Re:Can Facebook Save California?
by ronnier on Saturday December 25, 2010 @10:33AM
(#2039001)
Building data centers in Oregon[1] and North Carolina[2] sure won't help. Why would a California based company build their first data center in Oregon?
Re:Can Facebook Save California?
by borism on Saturday December 25, 2010 @12:14PM
(#2039105)
I wonder why that is not a problem for example for EC2 US-West (the cheapest EC2 availability zone)?
us-west-1 is a great success. Just two weeks after its official launch its level of activity is 73% of eu-west-1, which has been around for a whole year!
Re:Can Facebook Save California?
by borism on Saturday December 25, 2010 @10:44AM
(#2039012)
tax break, what else?
After officially announcing plans to build a data center in Prineville on Thursday, Facebook officials told The Bulletin that the tax incentive offered to the company through an enterprise zone was a key reason it came to Central Oregon. By locating its new data center in the zone, Facebook will be excused from paying as much as $2.8 million a year in local taxes.
Re:Can Facebook Save California?
by yummyfajitas on Saturday December 25, 2010 @11:06AM
(#2039030)
Seriously, 50bn SecondMarket cap company looking to save $2.8 million in taxes?
$2 million here, $3 million there, sooner or later it adds up to real money. A $50 billion company doesn't stay a $50 billion company by blowing $2.8 million on nothing.
Sadly, that's a lesson the California gov never learned. If they had, they might not be wasting similar amounts of money on pensions for criminals.
Re:Can Facebook Save California?
by yequalsx on Saturday December 25, 2010 @11:22AM
(#2039044)
You can find examples of some public employees getting outrageous pensions but these examples are at not typical. Given that California has a huge budget shortfall are you suggesting that this shortfall is due mostly to outrageous pensions?
We presently live in a system where states often times compete with each other to offer incentives to attract factories or other operations that employ a lot of people. These tax incentives are paid for by the people of the state, that is, by the workers. It's a perverse system. Maybe companies should be willing to pay their share of national defense, roads, etc.
Re:Can Facebook Save California?
by yequalsx on Saturday December 25, 2010 @12:00PM
(#2039094)
Yes, pensions are a major part of the shortfall but I specifically said outrageous pensions payouts. It remains to be shown that the shortfall comes from outrageous pensions. I've noticed that often times people mention the unfunded pension liabilities in California and then point to a few extreme examples. Are the extreme examples causing the problem?
There are structural problems with California governing system that give more plausible reasons for its present problems. To go from Facebook setting up a data center in order to save a few million dollars to an extreme pension abuse example is very weak.
Re:Can Facebook Save California?
by protomyth on Saturday December 25, 2010 @12:36PM
(#2039135)
Don't forget the unfunded part of the current pensions, this has been a problem building over multiple years and probably won't have and easy solution.
Re:Can Facebook Save California?
by ryanwaggoner on Saturday December 25, 2010 @11:41AM
(#2039073)
California is facing potentially catastrophic future problems from unfunded pension liabilities [1]. And ridiculous numbers of blue-collar state positions get six figure salaries and the generous pensions that go with them. It would be nice if we could do that, but the math just doesn't work, which is why California's problems are only going to get worse unless drastic action is taken. And it won't be until things get really bad.
Re:Can Facebook Save California?
by borism on Saturday December 25, 2010 @11:13AM
(#2039040)
by blowing $2.8 million on nothing
sure, so now Oregon will loan additional $2.8M here and $3M there until it itself becomes the California and comes back to FB asking for money. Of course by then there will be plenty of bankrupt states (countries even?) willing to offer tax breaks to help wonderful companies like FB to relocate.
Re:Can Facebook Save California?
by borism on Saturday December 25, 2010 @02:48PM
(#2039326)
Wow, how did Alaska manage to outspend pretty much everyone by 100+% ? Bridges to nowhere and stuff like that?
Anyway, this is getting offtopic since this $2.8M p.a. is breadcrumbs compared to what FB employees will be paying in tax to California and Washington after the liquidity event. And it's not like THEY'll be moving from Silicon Valley any time soon.
Re:Can Facebook Save California?
by fredoliveira on Saturday December 25, 2010 @10:45AM
(#2039013)
the thing I found most interesting in this article was the fact that facebook is now trading at a 67B valuation on the secondary market, making it almost 1/3rd of what google is today. Very impressive growth.
Re:Can Facebook Save California?
by thewordpainter on Saturday December 25, 2010 @12:59PM
(#2039171)
i might concur with that sentiment...but i think facebook is not the best example. their upside is still tremendous, as they haven't fully exploited their ad revenue (which is better positioned than google imo)
Re:Can Facebook Save California?
by jdp23 on Saturday December 25, 2010 @01:14PM
(#2039199)
Facebook does have tremendous potential upside (as well as significant risks). But it's really hard for me to see any reason their valuation would increased by 30% in the last few weeks.
Re:Can Facebook Save California?
by sharednothing on Saturday December 25, 2010 @10:27AM
(#2038993)
The first surveillance state of the union, brought to you by the national security apparatus - national infrastructure division. (facebook+cisco+your-isp=full-stack-surveillance, little brother.)
could you provide a link to the original studies mentioned in the article?
[1]http://www.facebook.com/blog.php?post=262655797130
[2]http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/11/12/1831199/facebook...
us-west-1 is a great success. Just two weeks after its official launch its level of activity is 73% of eu-west-1, which has been around for a whole year!
http://www.jackofallclouds.com/2009/12/comparing-amazon-ec2-...
California is twice the area of Ireland AFAIK?
After officially announcing plans to build a data center in Prineville on Thursday, Facebook officials told The Bulletin that the tax incentive offered to the company through an enterprise zone was a key reason it came to Central Oregon. By locating its new data center in the zone, Facebook will be excused from paying as much as $2.8 million a year in local taxes.
http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100...
Seriously, 50bn SecondMarket cap company looking to save $2.8 million in taxes?
$2 million here, $3 million there, sooner or later it adds up to real money. A $50 billion company doesn't stay a $50 billion company by blowing $2.8 million on nothing.
Sadly, that's a lesson the California gov never learned. If they had, they might not be wasting similar amounts of money on pensions for criminals.
http://www.newsoxy.com/world/disgraced-sheriff-pension-13760...
We presently live in a system where states often times compete with each other to offer incentives to attract factories or other operations that employ a lot of people. These tax incentives are paid for by the people of the state, that is, by the workers. It's a perverse system. Maybe companies should be willing to pay their share of national defense, roads, etc.
There are structural problems with California governing system that give more plausible reasons for its present problems. To go from Facebook setting up a data center in order to save a few million dollars to an extreme pension abuse example is very weak.
1. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/06/opinion/la-oe-crane6...
sure, so now Oregon will loan additional $2.8M here and $3M there until it itself becomes the California and comes back to FB asking for money. Of course by then there will be plenty of bankrupt states (countries even?) willing to offer tax breaks to help wonderful companies like FB to relocate.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/287.html
This move is a win for Oregon. A small pieces of something is better than a big piece of nothing (which is all CA gets).
Anyway, this is getting offtopic since this $2.8M p.a. is breadcrumbs compared to what FB employees will be paying in tax to California and Washington after the liquidity event. And it's not like THEY'll be moving from Silicon Valley any time soon.
So no, Cali is still getting plenty of it.
1) Where can we get cheap power? 2) Of those locations, where can we save on taxes, building costs, labor, etc?
AFAIK there isn't anywhere in CA that qualifies for 1).