Anti-Amazon Graffiti Increasing In Seattle (with Photos) (geekwire.com) 181
Long-time Slashdot reader reifman writes: If you're eagerly awaiting your city's selection for HQ2, you may want to check out GeekWire's photo gallery of anti-Amazon graffiti images from around Seattle. Animosity towards Amazon has grown in the wake of its threats over a per head tax on employees, which the city council passed and then repealed shortly after. The tax would have increased the budget for services for our 12,000+ homeless. Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos also fought the state income tax on the wealthy in 2010.
Techno salvation... (Score:1)
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Never trade efficiency for entitlements. Someone else will just take the efficiency and out-compete you.
For all the hatred on Amazon because of their low prices and competition, still almost 1/2 of online sales now goes through them. Obviously they are winning the mindshare of their consumers. If you don't like it, compete! Offer a better value proposition. I'll buy from you then.
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Perhaps, but the city of Seattle sees basically none of that money. But we do wind up dealing with the consequences of Amazon's hiring practices in terms of bringing in thousands of men to the area who are being paid absurd sums of money and given housing allowances driving up the cost of rent.
They also do bupkiss about helping the region deal with the consequences of their disruptive presence.
The city would be getting greater benefit from Amazon if they were located somewhere else.
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....... we do wind up dealing with the consequences of Amazon's hiring practices in terms of bringing in thousands of men to the area who are being paid absurd sums of money
So what you're saying is Amazon workers with money are getting pussy and unemployed guys living in Mom's basement aren't.
Re: Techno salvation... (Score:2)
Sorry, but this is stupid. The guys making more money spend it, and a large portion goes into the goods and services provided by the local economy, they will eat at nice restaurants, frequent local entertainment venues, and the like. Even if that weren't the case, most of that comes in the form of stocks. Amazon is a publicly traded company. You too can enjoin in the success by buying into their company and riding the same wave.
Re: Techno salvation... (Score:1)
"The problem is {false assertion} and it's because {appeal to emotion} as evidenced by {illogical unrelated fallacy}. The solution is to {insane and retarded fantasy that can only result in the destruction of society and the death of millions}."
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every project they seem to chase ends up costing the tax payers far more than what they budgeted.
To be fair, that's true of just about every large project, public or private, and a lot of smaller ones. Public ones are more open with the budgets, so get noticed more. Not that this excuses projects running over budget, just pointing out that government is not necessarily any worse at it, and that budgeting still seems to be more art then science at times.
Re: Techno salvation... (Score:2)
Most of that is from the sales tax that people pay on purchases through Amazon.
Literally not one single penny of that is from sales taxes people pay on purchases. The increase in sales taxes is on top of the $250 million which Amazon themselves paid.
You should at least RTFA before commenting, just to make sure it doesn't directly contradict the shit you're about to make up.
Re:Amazon, what is it good for? (Score:4, Funny)
That can be said for all for-profit businesses. (Score:1)
Their whole point is to take as much money as possible,while giving back aslittle as possible. Always juuust scraping past outright theft and robbery. Or redefining "theft" and "robbery.
Or get murdered by the competition that does.
Note how none of the above mentions improvements of humanity of life anywhere.
I want for-betterment businesses! And incentives that actually make it a good decisison. (I'd start with criminalizing profit ... as opposed to actually earning your money. But with said crime ruling the
Re: That can be said for all for-profit businesses (Score:2)
Their whole point is to take as much money as possible,while giving back aslittle as possible.
Right. Which is why Amazon has a gargantuan annual profit margin reaching almost 4%. While those kind, giving folks at apple take in a measly 30% profit.
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yup. I was born in Seattle, but grew up on the East Coast. For work, I have been able to travel to Seattle a couple of times and I do not recognize it. It has been many years, but the homeless problem on the West Coast is self-made.
These governments are literally encouraging it by helping the homeless in the wrong ways. Most of them are able-bodied people who managed to become homeless -- likely without intending or otherwise wanting it -- and then never worked their way out of it.
So the government's idea t
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I agree. In fact, we should raise taxes on the poor and homeless to give the monies directly to Bezos. Look at all the stuff he has done - I think he could do wonders with even more money.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that the tax only applied to companies which make $20M+ per year, and was only $275 per employee, I can't see how it would have pushed any businesses out of the city. If you found out that your electric bill was $1 more than you expected, would you move out of your house?
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Given that the tax only applied to companies which make $20M+ per year, and was only $275 per employee, I can't see how it would have pushed any businesses out of the city. If you found out that your electric bill was $1 more than you expected, would you move out of your house?
