Amazon Poised To Get Cut of CA Sales Taxes 295
theodp writes "Eager to host Amazon warehouses and receive a cut of the tax on sales to customers statewide, the LA Times reports that two California cities are offering Amazon most of the tax money they stand to gain. After agreeing to collect California sales taxes beginning in the fall, Amazon is setting up two fulfillment centers in San Bernadino and Patterson, which will gain not only jobs but also a tax bonanza: Sales to Amazon customers throughout California will be deemed to take place there, so all the sales tax earmarked for local government operations will go to those two cities. The windfall is so lucrative that local officials are preparing to give Amazon the lion's share of their take as a reward for setting up shop there. 'The tax is supposed to be supporting government,' said Lenny Goldberg, executive director of the California Tax Reform Assn., of the proposed sales-tax rebate. 'Instead, it's going back into Amazon's pocket.' Sen. Mark DeSaulnier added: 'It seems like the private sector finds a way to pit one city against the other. You can't give away sales tax in this manner.'"
Re:recipe for corruption (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"supporting the government" (Score:3, Interesting)
centralization of wealth within a very small population
- only in your mis-educated mind was the time in history that produced the most competition among all sorts of businesses, created all sorts of new products that never existed before and created entire new concepts of distribution of these products and services, was the time that somehow worsened the actual conditions of the general population.
The time that provided maximum freedom to people to run their businesses and to make money not by buying political system or just running the political system directly (dictatorships, monarchies), but instead the time that allowed people to do business unhindered by the dictatorships, monarchies and other forms of totalitarian regimes.
Obviously there were people who became much wealthier than other individuals, but the society increased its wealth production and distribution by a factor that was never observed at any previous time in history. Just the growth of population itself is the testament of the total success of the free market that people in USA enjoyed.
Every monarchy, dictatorship, socialist regime can just look in awe and wonder: how come it was not them that created the most prosperous and industrious nation in a very short time period, but it was a scarcely populated afterthought of a country. Well, today USA is not that USA.
The mis-education that you are getting in your publicly financed propaganda centres gives you a version of history in which actual captains of industry, people who STARTED entire industries are now known as the 'robber barons'.
As to working conditions - without the captains of industry the working conditions would have stayed exactly the way they were before, precisely as they always were. Kids always worked, people always lost limbs and lives at work, it was industrialisation, free market capitalism that forced search for efficiencies due to competition that created new tools and had to create more and more safe environments, because special skills are not acquired overnight and workers with special skills are much more valuable than workers without any special skills, generic workers are only worth as much as their health and individual physical abilities.
Specialised workers take years to train and are not as easily replaced, so their tools are more complex and their conditions must be made safer, because there is always competition who also COMPETES FOR LABOUR.
That's right - workers sell labour, they are not forced into it. And they can sell to highest bidders, whether this concerns monetary compensation or working conditions, and governments can do nothing to improve any of it, they can only watch as the private sector create new tools and systems and require more education and training.
But once the gov't destroys the private sector, none of the tools can or will be manned, education is no longer important.
Tools won't even be present, they are capital, and capital leaves when forced to by the ever hungry, ever growing monster of a government.
Re:The hidden costs of these deals (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a simpler solution. Get rid of property taxes and corporate taxes and tax capital gains as income. This will break the argument that corporations are citizens and make governments pay attention to where the money is coming from - the people.
Re:The hidden costs of these deals (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not a cost on the cities/towns that take the deal. They got to negotiate (with the entire state's tax revenue) how much they'll need to make it worth their while. Plus the jobs are always a big plus these days. I highly doubt the little costs you mentioned are going to cause it to be a loss for them.
I don't agree. Most towns these days are pretty strapped for cash and are cutting WAY back on basic infrastructure services. In my city, we've had budget shortfalls in the millions for years, and debacle after debacle of basic infrastructure failures because there's just not enough money to go around. Yet when I turn on the news, I'm hearing about yet another sweetheart deal that the city officials have made with some business to get them to come here. I can't help but think that we're just a few more sweetheart deals away from being completely bankrupt. (And indeed, many cities and counties around the country really are literally bankrupt.)
This also neglects an issue that the OP mentioned above: corruption. I also can't help but think--and this has been proven in a court of law in a few cases--that the city officials who are making these sweetheart deals are getting kickbacks for them. In those cases, it's not just entirely possible, but I'd argue that it's probable that they're not negotiating in good faith for the city's best interest, that the costs I mentioned really will result in a net loss for the city.
Re:"supporting the government" (Score:4, Interesting)
Aah, the mandatory and false Standard Oil example.
The company that always reduced prices of its product over DECADES and was very successful because it could deliver an ever cheapening, good quality product to the market. The company that had 150 competitors by 1911.
By 1870 Standard Oil had 4% of the market share. The tools and technologies it invested in allowed it to create efficiencies and cut costs and pass cost savings to the consumers.
1869, price of refined oil was 30 cents per gallon.
1874, price of refined oil was 10 cents per gallon.
1885, price of refined oil was 8 cents per gallon.
1897, price of refined oil was 5.9 cents per gallon.
So by 1897 the prices were 5.9 cents, you can calculate how many times the prices fell from 1869 levels as an exercise.
By 1910 Standard Oil had 150 competitors, including Texaco and Gulf.
Saying that any type of 'predatory price strategy' was used is retarded, because prices were dropping over decades.
So yes, Standard Oil is an excellent example of free market at work and then of government meddling with the market to destroy a very healthy competitor, which was bringing a quality product to the market.
"Robber barons" indeed, people who created the industry, provided the necessary and very valuable resource at ever falling prices and developed industries, tools, mechanisms, need for higher education levels, the wealth and infrastructure to the public.
This is exactly what goes against your failed notion that 'trickle down economics' doesn't work. It works very very well, but you have to be part of the production cycle, you have to work, to produce, not to be an illegitimate consumer subsidised by the very money of the very people who then are selling you the product for their own money.