Maybe We Don't Want That Amazon Headquarters Anyway

For a different viewpoint on that Amazon headquarters:

Amazon's New Headquarters 

Should Be in Hell

"Amazon is one of America’s largest and most successful corporations. It is worth nearly $500 billion. Its stock is booming. Its CEO is one of the world’s richest men. It has the wherewithal, in other words, to do whatever it wants. If Amazon wanted to purchase five square blocks of midtown Manhattan tomorrow and build skyscrapers on it, it could, just by writing a check. More to the point, if Amazon wanted to help revitalize an American city by investing $5 billion in it to build a new headquarters there, bringing 50,000 new jobs to town, it could. Just by writing a check.

Instead, Amazon is holding a multinational audition, asking for cities to submit proposals to win the exciting opportunity to host tens of thousands of tech (people). Amazon wants to know that cities have an educated work force and good transportation networks, sure, but they don’t need the cities themselves to tell them that. What they are asking cities to submit are economic incentives. They are asking for tax breaks. They are in essence conducting a giant beauty pageant in which desperate municipal governments attempt to offer them the most lucrative possible package of public resources. This is not unlike a rich man standing up in the midst of a crowd of beggars and yelling, “Who will massage my feet for the lowest price?”

Do we really want to give away possible supporting tax money for our schools and infrastructure?

Can we afford that?

It's as I said a long time ago and have said since, our city, county and state governments need to stop letting themselves be used like this. They need to stop allowing themselves to be manipulated to give the lowest and best tax package, just to land possible new business and companies to come into their jurisdictions.

They won't stop but they should.

In this Independence Day, patriotic week

In this week of patriotism, in the build-up to our Independence Day, the Fourth of July, it's important to note what these very American companies pay as their fair share to keep the country functioning:

Money they're keeping away from the rest of us.

They don't even want to help keep up the infrastructure that make their businesses function and successful.

Here's your real IRS scandal, ladies and gentlemen

That phony, bogus, trumped-up IRS scandal that's going around right now by the Republicans and "All Who Hate Obama"?

That's just what it is, phony.

George W. Bush had just the same situation and his administration went after far more groups, too.

And forget that this same IRS, now, also went after Liberal groups. Sure, forget or ignore that.

Here's the real IRS, America--it's companies not paying taxes, period and cheating you and I:

Another aspect of the real tax scandal that's being ignored: Google, Amazon, Starbucks, every other major corporation, and every big Wall Street bank, are sheltering as much of their U.S. profits abroad as they can, while telling Washington that lower corporate taxes are necessary in order to keep the U.S. "competitive." Baloney. The fact is, global corporations have no allegiance to any country; their only objective is to make as much money as possible -- and play off one country against another to keep their taxes down and subsidies up.

I'm in London for a few days, and all the talk here is about how Goldman Sachs just negotiated a sweetheart deal to settle a tax dispute with the British government; Google is manipulating its British sales to pay almost no taxes here by using its low-tax Ireland subsidiary (the chair of the Parliamentary committee investigating this has just called the do-no-evil firm "devious, calculating, and unethical"); Amazon has been found to route its British sales through a subsidiary in low-tax Luxembourg, and now receives more in subsidies from the British government than it pays here in taxes; Starbucks' tax-avoidance strategy was so blatant British consumers began boycotting the firm until it reversed course. 

As global capital becomes ever more powerful, giant corporations are holding governments up for ransom -- eliciting subsidies and tax breaks from governments concerned about their nation's "competitiveness" -- while sheltering their profits in the lowest-tax jurisdictions they can find. Major advanced countries need a comprehensive tax agreement that won't allow global corporations to get away with this."

--Robert Reich, economist, author, professor, columnist for The New York Times

The least corporations and the wealthy could do--the least--is pay some minimum amount, say, 10% of profits, at least, no matter what other deductions they take so we can pay, as a nation, for our schools and infrastructure and so they can have access to our markets.

