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Friday, November 16, 2018

Thomas Gallatin: Socialist Family Feud Over Amazon HQ2

Ocasio-Cortez blasts Amazon as the e-commerce giant announces its location for its new headquarters.

Amazon’s long-anticipated decision for the location of its new “HQ2” headquarters was announced with an unexpected twist — the new headquarters will be split between two cities: Queens, New York, and Crystal City, Virginia (a DC suburb). In the end, the reasoning behind this decision is obvious: direct access to the levers of financial and political power in two high-profile leftist enclaves. Instead of locating the new headquarters in the most business-friendly states and environments, Amazon chose leftist power centers knowing that the company will be able to seamlessly pass on any higher costs to consumers. And the tax benefits to Amazon work out to almost $50,000 per job created. Cronyism at its finest.

But there was another reason behind Amazon’s new headquarters’ “search.” In all likelihood, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had made up his mind on the new locations when the search was first announced. As Reason speculates, “[Amazon’s] HQ2 search was not about HQ2: it was about market research. The mayors and governors and councilmen and commissioners and local developers of America handed priceless information about their plans, investments, and reserve prices to Jeff Bezos for free. … Amazon is now privy to information about where different municipalities are going to direct investment and infrastructure in the near future. The company can exploit this information.”

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So Bezos is the wealthiest man in the world and in his greedy little heart he thinks it is OK for taxpayers to subsidize Amazon (his Company) with huge tax breaks.
My guess is he knew from the beginning where the new offices were going to be built and just played with the politicians at the cost of the local residents who now have to dig deep to pay for the tax break.
Let's wait and see if Bezos holds up his part of the 'bargain'.