Our city is doesn't need to be any more dependent on Amazon than it is. I'm not saying we should run Amazon and their tech bros out of town, but no more Amazon growth sounds just fine to me. Let it cool off a bit around here, let housing catch up to demand a little bit.

"Exo" means outside; "endo" inside. It's OK, Greek is hard.

1st post, I agree. there are blocks and blocks of out of state cars in my n.hood. The attraction is partially to work at Amazon. This after listening to some of these transplants.."Cool off" are the prefect words from what I see on my end.

@2, I came here to make fun of him for the same reason.

So, the takeway is that Amazon will likey stay in Seattle until the company decides it would be worth investing in relocating some of its operations. Did you think this was some sort of groundbreaking analysis, Charles? I mean, all you have described is a simple cost/benefit analysis. No need to bring Keynes into something that basic.

They shouldn't let the door hit their ass on the way out when they finally decide to nut up and go.

I have one thing to say . . . HQ2.

@8

The people who romanticize economic downturns or decline tend to have a pretty specific notion of what it looks like -- late-70s NYC is a popular choice -- and that notion is more or less accurate, as far as it goes.

The thing is, they don't think it would be so bad. And they're probably right about that, as they tend to come from segments of society that have strong networks of economic support, providing sufficient aid when one (or a few) of their number falls on hard times.

But yeah, everyone without that kind of social standing would be fucked.

I suspect that Amazon's current status as virtual monopolist is more apparent than real.
They are vulnerable to leaner, more focused platforms plus their attempts to be in dozens of different markets could be a liability.
Modern people have an insatiable appetite for novelty and it won't be long before Amazon starts to seem stale.
My point is- it might very well be that in the long run, Amazon needs Seattle (beautiful, fun & intelligent) more than Seattle needs Amazon (cranky sugar-daddy).

The policy outcome was fine for amazon. A small tax it will barely notice.

The process though. The vitriol tossed at it by some council members, protestors, etc. The kind of half-assed lack of discussion about a pretty important policy. That was all very... well. You see a lot of policy being made very much like that in the other Washington right now, right?

Thank you, Charles. Of course the "menu price" is the proper lens for viewing Amazon's decision to stay in Seattle, following the passage of this modest tax.

And as always, thank you for the economic lesson you've expertly married to the headlines. Amazing that it takes so many decades for modern economists to come up with an idea as simple as this "menu cost"! What indeed is wrong with economics that makes this the case? We economists are still waiting for our Kepler, but of course a Kepler first needs his Tycho Brahe! It may never happen!

The important thing for us is to understand that Seattle now has an imperative to goad Amazon into revealing the "price" Seattle commands on Amazon's "menu". Amazon famously teased American cities into revealing the "price" they would pay for HQ2, but there are two sides to every bargain.

Thank you, Charles. Of course the "menu price" is the proper lens for viewing Amazon's decision to stay in Seattle, following the passage of this modest tax.

And as always, thank you for the economic lesson you've expertly married to the headlines. Amazing that it takes so many decades for modern economists to come up with an idea as simple as this "menu cost"! What indeed is wrong with economics that makes this the case? We economists are still waiting for our Kepler, but of course a Kepler first needs his Tycho Brahe! It may never happen!

The important thing for us is to understand that Seattle now has an imperative to goad Amazon into revealing the "price" Seattle commands on Amazon's "menu". Amazon famously teased American cities into revealing the "price" they would pay for HQ2, but there are two sides to every bargain. It is time for Amazon to hold up its end.

@11

Your analogy would be better like this:

Amazon needs Seattle (once pretty meth addict starting to look pretty rough and steal things to support her habit) more than Seattle needs Amazon (smart and industrious amdcstill emotionally invested but beginning to tire of the drama.)

You're welcome.

@8 Fat lot of good all those precious jobs are to us when they're pricing everyone out. Seattle, the coolest place you'll never live in! Fuck off and take Amazon & all its bullshit prosperity with you.

@8: They all go back to India, and wherever else they came from?

@16 - No need to project your own faults onto the city.

How can any caring for the millions of small business people even buy at Amazon. Extreme capitalism is not the way to go and the boss man looks like he's aiming for world domination.

If it came to that, what Amazon does could be done by a network of worker-owned and managed delivery co-operatives. Nothing that company provides can ONLY be provided through management driven solely by short-term individual self-interest at all costs.

