the transaction - rather than overseeing/legislating the transaction. I believe that it is a very significant difference when discussing the trade. I dont view the 3Billion tax credit as anything more than a "bid" for the XXBillions of tax revenues that will be generated long term to the benefit of the city, its people and its infrastructure. Other cities are of course welcome to make a bid for the business also - should they choose to compete for the business.

The life blood of a city and its government is the tax base and multiple transactions that occur within its boundaries. Cities do compete on a large scale to attract people and business to their districts. How do they attract these businesses and people? By continuing to grow the tax base, provide better amenities and opportunities than other cities. There is a competitive market between cities and to play ignorant of that is silly. NYC was able to offer something to compete and draw business to itself that other cities may not have been willing or able to do. Are we complaining about NYC's "unfair advantage" relative to making this offer? That city has to compete in the marketplace to attract jobs. One could make the case that the City Government may be attempting to control or manage trade - but in order for the city to continue to prosper they need to make sure trade continues in their domain rather than the other cities that they are competing with.


So on one hand while I understand that cities have to compete to draw business and can understand using various credits to attract large businesses. I will on the other hand state that I was completely opposed to the Bank Bailouts given by the Federal Government. I dont believe once a business is up and running that it is the job of the government to ensure that a company or number of companies should stay in business. The banks in my example, made a bad business decision related to its investing and lending habits and in my mind - they should have been allowed to fail and let some other entity enter than marketplace - and possibly find a better more efficient way to conduct the business.

[Judge Jude]

https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...ill-aoc-225054

that's a very interesting piece on my Congresswoman.

"The best-known new member of Congress is obviously the ubiquitous and magnetic Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, the unreserved used-to-be bartender and millennial social media savant who has parlayed her outer-borough seat into a vanguard position at the head of a surging left.

But she is not the reason Democrats are wielding a reclaimed wedge of power in the nation’s capital. Sherrill is. If there’s a Venn diagram of how Democrats wrested control of the House from Republicans — women, veterans, flipped districts in more affluent, more educated suburban terrain — smack at the center is Rebecca Michelle Sherrill: former Navy helicopter pilot, former federal prosecutor, mother of four (13, 11, 9 and 6). And even as Ocasio-Cortez and other younger, lefty, louder freshmen garner the limelight, “Mikie,” not “AOC,” is actually more materially the face of the Democrats’ fresh capacity to push legislation and check the agenda of a newly vexed President Donald Trump."

"She raised record money, chased into retirement a powerful local political scion, trounced a host of opponents in the primary and drubbed a conservative state assemblyman in the general. Sherrill did this by campaigning not as a left-leaning incendiary but as a less partisan alternative."

[Sherrill promised not to vote for Pelosi as Speaker if elected, saying it was time for a change. then she didn't vote for her - and still landed plum committee assignments because Pelosi knows she needs the Sherrills.]

[Teenwolf]

Wow, Politico. Such establishment hackery that consistently tries to draw the narrative that centrism is more viable than true leftism.

Do you have any idea how far the MSM has pushed the Overton window to the right? Policies that are consistently labelled as "far-left" enjoy widespread support in public polling. That makes leftist populism (raising taxes on the rich, Med4All, gun reform, marijuana legalization, etc.) a better and more pragmatic strategy to win than centrism in most cases.

Pete Buttigieg had some excellent commentary on this topic recently. ACA is already a deal brokered based on compromise between appeasing public and corporate interests, satisfying nobody. Now that the public have shifted to supporting Med4All, it makes sense for political leaders to support the will of the people, rather than prematurely bending the knee to right wing concerns. Obama was disallowed from doing his job despite nominating attempting to nominate a centrist pick to the SC. So we've clearly seen the futility of centrism at work. Not interested in that going forward.

[The Feral Slasher]

So this transaction is different in many ways as the Government appears to be Voluntarily participating in the transaction - rather than overseeing/legislating the transaction. I believe that it is a very significant difference when discussing the trade. I dont view the 3Billion tax credit as anything more than a "bid" for the XXBillions of tax revenues that will be generated long term to the benefit of the city, its people and its infrastructure. Other cities are of course welcome to make a bid for the business also - should they choose to compete for the business.

The life blood of a city and its government is the tax base and multiple transactions that occur within its boundaries. Cities do compete on a large scale to attract people and business to their districts. How do they attract these businesses and people? By continuing to grow the tax base, provide better amenities and opportunities than other cities. There is a competitive market between cities and to play ignorant of that is silly. NYC was able to offer something to compete and draw business to itself that other cities may not have been willing or able to do. Are we complaining about NYC's "unfair advantage" relative to making this offer? That city has to compete in the marketplace to attract jobs. One could make the case that the City Government may be attempting to control or manage trade - but in order for the city to continue to prosper they need to make sure trade continues in their domain rather than the other cities that they are competing with.


So on one hand while I understand that cities have to compete to draw business and can understand using various credits to attract large businesses. I will on the other hand state that I was completely opposed to the Bank Bailouts given by the Federal Government. I dont believe once a business is up and running that it is the job of the government to ensure that a company or number of companies should stay in business. The banks in my example, made a bad business decision related to its investing and lending habits and in my mind - they should have been allowed to fail and let some other entity enter than marketplace - and possibly find a better more efficient way to conduct the business.

