Originally Posted by
gimmick
From the country's viewpoint "driving" Amazon away from NY doesn't cost any jobs. In all likelihood a good amount of positions that open somewhere else are going to be filled by the same people they would have been in NY.
From just a general viewpoint of jobs, Amazon destroys more jobs than it creates. It's just the nature of the way Amazon does business. You can say it isn't really anyone's fault. It's just automation and certain things that give an edge to larger companies.
From the viewpoint of NY we don't really know how it even would have played out. There are "items" that were promised to Amazon without an exact cost. We also don't know how much this would have costed NY in the long run. Sometimes in these type of deals there are additional incentives that are added down the line.
From viewpoint of race to the bottom it favors players that are willing to pay when there's very few of them out of all the possibilities. When everyone is paying the end result is just the cost of tax incentives. NY might have gotten jobs because of this now, but they likely lost jobs to the same system when someone else outbid them before.
From the viewpoint of the constitution this whole system is so retarded that it's mentioned in it. Because of lobbying it's doubtful you'll ever get a precedent, but this isn't a new issue. The old timey shit is mostly because of tariffs that states put up for each other, but the principle is the same.
AOC isn't exactly only one that disagreed with this deal. Say former mayor Bloomberg among others.
gimmick, i'm trying not to debate 1000 different points at once.
as much as loathe your arguing style, i'll probably end up agreeing with half or even 75% of the substance of what you are saying. this is probably why i don't debate many of the points you're making. i likely agree with them, and won't just play devil's advocate.
the concept of corporate welfare and the government picking winners and losers has real problems, which i fully acknowledge.
i really don't want to come off as the Koch Brothers frontman, championing all things capitalism. this is why i am trying to focus on the one question i asked.
fair enough to say we don't know how it would have played out. we do know, however, that amazon would have only gotten the $3 billion in tax credit if new york received over $27,000,000,000 in tax revenue. the fact that the $3 billion was a tax credit and not a down payment is important. amazon only gets paid if it benefits new york.