Could those businesses have afforded this special tax? Almost certainly. Do you think the tax would have stopped there? Almost certainly not. Amazon and their counterparts are stopping a precedent before it gets started.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
to provide all kinds of city services that benefit ALL its citizenry
This is a sentiment that I can get behind, I have expressed my dislike for discriminatory benefits on many occasions. However, a soup kitchen (for example) is not discriminatory. The fact that you don't need it yourself at this moment, does not mean that it isn't there for you if and when you do need it. Your children may not need an orphanage... yet. "But I don't have any children and never will!" you say? Helping your neighbors' children helps you in the long run, in the form of reduced crime and associated costs, and a stronger economy and higher property values. The same applies to helping your neighbors who are not children.
Here's a tip for you: fire insurance is not a waste of money, even though your house may not currently be on fire.
Services? (Score:2, Interesting)
The tax would have increased the budget for services for our 12,000+ homeless.
Not really. There was no plan in place to pass the tax revenues on to the needy. A few ideas about building city subsidized housing with an income qualification level of 125% of the neighborhood median (read: subsidies for hipster condos). Most of the revenue would have disappeared into the general fund. And be a camel's nose under the income tax tent.
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Big is in, little is out (Score:3, Insightful)
Eventually a big entity like Amazon creates negative side effects that people begin to realize are not good. People lose jobs, competition is eliminated and we have seen this before with big box lumber companies killing mom and pops yards, small hardware stores have died out, WalMart did its own share of killing small retail. It was inevitable that Amazon would eventually create some real imbalances that people would begin to be upset over.
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At least WalMart pays local taxes in the towns and cities they were located in. And despite paying relatively low wages on a national level, they were often on par and over to what the local small retail stores were paying their employees. Amazon, otoh, got the advantage of selling merchandise tax free for almost two decades consequently devastating local retail brick and mortar store and local tax bases as it became more popular.
Kill the goose that lays golden eggs ? (Score:4, Insightful)
These people want to kill it then sodomize and defecate on the corpse.
Seattle acts like tech businesses are the serfs when there's cities literally fighting each other to get them to relocate.
Re:Kill the goose that lays golden eggs ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Already resolved (Score:2, Funny)
This has already been resolved. Amazon announced this week that they're siting HQ2 in our town here in Vermont. Being that Vermont is a third world country the wages and cost of living are lower which will save Amazon billions of dollars even without Vermont's President Snelling giving them any tax breaks. In turn
Amazon has promised to bring Vermont into the 21st century by upgrading it's information highway bring the Internet to all Vermont citizens.
Amazon will instantly become the #1 employer in Vermont.
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You can milk just about anything with nipples.
Re: Already resolved (Score:1)
We here have been thinking about establishing a tomcat dairy. With the right hormone therapy, tomcats can become prolific dairy animals.
Tomcat cheese, tomcat yogurt... the possibilities are many!
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You may be wondering about cows vs sows.
GET OUT OF MY HEAD
Re: I like to lick it & stick it (Score:1)
I, too, prefer to pay my bills with paper checks, an envelope and a stamp. Unfortunately, stamps are not lickable any more. The post office sells adhesive-back stamps distributed on release paper.
Rage Against the Machine! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Rage Against the Machine! (Score:1)
Heavy metal costs more to ship
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The internet has spoken. Don't buy music!
Re: Rage Against the Machine! (Score:2)
Why are you paying shipping on an MP3 file?
Please. Like any good hipster, he got it on vinyl.
Tax people who work... (Score:2, Insightful)
... to give the money to those who don't.
If you oppose that, you might be one of the people who don't work. There's a really easy way to fix your issue : Get a job.
fool (Score:2)
There are not enough jobs. Even if you are unaware of the problem and how it has been a GROWING problem since technology advanced (since you can't measure technological progress you can't create a solid linkage but a reasonable look does make it look like the two are connected.... which they are.)
AI and robotics will make it so you can't avoid shortage of jobs forever. Can't blame the victims forever and you can't smear them with cherry picked examples forever... unless you can isolate yourself from the wo
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There are not enough jobs.
There are more jobs than people out of work [cnbc.com]
GROWING problem
You sure? [npr.org]
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Employment is a human problem.
FYI, most humans DO NOT LIVE IN THE USA.
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Re:fool (Score:5, Insightful)
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Of course we can have people working. But many homeless people already work, so getting people who work to work doesn't seem to be solving the issue of them not having a home.
There are a few who are not working who won't yet be capable of working if their issues (mental health, most likely) are too great, which means some sort of gateway required before they can work at Dick's or anywhere else. For example, you won't get that much work out of someone with severe and untreated schizophrenia, and that's not a
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Employment is a human problem.