Working people could co-operate to provide everything we get from Amazon, without any of the corporate "do what I want or I'll take my ball and leave" tantrum arrogance.

Seattle sides with Trump now! Never thought I would see they day they would cross over.

@22

Sounds an interesting idea. Give it a shot. Put years of your life and most of your money into it.
Don't take vacations for four or five years. Work 70 to 80 hours a week to keep it all going. When it finally begins to pay you back in a good income listen to President Obama tell you "you didn't build that business."

No? Just want to piss and moan about evil capitalists? Okay then.

Amgen got into it with Seattle over taxes and City Hall contempt. Seattle used that same menu-thinking, you-wouldn’t foolishness - they were wrong.... Amgen didn’t even blink - 660 medical and high tech jobs gone. Boeing, same thing but higher job loss numbers - big pain. Amazon has already given Seattle very fair warning. Hq2 will rapidly become hq1 and the Council and casual haters will be typically “absolutely amazed” at the sudden disappearance of a native Golden Goose... be careful what you wish for... Young male devs are easily transferred, property is easily left vacant or rented under market for quick relief. Amazon could pull the plug just through sheer annoyance at the absolute contempt shown by our vaunted SCC. Amazon bean counters know well the 5 year cost versus profit versus potential hq2 taxing benefits analysis shows Seattle to be an expensive loser, and, an increasingly filthy and dangerous one too boot.

I don't think Amazon would completely leave Seattle, barring some very drastic occurrence. But, the "menu cost" is not really that high for a company with Amazon's economic resources and reach to move jobs from Seattle. And, I do not mean just a simple "cool off" in hiring, but an actual relocation. Bellevue and similar suburban office markets provide a pretty easy alternative to locating jobs in Seattle. No head tax, access to the same local labor pool, high quality Class-A office space, and many of the same urban amenities, or easy access to them.

Also, Amazon already employs several thousands of tech employees in other metro regions from Vancouver to Boston, and once the HQ2 is completed, Seattle will be much less the center of Amazon's operations.

The head tax in and of itself is not really a big deal for Amazon, but the increasingly hostile attitude of the City Council and certain advocacy groups toward Amazon and other major employers certainly is a concern. Had the political discussion involved less vitriol directed toward Amazon and other major employers in the city, it is possible Amazon may have even been persuaded to agree to the original $500 per employee proposal. Instead, the City Council and certain political advocacy groups chose a highly adversarial approach, and this is what concerns Amazon (and other major employers, like Starbucks). If the political atmosphere continues to become more toxic and hostile to business, then Amazon really will pick up and leave, gladly tossing the old menus in the dumpster on its way out the door.

For all the people who say, "Good, let them leave (along with Starbucks, etc.)," where do they think the revenue will come from to support the city budget (currently set at $5.6 billion) that provides all the amenities and services the city government and residents demand? Just from this new head tax alone, Amazon will provide $20 million a year to the city. Without Amazon, the $20 million will disappear (along with much more), but the homeless will not. And, even if housing prices come down by a significant amount, let's say 50%, it would be nowhere near enough for a currently homeless (and generally unemployed or under-employed) person to afford a place to live. And, of course, as property values fall, so do property tax collections, a major source of revenue for the city. So, the city will be stuck with all the problems, but much less of the revenue needed to address them.

22 People building co-ops work just as hard, if not harder, as self-interested capitalists to build the enterprise they seek to create...it's not as if ONLY capitalists work hard(or even that capitalists work that much at all...I doubt Bezos puts in anything close to "70 to 80 hours a week" at his job).

And all Obama was saying(he blew the line, basically) was that nobody ever built a business BY THEMSELVES. He didn't mean that the people who built businesses didn't do anything to build what they had...nobody would think that. Here's the reality he tried(and through poor phrasing) failed to express there:

What the employees in a conventional business do in performing the work to make the idea of the owner real-no owner ever totally fleshes out her concept completely alone-is just as important as whatever the owner brings into it as an individual Nobody, even Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates, is so important that that person deserves to be treated like a god who walks the earth.

There's nothing any megacapitalist does that the rest of us couldn't find a way to work together to do better, and to do without tearing each other part in a fight for survival that doesn't need to be waged, given that the wealth working people create is more than enough to sustain all of us once we learn how to cooperate and treat each other with the generosity and respect we're all entitled to.

That was meant to be a response to #24, not my own post which was post#22. C'mon Stranger, let us go back in and edit our posts when we see that we've made typos. Not asking too much.