Sorry for the screen shot. Article is behind a pay wall. Https://bit.ly/2jLoc9y Basically we are already taking two more buildings. The tower 333 and the summit III and possibly the spring district block 16. Total over 1 million Sq ft.
Rich-People / Big-Company tantrums
Other cities are throwing themselves at Amazon’s feet and here’s Seattle city clowncil trying to milk a few more millions. I hope Amazon/Bezos sets an example here after Amazon has been completely silent for the last 17 years. Not only are they the biggest employer they are also the single biggest property owner (and thus property tax payer) by and large. On top of that all those Amazon employees but food, eat at restaurants, get haircuts, have pets, buy cars, service their cars, etc., etc. billions of dollars spent in the local economy. But you can’t fix stupid.
@oh snap: Are we supposed to believe that you are so clever? The Seattle City Council is doing what is right and that is to help the homeless. Seattle currently has 40000 Amazon employees. Assuming that people work an average of 2000 hours a year, a tax of 26¢/employee/hour would result in an annual tax amounting to approximately 21MM. Jeff Bezos said he liquidates 1MMM Of AMZN stock every year to spend on rockets. The tax amounts to approx 2% of his extravagant yearly expenditure on rockets. His response to the tax and his priorities make it very clear that he doesn’t give two shits for the homeless. In response Seattle shouldn’t give a shit about him and his company. The Seattle City Council runs Seattle not Amazon. Amazon made this about them and that is a big mistake
Tower 333 is currently our HQ. Weird to think of Amazon moving in after we move, though it makes sense.
I heard from my friends at Expedia that a lot of ppl don’t want to move to Seattle. Is that true? Couple of them r considering jumping ship before the move too.
Can’t blame them. Bad traffic, human excrements and needles on the sidewalks what’s there not to like?
The city of Seattle has gotten fucking ridiculous. They are shooting themselves in the foot with all these new taxes and shit. They already spend something like 50k a year for each homeless person. Maybe they want to be homeless
Homeless >> working people. Let’s tax everyone to give freebies to those who don’t want to lift a finger (except a the middle finger).
@oh snap: You again? Quit equating homelessness with laziness
Maybe I'm naive, but a $500 per person tax doesn't seem like it should be high enough to actually matter to the big tech companies. Sure it will be taken into consideration, but I feel like if Seattle propper was the ideal location before the tax, the tax wouldn't be high enough to deter a company. And no company is going to pay to move just because of that tax. Now, it may be the beginning of more to come, but this alone likely won't affect the outcome of any decision of where to build an office for big companies. Doing some napkin math, it would likely come out to about a +0.3% increase in local labor cost. No company wants to pay more taxes, but this likely won't be enough to scare off any investment. Amazon would build those offices in Bellevue even if this tax didn't exist.
Basically every tax ever starts out small and eventually gets way larger. For example, look up the history of the US federal income tax. This is why the voters of Washington were smart to reject a state income tax on the rich a few years ago btw.
Their flyers and billboards didn’t read “Save the Homeless.” They said “Tax Amazon.” When I hear phrases like “We need Amazon’s money”... “Amazon you can’t hide, we can see your greedy side”... “we need to tax the bosses”... I can see that, worse than the tax, is the rhetoric of entitlement and hatred towards Amazon. They want to gouge Amazon. This is about sticking it to capitalism, not helping people. Kshama Sawant can let a homeless stay in one of her spare bedrooms if she gives a shit. And by the way, I did do exactly that for over half a year (and he now has his own place in Tacoma and works at UPS). There are people who want to help, and have the means, and those same people are being told by the city government to go fuck themselves. As an employee of Amazon I feel like my government is labeling me as greedy and demanding that I give money to them so they can spend it unaccountably, and they consider it a big win that they gouged “the bosses” regardless of what it did to help any actual people. Fuck this city. This socialist policy will only establish Seattle as a mecca for the homeless. Just as Seattle has had workers migrate from all over the country, many of the homeless here are not from here. It’s just a really god damn friendly place for the homeless compared to other parts of the country, with the gov’t already spending $50K a year on each of them. Unfortunately homelessness will only rise.
It’s simple: you tax what you want to discourage and subsidize what you want more of. So, more homeless and fewer jobs will be the result. You just can’t fix stupid.
Pay wall?
where they make you pay to read the fake news.