Prime Anchor: An Amazon Warehouse Town Dreams of a Better Life

[Aristotle]

Really rough article that shows how little Amazon contributes to the cities and towns they locate in. Compared to what businesses added to towns in the past, Amazon does virtually nothing.

What is really sad is to hear how much the residents WANT to just devote themselves so much to Amazon, and get so little back.

Prime Anchor: An Amazon Warehouse Town Dreams of a Better Life

One example:

In 2016, the company donated 25 Kindle Fire tablets to Campbellsville kindergarten and first grade classrooms. It also donated $2,500 in “content.” The town schools are increasingly buying supplies from Amazon for a total of about $50,000 in the last fiscal year, records show.

Fucking sad.

I use Amazon a lot more than I wish I did, and do it while holding my nose.

[Tartun]

I don't expect any company to do much outside of produce a reliable product and safe workplace. That said, the practice of these tech giants of inspiring these bidding wars when choosing a town to build a new headquarters is almost as dispicable as the politicians who move mountains at the expense of the taxpayers to win said bidding war.

[Gromgor]

The only thing I expect Amazon (or any company really) to do is provide their employees with the wages they mutually agree upon, and to provide the service and/or product that they advertise. That's it. This nonsense about politics and taxes and blah blah blah is just reasons to be offended that a successful company exists. Complaining about Amazon's low tax contributions is ridiculous. They are utilizing clauses in the tax code that were intentionally implemented specifically to be used. Not that there should even be taxes on businesses in the first place. You're already taxing the workers for working, the buyers for buying, the distributors for distributing. Now you want to tax the business for bringing all of those aspects together. The only fair tax is 0% tax. The closer a company can get to that rate, the more their methods should be emulated, not disparaged. How much revenue is being brought into the local area just because people are now employed by a company? How many more groceries are grocery stores selling because Bob, who works on the conveyor belt, has a paycheck?

I don't want Amazon to pay a dime in taxes. I WANT various local governments to compete with each other for businesses. Competition breeds growth - in business and in the areas where towns compete against others for businesses to move there.

[Aristotle]

Complaining about Amazon's low tax contributions is ridiculous. They are utilizing clauses in the tax code that were intentionally implemented specifically to be used.

No, they are using loopholes they bribed politicians to put in place.

And then they are using armies of accountants and international loopholes to dodge and hide even more.

And not all companies do this.

Not that there should even be taxes on businesses in the first place.

Absurd. They have to pay for the infrastructure they use and depend on to exist in the first place.

How much revenue is being brought into the local area just because people are now employed by a company

Not much. Read the article. That's the problem. Especially with increased automation.

I WANT various local governments to compete with each other for businesses. Competition breeds growth - in business and in the areas where towns compete against others for businesses to move there.

That is a fantasy that doesn't exist in reality.

What happens is they bribe local officials to get tax breaks or benefits that are never made up for. The people who decide don't care because they got paid.

We have tried this and it absolutely, demonstrably, does not work. The money doesn't end up in the community. It ends up in the corporation's coffers, or most importantly, in the hands of a tiny few.

We've been following this fantastical myth for decades and the result is grossly depressed wages despite massive gains in worker productivity and tremendous corporate profits.

The system we have right now is only benefiting a few thousand people at the top.

That's broken.

The 3 richest Americans have more wealth than the bottom ~200 million.

The majority of Americans are 1 illness or 1 injury away from bankruptcy, and they are living in constant fear of it.

That is not a good system.

[Gromgor]

If a politician has a favor that can be bought, then there's too much authority in the hands of the government.

"Loopholes" are exceptions, exemptions or exclusions that were intentionally placed in the tax code to give incentives to businesses to operate in an area. Working as intended. If your complaint is that a business isn't paying X+ in taxes, but those businesses are only going to operate in an area that has the lowest taxes, be it as loophole or as standard, then it doesn't matter what you set the taxes at, they're going to move to greener pastures and take every job they were providing with them.

The infrastructure those businesses use is already being paid for by the taxes of all those workers right? I mean, they're paying taxes on the gas they buy to drive on the roads. The company is paying the utility bills, the internet connections, etc. Precisely what infrastructure is being used that the company isn't paying for, that isn't also already being paid for by OTHER taxes and fees? How many times does something have to be paid for?

Also, commenting that the top 3 have more than the bottom ~200M is just an attempt to use some big numbers to show an income inequality that isn't actually a huge problem. The standard of living by that ~200M is higher than it ever has been, irrelevant of the top 3. The top 3 having $X Billions has little to no bearing on how much money that ~200M has.

What DOES have a huge effect on those ~20M is the $23 TRILLION dollars of debt that this country has accrued because of just how much government we have. If you're worried about those 200M, the best solution is scale back government, and especially scale back taxes.