But that would make sense.

Links:

Robert Reich - Wikipedia

Robert Reich | Facebook

Quote of the day--on taxes and fairness

"Open your wallet. Take out a dollar bill, and feel it between your fingers. That dollar is more than Bank of America, Citigroup, Verizon and Boeing all paid in U.S. income taxes last year, combined."  --The Daily Kos

Does this make any sense at all?

Does this seem like a good or wise way to run a country?

Link:  http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/15/956508/-All-in-a-Month’s-WorkCrashing-BofA,-Drawing-Beck’s-IreShaming-Corporate-Tax-Dodgers-

Your Tax Dollars at Work

There is an "Economic Stress Map" out just now, from the Associated Press and while I've never heard of it before, there are a few things on it worth noting of national and local significance.

First, if you see it, I think you'll note right away how most of the top 20 counties on the "most stressed" list are from formerly, famously wealthy but now defunct California. In fact, 6 of the worst 10 are in California and 10 of the top 20 are also from the sunshine state.

Conclusion? It's bad in California and probably getting worse.

The local news from this map, for us?

Check out what County is in the number one spot, nationally.

None other than Riley County, Kansas, home of the Army's Fort Riley.

Truly, your tax dollars at work.

What's also interesting, to me, and of local interest, I think, is that Ellis County (Hays), Kansas also comes up at number 3 on the low economic stress, followed by Ford County (Dodge City) at 7 and Finney County (Garden City) at 13.

It seems that, if you want low stress, maybe it's time to move to Kansas?

3 involved men

There are 3 men, currently, who are very involved with the current negotiations for the economic stimulus and this administration whose approaches are very different.

Two are very similar while the third is very different in their approaches.

It seems that Senator John Cornyn (R., Tx) and Represetative John Boehner (R., OH) both have a "Jones", so to speak, to grandstand and oppose things from the Democrats.

It's not like it's a surprise it's just frustrating.

Rep. Boehner seems to really enjoy the limelight, as much and frequently as possible. I get the sense he isn't sure what he likes more--his own photo on paper or footage of himself on television.

Both Cornyn and Boehner seem to want to block progress just to be blocking progress.

The thing is, we're in one heck of an ugly financial mess right now and we need to put politics aside, unfortunately for these two men, and work for solutions.

It's very unfortunate for them because in the first place, the Republican leadership in the past 8 years got us to where we are today and, as I said here earlier, if we get the solutions we do need--as we should--now, with this Democratic President, the Republicans run the risk of being out of power for many years to come.

A large legacy of screw-ups from the Bush years, followed by success in Obama years will doom them for a long time to come, certainly. (And here's hoping).

Republicans, right now, keep saying we need to put in more tax cuts into the stimulus package and not just spending.

Well, they handed out their tax cuts during the just-left Bush administration--only it was to the very wealthy of the country. Also, we have debt out the wazoo. How do you lower taxes further when we can't pay for what we already get? (But that's another column: tax cuts vs. insanely large spending--neither of which we can afford).

The fact is, we need to solve these very large problems because so many people's lives and livelihoods are at stake now. People have already lost their life savings or their jobs, due to this banking, economic mess.

It's not a time for stalling and blocking. It's a time for solutions.

The third person I mentioned is one Bill Perkins, from Houston, Texas.

Have you seen the large ads Mr. Perkins has run in newspapers either mocking Washington or just asking where the trillions of dollars in bailouts went in the last few months?

They're huge.

And frequent.

He's paying big money to ask these questions.

And I think they need to be asked.

And answered.

It seeemed, for a while there, that no one in Washington wanted to even ASK where the money for the first 1/2 of the bank's bailout went, let alone give Americans answers.

So here's to Mr. Perkins--thank you from the rest of us.

We'd like to know where this boondoggle has gone, too.

Who knows? We might avoid throwing away many more millions--or even billions--of taxpaid dollars, all in a supposed attempt to "kickstart the economy."