Ideology & Political Fund-raising
The State of Columbia, South Carolina tells the tale: Amazon packing after House vote
Amazon all but told South Carolina goodbye Wednesday after the online retailer lost a legislative showdown on a sales tax collection exemption it wants to open a distribution center that would bring 1,249 jobs to the Midlands.
Company officials immediately halted plans to equip and staff the one million-square-foot building under construction at I-77 and 12th Street near Cayce.
“As a result of today’s unfortunate House vote, we’ve canceled $52 million in procurement contracts and removed all South Carolina fulfillment center job postings from our (Web) site,” said Paul Misener, Amazon vice president for global public policy.
…“This rejection is a slap at everyone in unemployment lines,” said Scott Adams of Lexington, a telecommunication equipment executive who supported the Amazon proposal.
Other critics called the exemption too much on top of a free site, property tax breaks on equipment, state job tax credits and abolition of longtime Sunday morning sales restrictions in Lexington County to facilitate Amazon’s round-the-clock opposition.
These localities promise corporations the sun and moon to set up a facility in their area and just don’t understand that the way the deals are structured, the corporation has no significant investment in the site, so they have no problem with leaving at any time. Amazon is leaving because the locality couldn’t deliver on all of its promises. All Amazon has is a partially constructed building, which they will probably finish to the point of weather-proofing and then mothball.
Amazon is a for-profit corporation and they had negotiated a deal. The local government was unable to fulfill their commitments under the deal. Those commitments shouldn’t have been made, and the local government should never have given away all that they did.
Under the rules of corporations and the legal requirement to maximize profits this isn’t really a matter of choice: Amazon can’t accept different terms at this point. People don’t seem to understand that corporations are required by law to prioritize profits over everything, and can be sued by their shareholders if they don’t. Corporations are required to be evil, which is why they need to be heavily regulated for their government bestowed gift of limited liability and existence. Corporations are creations of government, not the market.
4 comments
“People don’t seem to understand that corporations are required by law to prioritize profits over everything, and can be sued by their shareholders if they don’t. Corporations are required to be evil, which is why they need to be heavily regulated for their government bestowed gift of limited liability and existence. Corporations are creations of government, not the market.”
Wonderfully said, Bryan. I’m stealing this quote… (with linkage, of course).
I wish people would get it – corporations are a government creation. They aren’t part of capitalism or free markets because those are regulated by risk, and the entire purpose of a corporation is to limit risk.
Amazon has a history of doing some pretty nasty things. For example, in their dealings with small-volume publishers, they often force them to grant Amazon less-than-profitable prices, i.e., to lose money on their Amazon sales.
Publishers who don’t comply one day find their catalogs listed on Amazon… technically… but with no prices listed for them and no Add to Cart button on the page. I have personally encountered this a couple of times.
I suppose the Randians approve of this tactic until the day they look around and discover that no one publishes the low-volume work they happen to need, because the publisher didn’t survive being Amazonned. (Oh, no; “Amazon” has been verbed, etc. …)
I am in no position to boycott Amazon altogether. But I do my best to give at least some of my business to local non-chain bookstores. (Murder by the Book is a favorite.)
I don’t have any non-chain bookstores, and few chain bookstores after Wal-Mart and Books-a-Million hit town, but there are other sellers on the ‘Net that I use whenever possible, and a good local used bookstore, which has Canadian books because of the tourists.
They didn’t get big by being friendly, they followed the path of Wal-Mart after Sam died. They often play vulture, like they did in Campbellville, Kentucky, coming in after a plant shut down, and getting the plant and tax incentives for setting up a distribution site. They are a corporation, and act like one.