[Aristotle]

I lost almost my entire post due to forum error. Oh well.... my best effort to recover it:

HISTORY PROVES OTHERWISE:

Literally everything you are arguing has been the trickle down fantasy of 40+ years that has been repeatedly proven false in actual practice. I used to agree with this. But the last 10+ years has just made it fully clear how much of a sham that is. George Bush had it right calling it "voodoo economics."

Everything you are advocating for has been done, and failed. Doubling down on it will not magically produce the opposite effect.

Continuing to operate under that philosophy will just continue to exacerbate the absolutely gross income disparity and wealth (which means power) concentration at the absolute top.

COMPETITION IS A MYTH.

These fantasy theories about competition don't work. There is no competition. The companies and billionaires at the top have 100% rigged the system. They always win. We always lose. Competition is a farce. Just like in the USSR, it eventually comes down to favors and bribes.

In 2008, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, banks, investment leeches should have gone out of business. They didn't. Why? Because the system is corrupt.

Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008

$29 TRILLION was paid to these useless banks and investment corps that could easily have just been replaced by less crooked ones.

That's $126,000 per US adult. 10 buddies in a neighborhood could have pooled their check and made a NEW bank that cared about local residents.

Your "less government" fantasy is a joke that will never happen. The only parts that will ever be cut are the ones that benefit the masses. Ever notice that's all they talk about cutting?

You might as well argue that NFL with no refs would result in less rule breaking.


BREAD AND CIRCUSES IS NOT A VICTORY

The fact that the poor have televisions and mobile phones doesn't change the fact that we are living in a dystopia. A little bread and circuses doesn't change that.

The only reason the standard of living for the poor has gone up is because it benefits the billionaires to sell them things and keep them placated. That's it. If they could make a profit from the poor living in tin huts and cooking their food in rivulets of shit, that's what we would have.

Scaling back government even more will just mean the bottom 99% of the population will benefit even LESS. Government is the only thing stopping the top 1,000 people from having an even HIGHER % of wealth, power, and control. Government is the ONLY source of power the masses have against the richest 1k and the corps.

EXAMPLE: Health Care.

Tell me exactly how less government going to solve health care? Insurance companies and health care providers have already figured out and mastered the system in their favor. Little individual people will never counter that - ever. The entire globe has proven that government is the ONLY counter, because it is the only time the people have enough power to challenge insurance companies/health providers.

The messed up truth is we could probably slash or remove all taxes for the bottom 99% and tax only the top 1% and have a better country while those top 1% wouldn't even notice a change in their life. That's how out of whack it is.

The actual working people of this country, namely the bottom 90-99% are actually MORE productive. The start all the small businesses. They create most of the innovations. They do most of the work.

The top 1% is a bunch of finance assholes doing nothing - just leeching off the nation - along with a handful of billionaires who ONCE did something awesome and are now just coasting on it.

Even some billionaires are finally acknowledging it, like Gates/Buffet's Giving Pledge or that Salesforce billionaire CEO saying Capitalism is Dead. Our only hope comes from the rare ethical billionaires out there and the government. That's it.

[Gromgor]

Everything you are advocating for has been done, and failed. Doubling down on it will not magically produce the opposite effect.

What I advocate and what has been done are different. I share your assessment that government is corrupt, many of the rich are corrupt, etc. I aspire towards an ideal, fully knowing it will never be achieved. However if TRYING to achieve it drags us kicking and screaming even one inch closer to it, and one inch away from where we're headed, then there has been a success. Marginal? Trivial? Perhaps. We can't let great be the enemy of good. I'll be thankful for the minor gains, and not begrudge that they're not major gains...and then continue to get more minor gains.

Continuing to operate under that philosophy will just continue to exacerbate the absolutely gross income disparity and wealth (which means power) concentration at the absolute top.

If money = power, ask why. Why? Because politicians can be bought and sold. Favors can be bought and sold. If that is the case, then doing anything that gives more power to politicians who can then turn around and sell as favors is the actual "doubling down". As for the income disparity itself, I just simply don't care that somebody has billions of dollars. That should not be read to mean that I don't care that they can then use those billions for shady shit. I get that they can. However the money isn't the issue - the favors for sale is.

These fantasy theories about competition don't work. There is no competition. The companies and billionaires at the top have 100% rigged the system. They always win. We always lose.

What do we lose? What benefit is there in "us" losing and "them" winning? What are the parameters that decide winning and losing?

In 2008, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, banks, investment leeches should have gone out of business. They didn't. Why? Because the system is corrupt.

You are 100% absolutely correct in this. Why did it not happen? I'll tell you why: Politicians used tax dollars to subsidize failure.

The solution isn't to give politicians more tax money. It is to deny them every single cent that you can. To strip from them all of the over-reaching, grubby little bullshit authority they lay claim to.

$29 TRILLION was paid to these useless banks and investment corps that could easily have just been replaced by less crooked ones.

