Seattle has a weird relationship with Amazon

[dead0man]

link - Reason

So Amazon wants a second HQ they have announced.  One Seattle councilwoman wants to "unionize, and to take these behemoths into democratic public ownership".  Others got together and wrote a strange please don't go, here is why you are an idiot....oh and I may have done a tiny thing wrong letter to Amazon that had the balls to include this line

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Indeed, clearly Amazon wants MORE of you up it's ass!  Meanwhile

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of course, like Reason points out, other cities shouldn't bend over backwards to lure these companies to town (Christie offered $7 billion....that's with a B...in tax incentives to Amazon) anymore than they should drop million on free stadiums for sports franchises worth billions....though I'd much rather have Google or Amazon in town than the Yankees or Cowboys.

[publicunofficial]

What is the point of this thread old0man?

[KingSweden]

What is the point of this thread old0man?

I agree! This doesn’t seem germane to this forum.

[dead0man]

I know Seattle is a strange place, but it's still part of the US right?

[Crumpets]

One Seattle councilwoman wants to "unionize, and to take these behemoths into democratic public ownership".

Yeah, it's a common side effect of having one radical leftist councilmember to get headlines like this, but she's still only one out of nine, and the other eight would laugh at the suggestion of "nationalizing Amazon" as people were putting it when she first got elected.

In 2014 the city passed one of the nation's first $15 an hour minimum wage laws.

Which effects basically nobody at Amazon, except maybe the janitors and the handful of people working at their bookstore + experimental grocery store.

[bgwah]

Lol. This isn't about the minimum wage.

Kshama Sawant is great at getting attention, though. Arguably her only real talent.

[KingSweden]

Lol. This isn't about the minimum wage.

Kshama Sawant is great at getting attention, though. Arguably her only real talent.

Her record of getting like-minded people elected isn’t great, either. Oliver, Jess Spears, Jon Grant (at least the first time around, let’s not count chickens before they hatch...)

[publicunofficial]

Also not every Seattlite would argue Amazon has been a net benefit to the city.

[IceSpear]

When I visited Seattle earlier this year, I didn't see the breadlines, mass unemployment, and civil unrest due to the destruction of capitalism itself the Republicans promised a $15 minimum wage would bring. How could this be? I guess I just wasn't looking hard enough.

In fact, their unemployment rate is actually lower than Philadelphia (or Omaha!) where the minimum wage is a slave wage. Facts are a pesky thing.

[Tintrlvr]

What's the "infamous (and probably illegal) income tax"?

People make weird statements. Kshama Sawant is really far left. None of this seems to be an issue for Amazon.

Ultimately, Amazon isn't "leaving" Seattle, they just decided they were better off having two centers, which is probably true because (i) a lot of potential talent doesn't live in Seattle and doesn't want to for a wide variety of reasons (not all of which the Seattle city government could change even if it wanted to), (ii) there are limits to how large any company can become in any one city, especially a city that isn't all that large to begin with, and Amazon is still looking at growing aggressively and (iii) for a company that is fundamentally about logistics, having its sole headquarters in a far corner of the country remote from most of the rest of the population was always an odd decision (even though neither headquarters is directly related to its actual logistics/distribution business, it's clearly better to have a second headquarters that is more accessible to the parts of its logistics/distribution business in the eastern two-thirds of the country).

The whole process is bizarre, though.

[KingSweden]

Also not every Seattlite would argue Amazon has been a net benefit to the city.

I would argue though that the city (and region, for that matter) was and has been unprepared for the kind of growth it’s seen, both at the government level and the business level, and is just now trying to catch up

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

What is the point of this thread old0man?

I agree! This doesn’t seem germane to this forum.

The impact of megacorps on politics is at least as big as weather, disasters, and economic trends.

[KingSweden]

What is the point of this thread old0man?

I agree! This doesn’t seem germane to this forum.

The impact of megacorps on politics is at least as big as weather, disasters, and economic trends.

Sure, though this A) doesn’t belong in US General, it should have been posted in the Washington megathread and B) is just grumbling about Seattle politicians which, again, doesn’t belong in US General

[muon2]

What is the point of this thread old0man?

I agree! This doesn’t seem germane to this forum.

The impact of megacorps on politics is at least as big as weather, disasters, and economic trends.

Sure, though this A) doesn’t belong in US General, it should have been posted in the Washington megathread and B) is just grumbling about Seattle politicians which, again, doesn’t belong in US General

Though to the extent the decision to go for a 2nd HQ has political ramifications in a number of other cities and states, it does work fine on this board. For example Gov Rauner and Mayor Emanuel have been feuding over a number of issues the last two years, but on a bid to Amazon Bruce and Rahm are best buds.

[Seattle]

Also not every Seattlite would argue Amazon has been a net benefit to the city.

I would argue though that the city (and region, for that matter) was and has been unprepared for the kind of growth it’s seen, both at the government level and the business level, and is just now trying to catch up

This. And I think Amazon realizes it, which is likely not an insignificant part of why they decided to create an HQ2. I hope that the new HQ2 city immediately plans massive zoning capacity increases to accommodate the population influx.

I should also note- Amazon is not going to stop growing in Seattle. In the past month they've leased an additional 1.03 million square feet of space. They're currently building 1.1 million square feet, and will start construction on another 850k shortly. That's space for an additional 11-13k workers, on top of years of similar growth and you begin to see why there's a strained relationship between the city, residents, and Amazon.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Thank God Sawant is not eligible to run for president.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Corprocrat Jenny Durkan is taking money directly from Amazon and Comcast because they seem to really hate her progressive challenger, Cary Moon.

[Crumpets]

Corprocrat Jenny Durkan is taking money directly from Amazon and Comcast because they seem to really hate her progressive challenger, Cary Moon.

Interesting that jfern supports the same candidate as I do. I would have expected him to support writing-in Nikita Oliver to stick it to the Moon campaign for having only made the general thanks to the endorsement of the obvious corporate sellouts at the Stranger Election Control Board, possible election of Durkan be damned.