FYI, most humans DO NOT LIVE IN THE USA.
Furthermore, if you think citing 1 employer is a rebuttal of my statement assuming it's limited to just one of the BEST performing economies you need practice. Literal simplistic interpretation is slowing you down in argumentative distractions when you could be actually thinking about problems.
You can't even get good unemployment numbers because the only solid number is politically skewed by government to filter out a much larger number o
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Indeed, people underemployed in low-wage jobs can, and do, end up homeless. Sometimes that is due to low skills, sometimes ill-health, sometimes child care requirements, sometimes due to personal issues like mental illness or substance abuse, or lack of jobs.
Once homeless it can be hard to even get work as a permanent address is often required, and increasingly applications are done online, and you need to be moderately clean with reasonable clothes for a job. Thus, it can be difficult to get a new job if
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... to give the money to those who don't.
There's a difference between don't and won't. Many homeless people have issues with mental health, substances, or both. There's enough money in the economy to offer them at least some assistance, and potentially get at least some of them back on their feet and functioning members of society again. It may not work for all people, of course, as some have issues that are hard to solve, and not all interventions are successful.
People not wanting to work is another matter, but that's relatively few people.
Also,
Because OF COURSE it is! (Score:3, Interesting)
Amazon is an enormous concentration of wealth.
Never mind that it done through hard labor and smart business practice.
There's always going to be people envious of that.
And there's always people who think they deserve a "cut" of it. Even if they don't.
And, considering the fact that Seattle is every bit as crazy socialist as the bastions in Commiefornia, and it's no surprise.
Remember, the money YOU earn is not YOUR money. It's OUR money...comrade...
Fuck these people and the horse they rode in on.
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Money is a construct made by the state, and in general, assuming that things are yours as if it was a law of nature and not something you have to constantly fight for, is naive at best.
Re: Because OF COURSE it is! (Score:2)
assuming that things are yours as if it was a law of nature and not something you have to constantly fight for, is naive at best.
I'm perfectly fine with fighting for what's mine. What I object to is weak-kneed cunts trying to get the state to use force on their behalf. You want my shit? Come and get it yourself. I'll be waiting.
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The thing is, what's "yours" is a matter of social contract. When you break one part of the social contract, the rest becomes weaker.
That means that if you aren't taking care of the relatively helpless, the social contract has become weaker, and those who have been abandoned feel, justly, that they have little obligation to obey the rules of the social contract that don't favor them.
Title to property, and rights of any sort, depend on the social contract. Those who are wise prefer to strengthen it, even i
Re: Because ... Addendum (Score:2)
Sorry about the garbled quote, but that was a cut and paste form Wikipedia. The translation is reasonable. (I originally heard reported as said in the first person singular by Louis, and Wikipedia says "attributed to", so don't believe the attribution unreservedly.)
Re: Because OF COURSE it is! (Score:2)
Title to property, and rights of any sort, depend on the social contract.
"Social contract" in the sense that you're using it translates roughly to "things we all agree to", and there isn't a single thing that we all agree to. There are always numerous factions at play, and there are always those who prefer to set out on their own, go against the grain and use force to get what they want. The only way to stop either of those groups is by applying an opposite force.
So, outside of intellectual circle jerks (out in the real world), "social contract" just boils down to force. Thos
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Before the 1980's, possibly the 1960's, a longer time view was common is business. Then the Harvard Business School started pushing a short time horizon.
There have been lots of groups building large projects with a time horizon in the multiple decades. Many of them failed due to changed circumstances (a long horizon has its problems), but large projects pretty much demand a long horizon to pay for themselves. But part of the reason the US Senate was designed with overlapping six year terms was to foster
Re: Because OF COURSE it is! (Score:2)
It's not about a "longer term horizon", it's about not changing shit too often. To apply it to your amazon complaint, the city might make a 6 year deal with Amazon in order to ensure some stability. That gives Amazon 6 years to build and run their business, and it gives the city 6 years of revenue at a relatively steady rate.
If, on the other hand, the city wanted a 1 year deal, Amazon might tell them to fuck off. Too much instability and uncertainty. It might take a year to build the new warehouse, just
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Previous reports have been suggesting that Seattle is subsidizing Amazon by providing services at considerably below cost. (Where cost to Amazon is figured based on the taxes that they pay, and services include things like transit, garbage collection, road maintenance, law enforcement, etc.)
