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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   8308 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026

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The collapse of the auto industry in 2008 was apparently so bad that it is better to prevent industrial development alltogether in order to avoid the risk of another collapse. It almost makes sense until you think about it for 30 seconds.

Think about it for longer than 30 seconds. Remember AOC among others successfully stopping the new Amazon headquarters in New York? Why would they do that? Didn't they want economic development and jobs?

How places attract such large mono-developments (and God knows, Ireland has led the way in this) is by promising very, very favourable conditions. Tax cuts. Subsidies. Grants. Where does that money come from? The local community. New York might be big enough to absorb those costs, but the locals didn't think so when it came to Amazon and the subsidies held out as bargaining chips. Janesville certainly can't, and what about if the local government commits to the new data centre, things go forward - and then halfway through for some reason it gets abandoned? No jobs, locked in to contracts that require penalties (probably) and more crushed hopes (and more than hopes, if people have moved back home in anticipation of getting work on construction etc. for the new site).

I'm living in a town where we now have, in effect, one remaining major employer. Over the last three decades or so, branch offices of national companies have closed down or moved elsewhere, and the remaining major employers amalgamated/got taken over by other companies and the work was shifted elsewhere. I can sympathise with the people of Janesville being afraid that this is one more mirage that they will end up paying for when all the glittering promises pop like party balloons the morning after. It's not "would prefer a concrete slab to a hyperscale data centre", it's "would prefer not to put all their eggs in one basket".

Amazon and data centers are net payers of taxes. If AOC and New Yorkers selfishly wanted more tax revenue, then they'd approve of the Amazon headquarters. I reject the premise that data centers or Amazon headquarters are tax drains.

Loudoun County, VA approved of those data centers and they pay around half of all property taxes in the county to the benefit of the people who live there. Of course they have to pay their taxes.

Of course, AOC apparently didn’t recognize that the tax incentives weren’t something they’d get to keep if they didn’t approve the deal- they were an offer to just not collect some of the taxes that would be owed, but aren’t due to Amazon not building.

Tax cuts. Subsidies. Grants. Where does that money come from? The local community.

Almost all of these deals bring more tax revenue than the government services they consume, after accounting for all incentives.

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