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Re:Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers by amsilprotag on Saturday March 25, 2017 @04:02PM (#13957291)
There was a great Bloomberg Decrypted podcast a couple weeks ago weighing the costs and benefits for a small town in offering a multi-million dollar subsidy for thousands of low-skill Amazon warehouse jobs. Is it really worth subsidizing at all when the government will have to fund various welfare programs to cover the difference between the ~$10.00/hr paid and a livable wage? But since towns compete and prestige is awarded to politicians who win deals, towns race each other to near zero expected value.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-14/your-tax-...

Re:Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers by closeparen on Saturday March 25, 2017 @07:47PM (#13958123)
But they already have to pay welfare for those people, right? Or is Amazon bringing new low income residents?
Re:Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers by koolba on Saturday March 25, 2017 @11:12PM (#13958892)
Exactly. It's $10/hr less that has to be covered than before. Plus the ware house drives local commercial traffic, workers have to eat, etc.
Re:Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers by nommm-nommm on Sunday March 26, 2017 @10:57AM (#13961082)
So they weren't eating before?
Re:Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers by koolba on Sunday March 26, 2017 @11:23AM (#13961217)
No the point is that even at $10/hour it's better than the same people not working at all.

Do you disagree?

Re:Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers by emodendroket on Saturday March 25, 2017 @04:14PM (#13957351)
The New York Times also did a big piece showing that these deals were almost always bad ones. The thing is that politicians have a simply ideological commitment to not intervene more directly.
Re:Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers by Buge on Saturday March 25, 2017 @07:15PM (#13958027)
The politicians do intervene directly

>cities compete to offer the biggest tax

So it would be actually better if they did less intervening, by not offering tax breaks to Amazon.

Re:Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers by emodendroket on Saturday March 25, 2017 @07:47PM (#13958117)
When I say "intervene directly" I mean more like directly employing people.
Re:Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers by Apocryphon on Saturday March 25, 2017 @05:06PM (#13957569)
Makes me wonder if political deals to bring in military-industrial complex jobs at military bases and arms manufacturing plants and the like are any better. They at least provide better compensation to the workers, right?
Re:Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers by dogma1138 on Saturday March 25, 2017 @08:10PM (#13958201)
Towns like to attract military bases because they bring in a large population that is employed requires no loca services (since it's handled by the armed forces), usually well behaved which spends its income locally. Bases also bring 100s of civilian jobs and support local businesses.
Re:Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers by emodendroket on Saturday March 25, 2017 @10:51PM (#13958821)
Yeah, but military Keynesianism also involves a lot of the taxpayer dollars lining the pockets of arms manufacturers and contributes to belligerent foreign policy. It's worth asking whether the same money could be used to employ people to do something other than building more F-35s.
Re:Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers by Arizhel on Monday March 27, 2017 @11:49AM (#13968700)
You're thinking large-scale, not small-scale. Locally, building more F-35s is good for the local economy and keeps people employed, and the negative effects are minimal if any. Nationally, it's a different picture. Why would local politicians care about things on a national scale, rather than what's good in the short term for their little town where they're trying to get re-elected?
Re:Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers by nommm-nommm on Sunday March 26, 2017 @10:59AM (#13961090)
Military bases also pay no local taxes so they don't increase their tax revenue.
Re:Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers by dogma1138 on Sunday March 26, 2017 @12:12PM (#13961446)
They pay certain taxes e.g sales taxes, they pay salaries to civilians that work on base and they do not really use any of the local services that are tax funded, police, fire department, medical and social services all provided by the DOD.
Re:Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers by nommm-nommm on Sunday March 26, 2017 @05:27PM (#13963403)
No, the federal government does not pay state or local sales tax. Bases also open and operate large sales tax free stores for service member and family use (base exchanges).

Military housing, as long as owned directly by the federal government, doesn't pay property taxes and the residents do use local police, fire dept, and schools as well as drive on local roads. Any local or state services are fully available to to them just as any other resident. I've also personally seen both local and state police respond to emergencies at the base.

Service members can also elect to file income taxes in the state they lived in when they were called to active duty rather than their duty station location.

I'm not saying military bases don't add to the local economy, they do, just not anything like a civilian operation of a similar size.

Re:Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers by Arizhel on Monday March 27, 2017 @11:52AM (#13968728)
>Bases also open and operate large sales tax free stores for service member and family use (base exchanges).

Those aren't accessible to all the civilian workers and contractors who work on-base.

>Military housing, as long as owned directly by the federal government, doesn't pay property taxes

Civilian workers and contractors are not military, and don't use this housing. They live off-base, and pay property taxes and sales taxes. With the generous paychecks they get (relative to the locals who work at Walmart), they can afford to buy or build much larger houses and nicer cars, so they pay a LOT more in property taxes.

>I'm not saying military bases don't add to the local economy, they do, just not anything like a civilian operation of a similar size.

No, what you're really saying is that you have no clue at all what goes on on a military base, and you have some ignorant idea that everyone there is in the military when in fact it's usually a small minority of people on-base who are active-duty military.

Re:Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers by emodendroket on Saturday March 25, 2017 @05:08PM (#13957584)
It's certainly not the most efficient way to generate employment but these guys know where their bread is buttered.
Re:Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers by jcurbo on Saturday March 25, 2017 @05:10PM (#13957598)
Mother Jones did a major piece on this several years ago.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-f...