Now it's true I didn't verify that those reports are correct, so in a sense you are correct. OTOH, I'm not making Seattle's decisions for them, so I'm not about to invest the kind of effort that validation would requir
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Sorry but when you use government force to "entitle yourself", YOU are the one who has broken the social contract.
The social contract in the US says you are entitled to your property, your goods and your earnings.
If you want to come and just rip that way, prepare to eat a fucking bullet in the civil war.
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Strength is also dynamic and changing. You may not enjoy it, but if they manage to turn the masses and the laws against you, then in the way that counts, they were stronger than you. That's what darwinists and capitalists do not understand, if you play this power game to the end, there is no fair and unfair, just success and failure.
Re: Because OF COURSE it is! (Score:2)
That's what darwinists and capitalists do not understand, if you play this power game to the end, there is no fair and unfair, just success and failure.
"Darwinist" is a really stupid word made up by religious nitwits in order to paint the theory of evolution as some kind of competing religion, so I would strongly suggest you avoid using it if you want to be taken seriously.
Outside of that, people who understand natural selection and capitalists both generally understand that it's not about fair and unfair. They're not the ones whining about fairness. It's typically the socialists and commies who whine about how "things aren't fair" and we need to take ot
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typically the socialists and commies who whine about how "things aren't fair" and we need to take other peoples stuff in order to make it fair.
This can also be perceived as whining, that's my point. If you argue that everyone who feels that they were taken advantage are whiners, the same can be used against you.
Re: Because OF COURSE it is! (Score:2)
This can also be perceived as whining, that's my point. If you argue that everyone who feels that they were taken advantage are whiners, the same can be used against you.
Can you point to an example of me saying that their whining isn't fair?
No?
Then I'm not sure what exactly you're arguing for at this point ...
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Sorry, money is a first level abstraction of goods and services.
Is it artificial? YES. But they represent goods YOU produce and the labor expended to produce them or deliver a service.
So yes, it's YOURS.
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"They represent goods YOU produce".
Weird, I never saw a lawyer or a politician produce anything,.
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They also deliver services.
Why is this so hard to grok?
Oh yeah. #YouWantFreeShit
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And there's always people who think they deserve a "cut" of it. Even if they don't.
Obama already addressed your point in his 'You Didn't Build That' speech. Even the most successful business relies on public infrastructure and service to function so those who benefit the most should contribute the most.
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Yeah. And Obama was DEAD WRONG.
Those who benefit the most DO contribute the most.
Or do you think things like property ownership and massive, multi-tier employment IN NO WAY contribute to society?
How many people does Amazon employ directly?
How many people at their partners, service providers, and downstream business adjuncts do they employ indirectly?
How much money does their simple EXISTENCE pump into the economy?
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Yeah. And Obama was DEAD WRONG.
Those who benefit the most DO contribute the most.
Or do you think things like property ownership and massive, multi-tier employment IN NO WAY contribute to society?
How many people does Amazon employ directly? How many people at their partners, service providers, and downstream business adjuncts do they employ indirectly? How much money does their simple EXISTENCE pump into the economy?
You seem to be arguing something different to what I was.
The you_didn't_build_that speech doesn't mean you don't get to benefit from your hard work. Bezos is the most wealthiest capitalist of the modern era and he was an Obama supporter. How does that fight in with your angry Fox News everything Obama does is bad routine?
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No. No I'm not.
The "you didn't build that" speech was bullshit.
Sure, it wasn't saying you shouldn't be able to benefit from your hard work.
What it was doing is forwarding a notion that someone (usually the government) should be able to arbitrarily limit HOW MUCH you should be able to benefit from your hard work.
And basically using the bogus excuse of "infrastructure cost freeloading".
Sure, a lot of the infrastructure being used wasn't initially paid for by many businesses.
But their corporate taxes, and the
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No. No I'm not.
The "you didn't build that" speech was bullshit.
You know that just repeating a claim doesn't make it any more true?
So the insistence that one should just cut the bottoms off their pockets and accept any and all financial encumbrances, simply because some government yoohoo thinks they should be able to use them like a piggy bank...Bullshit, first to last.
That's an interesting interpretation. And it only reconfirms my original claim, that you are arguing something different to me.
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Well, since you simply referenced "You didn't build that" and didn't actually state your point...
Technically, you didn't argue anything. You simply stated "I disagree".
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Well, since you simply referenced "You didn't build that" and didn't actually state your point... Obama already said it better than I could. And what he said doesn't much with your claim. Technically, you didn't argue anything. You simply stated "I disagree".
Even the best capitalist in the world (which ironically right now is Jeff Bezos) still depends on centralised infrastructure and services to make money. And that needs to be paid for by everyone, even Jeff Bezos knows that.
