1. Homelessness wasn't caused by Amazon. 2.The govt has a restrictive zoning policy not caused by Amazon but is the definitive cause of the housing shortage. 3.You give an easy pass to those whose exclusive job is to solve these problems by blaming it on those whose job it is not. 4.Govt takes the easy way out and comes up with the default hammer to every nail-more taxes and sensible people oppose it and somehow it's the sensible person's problem? Do you even logic,bro?

Sure, Jeff Bezos isn't walking around the streets of Seattle stealing people's chequebooks and ratting to their bosses so they can't make rent. But he and Amazon are exacerbating INSANE wealth inequality in Seattle. Amazon is the seat of economic power in the city, and its employees are the ones bidding up property prices. It's great that Bezos is giving high-paying jobs to thousands of people, but those same people (following the "bro logic" you espouse) are bidding up property prices, and then lobbying for NIMBY policies that reduce housing supply—which DEFINITELY drive up rents and force people out of their homes and onto the streets.

If you're an affluent techie in Seattle it's easy to say "not my problem bro", work your great job, buy your expensive house, lobby your local councilman to curb new developments and head taxes, watch your property value rise and your chequing account blossom. But there are swathes of other people for whom affluent tech jobs aren't desirable or possible, and there's no need for those people to be priced out of Seattle. Building homes isn't hard.

Is the solution to stagnate the economy?

Is the solution to be companies to throw their hands up in the air and say "municipal governments can't solve gentrification, so let's not become big"?

Do you think the swaths of tech workers moving to be close to work enjoy their rent prices skyrocketing? Do you think they enjoy rising homeless rates?

Nobody wants gentrification. If you can find me a tech worker kicking sand in a homeless person's face I'll lambast him with you. I want to solve gentrification as well but the solution isn't to choke an economy to prevent companies from moving in. That just pushes the problem to some other city. We need the government to step in and do its job, and that means we have to participate and steer the government.

Nonsense.NIMBYs aren't the new young renters. They are OLD Seattleites.

Attacking Amazon for operating within its constraints to maximize profit seems silly to me. It is programmed to do nothing else.

I say instead, attack the concept of capitalism (infeasible) or fight the fight in the battleground of the political sphere - vote and openly support candidates that want money out of government.

Yea, finding one is hard, I agree.

I agree that it's insane to expect Amazon to behave differently than what's expected of a contemporary American corporation™ (aka: pure profit extraction, no consideration for local social conditions or the greater social contract.)

But rather than accepting Amazon's mundane corporate naughtiness, we should be vigilant and outspoken about it. The corporate norms we have now in North America are not etched in stone; we can inveigh against shitty behaviour while also doing what you suggest: electing better politicians and pursuing fairer tax policy.

Putting a tax on Amazon is, in fact, part of the fight against capitalism.

I agree, which is why I hope Seattle people don't give up the fight here.