On Thursday, February 14, Amazon announced that it would not be building a second headquarters in Queens New York as it had earlier announced. The company cited recent moves by Queens city council to block construction. Supporting Amazon's plans to create offices in Long Island City, Queens were New York's governor, New York City's mayor, most New Yorkers, and the union of construction workers who would have built the office complex and related public and private works. Opposing construction were rather fringey anti- corporate, anti- capitalist community activists and members of city council elected from their ranks.
Newly elected congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez was ecstatic, announcing on Twitter " Anything is possible: today was a day a group of dedicated New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon's greed, it's worker exploitation , and the power of the richest man in the world. "
Amazon has spent the last few years searching for a new location from which to administrator it's growing business empire in addition to its original headquarters in Seattle. Many cities, including Denver vied for the honor. Their enthusiasm is easily understood. A business the size and wealth of Amazon in your backyard brings in billions in local and state taxes, high paying jobs, along with the taxes they provide, and a generous donor for local projects . Ultimately ,Amazon decided to divide it's proposed headquarters , creating one in New York and the other in Northern Virginia outside of Washington DC. Amazon planned to employ 25,000 at the New York office. Wages would be at around $ 150,000 for most office workers, which I understand is enough money to live even in New York. A business that size doesn't exist in a vacuum. The knock on effect of all those people working there is estimated to include an additional 67,000 jobs in the vicinity ( not including those construction workers mentioned earlier ). Over a twenty- five year period Amazon would have paid out an estimated $27 billion in taxes to the state and city. On a more immediate basis they had agreed to funding $ 600 ,000,000 worth of infrastructure improvements . The city would accept those improvements in lieu of that amount in taxation. Other tax breaks would equal an additional $2.4 billion over twenty-five years. The resulting $3 billion in projected tax breaks to Amazon became a rallying cry for the opposition, although in principle this is pretty standard in corporate - municipality agreements. The only difference is scale.
In an interview with a television reporter Alexandria Ocasio Cortez said " if we are willing to give away $3 billion for this deal, we could invest those $3 billion in our district ourselves if we wanted to. " . Her misunderstanding of basic economics is phenomenal. It's as if she were relying on her ideology rather than facts and logic to do her thinking for her. Of course there is no $3 billion lying around for the city to spend on whatever the city believes would be a it's best use. That $3 billion was not a " gift" from New Yorkers to Amazon. It would be money created by Amazon and left to their use. That's a distinction she is unable to appreciate or acknowledge.
I've never heard anyone say that all the wealth of America belongs to everyone. I have heard a lot of people make remarks that seem to be based on this assumption. If you believe that it is the duty of government to redistribute wealth to promote the greater good then you have bought into this way of thinking. There's no school of economic or political theory compatible with this principle outside of Socialism. Marx would have recognized it.
Cortez goes a step further by claiming that even the wealth you ( or Amazon) may produce in the future is properly the people's wealth. In her mind the taxes New York agreed to release Amazon from paying in lieu of services amount to theft from the people. Nevermind the enormous wealth Amazon would have brought to the city, or the tens of billions in taxes the corporation and it's employees would have added to it's coffers, the only relevant fact for her was the $3 billion exemption. Prominent Democrats often rail against companies taking advantage of legal tax exemptions, and refer to this as corporate welfare. For them all the money businesses produce is not wealth that would not otherwise exist. It is stolen money. It is greed that fuels their empires. They are takers, not givers, and government, which produces nothing but vast stacks of paperwork is the only true giver. Keep in mind that government can not give anything to anyone until after it has taken it from someone else. It's all a zero sum gain, which is exactly the way the fans of unlimited government imagine businesses operating. It's the world seen upside down.
Newly elected congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez was ecstatic, announcing on Twitter " Anything is possible: today was a day a group of dedicated New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon's greed, it's worker exploitation , and the power of the richest man in the world. "
Amazon has spent the last few years searching for a new location from which to administrator it's growing business empire in addition to its original headquarters in Seattle. Many cities, including Denver vied for the honor. Their enthusiasm is easily understood. A business the size and wealth of Amazon in your backyard brings in billions in local and state taxes, high paying jobs, along with the taxes they provide, and a generous donor for local projects . Ultimately ,Amazon decided to divide it's proposed headquarters , creating one in New York and the other in Northern Virginia outside of Washington DC. Amazon planned to employ 25,000 at the New York office. Wages would be at around $ 150,000 for most office workers, which I understand is enough money to live even in New York. A business that size doesn't exist in a vacuum. The knock on effect of all those people working there is estimated to include an additional 67,000 jobs in the vicinity ( not including those construction workers mentioned earlier ). Over a twenty- five year period Amazon would have paid out an estimated $27 billion in taxes to the state and city. On a more immediate basis they had agreed to funding $ 600 ,000,000 worth of infrastructure improvements . The city would accept those improvements in lieu of that amount in taxation. Other tax breaks would equal an additional $2.4 billion over twenty-five years. The resulting $3 billion in projected tax breaks to Amazon became a rallying cry for the opposition, although in principle this is pretty standard in corporate - municipality agreements. The only difference is scale.
In an interview with a television reporter Alexandria Ocasio Cortez said " if we are willing to give away $3 billion for this deal, we could invest those $3 billion in our district ourselves if we wanted to. " . Her misunderstanding of basic economics is phenomenal. It's as if she were relying on her ideology rather than facts and logic to do her thinking for her. Of course there is no $3 billion lying around for the city to spend on whatever the city believes would be a it's best use. That $3 billion was not a " gift" from New Yorkers to Amazon. It would be money created by Amazon and left to their use. That's a distinction she is unable to appreciate or acknowledge.
I've never heard anyone say that all the wealth of America belongs to everyone. I have heard a lot of people make remarks that seem to be based on this assumption. If you believe that it is the duty of government to redistribute wealth to promote the greater good then you have bought into this way of thinking. There's no school of economic or political theory compatible with this principle outside of Socialism. Marx would have recognized it.
Cortez goes a step further by claiming that even the wealth you ( or Amazon) may produce in the future is properly the people's wealth. In her mind the taxes New York agreed to release Amazon from paying in lieu of services amount to theft from the people. Nevermind the enormous wealth Amazon would have brought to the city, or the tens of billions in taxes the corporation and it's employees would have added to it's coffers, the only relevant fact for her was the $3 billion exemption. Prominent Democrats often rail against companies taking advantage of legal tax exemptions, and refer to this as corporate welfare. For them all the money businesses produce is not wealth that would not otherwise exist. It is stolen money. It is greed that fuels their empires. They are takers, not givers, and government, which produces nothing but vast stacks of paperwork is the only true giver. Keep in mind that government can not give anything to anyone until after it has taken it from someone else. It's all a zero sum gain, which is exactly the way the fans of unlimited government imagine businesses operating. It's the world seen upside down.
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