You have taken the extreme view that contributing to common service is identical to theft. An extreme claim which will need some extreme evidence to support.
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No. No I haven't. So please stop attempting to put words in my mouth.
What I'm saying is that business owners should not be arbitrarily used as a bottomless piggy bank.
Nor should they allow themselves to be used in such a way.
Nobody is saying that business owners should contribute to infrastructure.
They do. Through their taxes and other expenses.
After that, who the fuck should have the right to tell them they don't contribute 'enough"?
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What I'm saying is that business owners should not be arbitrarily used as a bottomless piggy bank.
And no-one has ever claimed this. Or do you have citations of anyone credible making this claim?
After that, who the fuck should have the right to tell them they don't contribute 'enough"?
We the people... You may have heard that phrase somewhere previously....
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So, basically, penalizing a company for being successful.
I could see some GLARING problems with that.
So long as they aren't a monopoly, abusing employees or customers or breaking the law, I don't see why government intervention should be forced on them.
I ALSO don't believe that anyone else is entitled to "a cut" of the proceeds just because they decide it should happen and have access to governmental force.
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Commiefornia,
Has this account been seized by a Russian chatbot?
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Everyone else just "had" their land yea?
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catch one "artist" (Score:2)
Hang him out for three days in front of hus "creative" work.
its not the corporations... (Score:3, Interesting)
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As a Seattle-ite myself, the “homeless problem” here has little to do with Amazon. It is directly in the laps of a socialist City Council and liberal voters who roll out the red carpet with freebee’s for homeless, (like doctor staffed heroin shoot up sites with free needles) a hobbled police force that is not allowed to enforce laws, arrest drug deals, site or tow broken down vehicles, a “no chase, no confront” policy towards shoplifters, homeless encampments that allow drug use. And the list goes on and on. Meanwhile working citizens see taxes skyrocket for various “studies” and $12 million dollar per mile bike lanes
Ya, bullshit. The vast majority of the homeless (85%) lived here in Seattle before the became homeless. Property values, and rents have pretty much been going up 10% per year for more than 20 years now. All the cheap housing is being torn down or remodeled to make way for more expensive housing. Property owners, forced by rising property values and taxes, have been doubling rent without warning so they can remodel and charge that doubled rent. If you don't have a sizable nest egg stored up, moving is rough
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Secondly, California properties have seen a similar increase in prices, yet, homelessness has decreased.
They;ve come here. cat's man, feed'em you get more.
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Many, many programs exist to help the homeless BUT, let me repeat BUT – you have to follow the rules. No drugs, in/out by certain hours, actually WANT to work.. but unfortunately, the vast majority of homeless are
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For that ever more tax would be collected by the city.
People with wealth then have to move to better parts of the USA just to keep any profit. To have the ability to invest and grow their brands.
AC re "incomplete understanding"
People can see the results of such politics all over the USA Parked RV, tent cities, many different kinds of trash, drug use, changes to the way police have to work.
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The fact that most people refuse to accept is that most of the homeless in seattle are drug users, mentally ill, have issues with authority and simply refuse to follow rules. There ALREADY exist plenty of programs to help the homeless. But these programs require you follow rules - ie: no drug use, back in the
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Of the homeless camp residents “They were offered services. We even offered them jobs with labor people for a few months,” – “all their offers were rejected, including money to help clean up their own mess.”
https://q13fox.com/2018/06/01/... [q13fox.com]
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America (Score:2)
Why is anti-Starbucks graffiti necessary? As a non-American, I've always wondered why the coffee alone wouldn't be enough to keep the people away?
Carpetbaggers (Score:2)
...corrupt. Seattle, San Francisco et. al. have growth to fund and Tech overlords, queen's coaches and company housing impacts leave cities devastated with congestion, homeless, infrastructure and skyrocketing costs in an escalating economy run by absentee feudal corporations
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Re: Not bad (Score:1)
Yea strange, acombany provides transit for their workorce , probably because the public transit is not good enugh, results, seats a freed up on publc transit, and the emploies thet would normaly drive in ther own cars adding even more traffic now ride rhe company bus whitch creates less traffic and is thus better for evryone using the road. Suddenly soneone starts using said buses for target practice?? I must be missing something, but what? This just seems silly to me
Re: Too many conservatives on this thread (Score:1)
No, as people mature they become more conservative. It's called 'accumulating a stake in the real world' and 'learning through experience.'
I couldn't possibly explain it to the fiery young bucks who 'are going to change the world' because it's more the kind of thing you figure out, rather than something you're told.