Fuck the banks and the bankers. I would love to see the politicians return the favor to the banks and tell them it's time they pay back their debt to the citizens, and wipe out student debt.

Your "less government" fantasy is a joke that will never happen. The only parts that will ever be cut are the ones that benefit the masses. Ever notice that's all they talk about cutting?

See, this is the funny thing - I know it. You know it. And yet, when we stop even entertaining the fantasy of it changing, it absolutely will not ever change. I don't hold out hope. I hold out fantasy.

The fact that the poor have televisions and mobile phones doesn't change the fact that we are living in a dystopia. A little bread and circuses doesn't change that.

Except this is the opposite of "bread and circus". The standard of living has gone up. You claim this is only because it benefits the billionaires. So...working as intended? Because people want things, and billionaires have things to sell to those who want those things, people's lives have improved, and somehow this is a great tragedy. The masses demand, the elite provide, the lives of the poor is improved a little, the lives of the rich is improved a lot, and this is bad? No.

Tell me exactly how less government going to solve health care? Insurance companies and health care providers have already figured out and mastered the system in their favor.

First, who decided that government was responsible for making sure people have health insurance? Because that's what you're talking about. Insurance, not health care. Insurance companies don't provide health care. Doctors do. Nurses do. EMT's do. The skyrocketing healthcare costs have less to do with the actual health care, and more to do with the bureaucracy and administration behind the scenes because of government meddling. It has to do with the fact that now hospitals have to pay an army of people to keep track of countless redundant records all so the government, in an effort to "keep costs low", can monitor whether Sally, who has Illness A, really needs a 30 day supply of Drug X, when a 20 day supply will do. Government meddling has shot the cost of doing business in the medical field up by leaps and bounds.

The messed up truth is we could probably slash or remove all taxes for the bottom 99% and tax only the top 1% and have a better country while those top 1% wouldn't even notice a change in their life. That's how out of whack it is.

The messed up thing is Central Banking

Our only hope comes from the rare ethical billionaires out there and the government. That's it.

Government is corrupt, so you want them to be the solution.
Billionaires are corrupt, so you want them to be ethical.

[Aristotle]

Government is corrupt, so you want them to be the solution.

Fix government, because it is the only hope.

If we fail to fix government, we are done.

If we don't try to fix government, we are done.

The answer is not less or no government, because that has been tried and always failed. It has made things worse. The top 1,000 have even more power the weaker you make government.

Fixing government is hard, but it is the only voice and the only power of the masses.

The idea of "get government out of my life!" has some value, but only when it is applied the the 99% masses who aren't the problem. The top 1,000 continually use this argument as a way to keep controls and taxes off of them.

Small business owners are buried in taxes and regulations that cripple them. Yes, it sucks, is dumb, and is inefficient. The top 1,000 group themselves with small businesses in making their political arguments, but it is a joke. Amazon and Frogdice are not comparable. Rules and taxes that are crippling for me are nothing for Amazon. And yet they have the power to avoid them all while I have to deal with/pay all of them.

Billionaires are corrupt, so you want them to be ethical.

Support and praise the ones who are ethical.

Shame and tax them all into oblivion. Wealth tax. Billionaire tax. Estate tax. The tools exist. We have to use them, and use them heavily.

Health care:

You still didn't answer my question about health care.

The rest of the civilized world spends half as much as we do on health care and has better health outcomes. That is a fact.

Private health care is a failure at the stage of civilization we are at. The only control on costs is when there is an entity with the power to hold down costs. That entity has been proven to ONLY be the government. Throughout the entire world, that has been proven.

[Rosuav]

The system we have right now is only benefiting a few thousand people at the top.

That's broken.

The 3 richest Americans have more wealth than the bottom ~200 million.

The majority of Americans are 1 illness or 1 injury away from bankruptcy, and they are living in constant fear of it.

That is not a good system.

Being one illness/injury away from bankruptcy is not something that can be entirely blamed on the wealthy few at the top. Why are people skating on such thin ice? Is it because there's absolutely no way to create enough wealth to feed yourself and your family... or is it because everyone feels compelled to spend money - especially money they don't have (credit card debt, mostly) - on things that are less essential?

If you choose to maintain zero savings in order to pay for cable TV, then you have prioritized cable TV over a safety net. If you remain permanently in debt so you can have the car you want rather than a dirty old bomb of a vehicle, then you've chosen comfort as more important than the safety net.

I'm not saying that the system is perfect - you're absolutely right that it's flawed. But the "system ... only benefiting people at the top" is only part of the picture.

[Tartun]

Fix government, because it is the only hope.

If we fail to fix government, we are done.

If we don't try to fix government, we are done.

The answer is not less or no government, because that has been tried and always failed. It has made things worse. The top 1,000 have even more power the weaker you make government.

Fixing government is hard, but it is the only voice and the only power of the masses.

