Amazon Subsidies And Sports Stadium Subsidies Are Each Terrible In Their Own Special Way

Last edited Sat Nov 17, 2018, 12:33 AM - Edit history (1)

If you didn’t already get enough links to read from today’s weekly news roundup, and didn’t hear enough of my thoughts on Amazon’s $4 billion payday as it compares to sports subsidies, I’ve elaborated on my thoughts at length in an article that just went up this morning at Deadspin. Some sample takeaways:

Jeff Bezos will be getting more public cash than any single sports venue, but at least he’ll be employing actual full-time workers, so the cost-per-job ratio won’t be as dismal as in sports deals (though it’s still probably pretty bad).
Just like we’ve seen in sports deals, here are tons of hidden costs to the Amazon agreements, from infrastructure slush funds paid for with public tax dollars to federal tax shelters set up by Donald Trump that will cover Amazon’s New York headquarters, even though they were supposed to be for impoverished areas and Long Island City is decidedly not.
As in many sports deals, Amazon’s subsidies will evade most public oversight (in New York, anyway), and were arguably unnecessary at this level given that the company, like sports teams, undoubtedly ended up locating in the market that it wanted to anyway.
Or if you want to skip to the ending: “The Amazon deal is ultimately another step in the legitimization of government by extortion, where the nation’s richest men can withhold ‘job creation’ as a condition of not having to pay taxes, or commute without a helicopter.” But go read the whole thing, it’s way more entertaining than the bullet-point summary above, or at least way more packed with pop-culture references.

http://www.fieldofschemes.com/2018/11/16/14287/amazon-subsidies-and-sports-stadium-subsidies-are-each-terrible-in-their-own-way/

Posting here because AOC received criticism for not embracing Amazon like Cuomo.

The referenced Deadspin article: https://deadspin.com/amazons-ransom-vs-stadium-deals-which-is-worse-1830467603