Comment by nebula8804

Comment by nebula8804 5 days ago

Reminds me of the time they made towns all around the US do a dog and pony show to attract "HQ2" and then just located it where Bezos wanted to be all along. I remember AOC getting it right all along, she did the most milktoast of pushback in her district and it caused Amazon to huff and puff and just walk away(causing many property speculators to lose out). She got raked over the coals but a few years later and the place HQ2 ended up didn't fare so well. AOC was vindicated.

My hope is that more towns learn from your experience and don't tolerate this nonsense anymore.

darknavi 5 days ago

It's the same story over and over again with large businesses. See Boeing and WA state as well.

What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004) by Thomas Frank goes into this in part of it. While a bit repetitive (because history) the book is quite good.

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nebula8804 5 days ago

Thank you for the recommendation.

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snowwrestler 4 days ago

HQ2 ended up in Crystal City, Virginia, which is a commercial district of Arlington County, and it’s fine. The pandemic-driven remote work trend led Amazon to scale back the number of buildings.

The state and localities did a good job structuring incentives so everything was tied to milestones, some of which Amazon ended up not hitting. My recollection is that NY was offering to give a lot more away, which helped fuel the backlash, but don’t quote me on that.

It also helped in VA that Crystal City has been a commercial wasteland for many years thanks to DoD decentralization. A lot of offices moved down to Fort Belvoir and surrounding areas, leaving Crystal City with a lot of vacant office space. Nothing was being “lost” by Amazon coming in.

Local real estate agents put “HQ2” in their listings for a few years but it didn’t matter much because homes near Crystal City were already super expensive.

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khuey 5 days ago

> milktoast

fyi since you may not have ever seen it spelled before it's milquetoast

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nebula8804 5 days ago

I often make spelling and grammatical errors due to my declining typing ability. At least at this time that can help prove that I am not a bot for the time being (I think?)

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netsharc 5 days ago

John Oliver analyzed state's tax rebates, 8 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bl19RoR7lc , he concluded that giving 1000 people Ferraris to drive around a pile of $30 million cash on fire would be more fiscally responsible...

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nebula8804 5 days ago

I found it pretty funny when Mayor Mamdani of NYC pointed out that the people opposing him spent more money trying to stop him being elected than they would end up paying in increased taxes. It really is a game to those people. They can't bear to give up one cent or one ounce of control.
Another funny story was that some substack writer (whom I forget sorry) noticed that Bill Ackman subscribed to their substack and used a 30% off coupon ha ha.

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- NickC25 5 days ago
  
  Jeff Bezos in FY 2024 filed for, and received, a $2k child tax credit.
  While the company he was the founder of passed over a trillion dollars in market cap.
  
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  frutiger 4 days ago
  
  The child tax credit starts tapering off if your adjusted gross income is more than $200k single ($400k joint). If Bezos is reporting less than that due to other deductions then that’s truly impressive.
  
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  lmm 5 days ago
  
  If it's a good tax credit, incentivising something society wants to incentivise, then everyone it applies to should get it; that helps social cohesion. If you make billionaires ineligible for tax credits they'll oppose them (and why shouldn't they?)
  
  Reply View | 5 replies