The idea of "get government out of my life!" has some value, but only when it is applied the the 99% masses who aren't the problem. The top 1,000 continually use this argument as a way to keep controls and taxes off of them.

Small business owners are buried in taxes and regulations that cripple them. Yes, it sucks, is dumb, and is inefficient. The top 1,000 group themselves with small businesses in making their political arguments, but it is a joke. Amazon and Frogdice are not comparable. Rules and taxes that are crippling for me are nothing for Amazon. And yet they have the power to avoid them all while I have to deal with/pay all of them.



Support and praise the ones who are ethical.

Shame and tax them all into oblivion. Wealth tax. Billionaire tax. Estate tax. The tools exist. We have to use them, and use them heavily.

Health care:

You still didn't answer my question about health care.

The rest of the civilized world spends half as much as we do on health care and has better health outcomes. That is a fact.

Private health care is a failure at the stage of civilization we are at. The only control on costs is when there is an entity with the power to hold down costs. That entity has been proven to ONLY be the government. Throughout the entire world, that has been proven.

Less government, as in government limited in its ability to harm individuals and businesses weakens major corporations. Major corporations derive no small amount of their power from their ability to leverage the government.

For example I will point to the vaping industry in America. Vaping, hardware and software was driven by massive innovation in a relatively unregulated market. Legitimate businesses were producing relatively safe and reliable vaping products. Vaping became the most effective smoking cessation device ever. Not only was vaping considered to be safer than smoking, but many former smokers who switched to vaping found that they preferred vaping for the experience as well as the presumed and obvious health benefits. Big Tobacco was taking a noticeable hit. They tried to compete with devices like the blu e-cigarette, but cheap, disposable and convenient was not performing in this new market. Big Tobacco funded and distributed research to reveal *possible* health hazards of vaping, mostly targeting device misuse. They then pressured the FDA to heavily regulate vaping "like traditional tobacco" labeling all vaping products "new tobacco" even electronic devices and flavored vegetable glycerin regardless of any actual tobacco/nicotine content. This was a huge hit to the industry. Many independent companies couldn't afford the paperwork alone to comply with FDA regulations for things like a new label approval for each new flavor developed, or changes to the design of atomizers. It made little difference that no independent researcher had found a link between vaping and any health problem. All that mattered was the fact that Big Tobacco wanted to change the market so that only Big Tobacco could afford to produce vaping products leveraging scale. During the hysteria raised during this past summer, the FDA announced that all the illnesses around the country could be tied to a single brand of BLACK MARKET cannabis vaping product from "Dank Vapes" because this company used a chemical known as vitamin-e acetate in its product. The FDA acknowledged that the illnesses had not been linked to any other vaping product. In spite of that, the FDA ended its report by urging anyone who used vaping products to stop use (even with no link between legitimate vaping and any known health problems). The hysteria created by this event has continued, with State governments holding legitimate businesses in limbo while deliberating over legislation to ban flavors, and in some cases the sale of any vaping products at all (except those disposable self contained pods produced by Big Tobacco). Your "mom and pop" vape shop cannot afford to wait around to order product without knowing if they will be able to sell that product tomorrow. Big Tobacco can wait.

You see large corporations leverage the government to crush competition all the time. Costco committed itself to raising the minimum wage not because it cares about its workers. If that were the case, all they had to do was offer their workers a revolutionary wage. They did so because they knew that their competition in many areas could not afford to pay minimum wage workers 15 dollars an hour, while Costco can and when the competition is gone they can raise prices to make up the difference.

"SEE!" you might say, "... This is why we need to reign in these large corporations."

The corporations are simply USING a government which has way too much power over citizens.

If you reduce that power, it will only benefit Big Business in the same way it benefits the little guy. If you increase that power, it just becomes a bigger stick that Big Business can wield.

On Healthcare:

The black and white argument about Private vs. Public healthcare is really meant as a distraction. Many people know they don't want socialism, but they don't realize that our current healthcare system is not a free market. Even prior to the Affordable Care Act. Health insurance keeps us from being able to compare prices for healthcare, or even determine the cost of a procedure or treatment until after the treatment is done. We are told what percentage of a treatment will be covered by insurance, and because we don't pay if we have good healthcare (or only pay a portion) we have only part of the cost. Without cost we don't have choice and part of a choice is no choice at all.

Our system is ridiculously convoluted and is the result of almost a century of stitched together policies and experiments, like some kind of healthcare Frankenstein. That makes it very hard to suddenly come in and try something completely new. That said, many fiscally conservative minds, including Libertarian golden-boy Milton Friedman, have endorsed "Universal Catastrophic Healthcare" to cover major unforeseen healthcare costs, and a private system to cover all routine healthcare. I've heard a lot of theories about what that would do to the insurance industry and healthcare as we know it, and it sounds good in theory.