I think this is all a misunderstanding. I thought your beliefs were in line with other Libertarians on the issue of corporate subsidies, and clearly they are not, I believe they are pretty much exactly the opposite. So I was operating under a bad assumption. Here's another article I found that discusses what I believe the consensus view of Libertarians regarding corporate subsidies. It's a very short article, I included a few snippets, but you may want to read.

https://www.lpnc.org/corporate-welfare

By taking money from the taxpayers and giving it to businesses in the form of “corporate incentives,” our state and local governments are playing a game of Reverse Robin Hood. They are robbing from the poor and giving to the rich. The Libertarian Party of North Carolina denounces all corporate welfare programs as fiscally irresponsible and calls for their immediate abolition.

This theory has two fundamental defects. First of all, the government has no place in deciding which jobs should be created and maintained. A free market is infinitely better equipped to respond to the economic needs of businesses and consumers. When the government starts funding already successful companies, it becomes harder to compete in the marketplace if you have a new company with an innovative idea or service.

[baldgriff]

So are you denying that cities don’t compete with each other to stay alive or grow their tax bases?

Again - I dont believe that The Government should be determining who stays afloat (see my opinion on the Bank Buyouts).

I will go back to the question I asked you 5 times yesterday:

Do you believe that Government should not trade with Private Business?

According to the site you posted earlier about Libertarian platform. I don’t see Libertarians saying Private Business and Government can’t bargain with each other – Government should not be in a position to compete and create laws that undercut the Private Sectors ability to compete in the Open Market.

Government should not compete with private enterprise.

To deny that cities and states don’t compete for businesses and people to visit or stay in their cities or states quite honestly is fool-hearty. States and Large cities spend millions in advertising to draw people and business to their locations all of the time. They do this to continue to grow their tax base.

In this transaction the Government is not competing with Private Enterprise – they are attempting to bring more private enterprise back to their City.

How else will a city survive if it does not draw business to its domain? Again, I look at this as a market place transaction between a Local Government and a Business. The Local Government is competing with other Local Government for the tax revenues that will be created when some 25,000 jobs and all of the ancillary jobs that come with it are brought to the area. The Local Government is making a Bid/Offer for the jobs that Amazon states it is creating. The Local Government and Amazon are essentially entering into a business transaction. This is very much unlike what the Federal Government did to keep multiple banks afloat buy bailing them out.

[The Feral Slasher]

So are you denying that cities don’t compete with each other to stay alive or grow their tax bases?

Again - I dont believe that The Government should be determining who stays afloat (see my opinion on the Bank Buyouts).

I will go back to the question I asked you 5 times yesterday:


According to the site you posted earlier about Libertarian platform. I don’t see Libertarians saying Private Business and Government can’t bargain with each other – Government should not be in a position to compete and create laws that undercut the Private Sectors ability to compete in the Open Market.


To deny that cities and states don’t compete for businesses and people to visit or stay in their cities or states quite honestly is fool-hearty. States and Large cities spend millions in advertising to draw people and business to their locations all of the time. They do this to continue to grow their tax base.

In this transaction the Government is not competing with Private Enterprise – they are attempting to bring more private enterprise back to their City.

How else will a city survive if it does not draw business to its domain? Again, I look at this as a market place transaction between a Local Government and a Business. The Local Government is competing with other Local Government for the tax revenues that will be created when some 25,000 jobs and all of the ancillary jobs that come with it are brought to the area. The Local Government is making a Bid/Offer for the jobs that Amazon states it is creating. The Local Government and Amazon are essentially entering into a business transaction. This is very much unlike what the Federal Government did to keep multiple banks afloat buy bailing them out.

I'm telling you your position is the exact opposite of those held by every libertarian organization I have ever seen. This surprised me, my assumption was that your position would be similar to the libertarian position and it's clearly not.

[The Feral Slasher]

I'm telling you your position is the exact opposite of those held by every libertarian organization I have ever seen. This surprised me, my assumption was that your position would be similar to the libertarian position and it's clearly not.

I've already posted several links that back this up. HEre is another

https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/attract-businesses-amazon-lean-government-not-pork

he Cato Institute is a public policy research organization — a think tank — dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace. Its scholars and analysts conduct independent, nonpartisan research on a wide range of policy issues.

[The Feral Slasher]

I've already posted several links that back this up. HEre is another

https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/attract-businesses-amazon-lean-government-not-pork

he Cato Institute is a public policy research organization — a think tank — dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace. Its scholars and analysts conduct independent, nonpartisan research on a wide range of policy issues.

and here is another.

https://www.mercatus.org/bridge/commentary/amazon-deal-was-outrage-beginning

[nots]

I'm telling you your position is the exact opposite of those held by every libertarian organization I have ever seen. This surprised me, my assumption was that your position would be similar to the libertarian position and it's clearly not.

Are you surprised as well that AOC’s position is a lot more Libertarian (based on what you posted earlier) than democratic socialist?