Comments

1

Bezos. What a total asshole.

5

Call their bluff, no negotiating with hostage-takers. Pulling out of Seattle would take them a very long time, and would leave a lot of tech workers and available office space around for the next generation of companies to grow into.

6

@3 "Company town" historically means a town dominated by a single employer—i.e. owning the mill, the housing, the grocery store, etc. Of course Amazon doesn't own Seattle in that sense but as we've seen, things get weird when there's such a large player in such a small space. That said, I think Seattle's economy would be perfectly healthy if Amazon disappeared today.

It should also be reiterated that regionally, Boeing, the two military bases, Microsoft, and University of Washington, in that order, all employ more folks than Amazon.

7

Our local volcanoes already accept a dozen or more human sacrifices every year, Charles.

No joke, you can look this up.

8

4 If poor people organize and some have, they can do a lot to benefit themselves and others.

Glenn Greenwald - As Bezos protests his invasion of his privacy, Amazon builds global surveillance state.

10

The cost of living will go down most likely if Amazon leaves Seattle. Boycott Amazon.

11

I hate Amazon's business practices as much as anyone, and it's been a long time since I bought anything there, but I have to say that on the whole Amazon has been good--spectacularly good--for Seattle.

Let's not forget the residual effect of Amazon creating a critical mass as a software engineering hub, now particularly a cloud computing hub. Would the cloud computing conference KubeCon/CloudNativeCon and its 8K attendees have come to Seattle if not for Amazon? Would cutting-edge companies like Heptio have located here if not for Amazon?

Let's not forget how revolutionary it was (and in some ways still is) to locate their massive headquarters in a city center and not out in the godforsaken suburbs.

We're fortunate enough to be the rare metro area that doesn't have to be dangling subsidies to attract business. But at least we can avoid doing stupid self-inflicted wounds like the anti-job head tax.

12

Clearly Amazon needs to find some red state shithole to build HQ2 in. They'll throw their first born into the volcano in those places. Problem: most large urban enclaves in red states, where there is an educated work force, are not red.

13

I wish you would make the Bezos picture eating the iguana freely available to any media outlet that wants to use it because it so captures his depravity and likely makes him crazy given how hard he's been working on his image. We all know he'll always be a sentient dick pic. Please use it as a cover soon!

14

@13

That's not The Stranger's photo. It's Copyright Emily V. Driscoll/BonSci Films.

The Stranger fired their last staff photographer years ago-- what you see on SLOG now are almost all stock photos, with the occasional shitty pic from some staffer's cell phone, or every once in a blue moon a licensed image.

15

4: yes. Many small business owners are poor and they employ people. I worked for a janitor 20 years ago. Any business offering services in a competitive market isn't going to be making much money. It's the large firms that can distort the market who get rich. But plenty of business owners are poor.

Otherwise, maybe Bezos just wants us to admire his cock? That doesn't involve throwing anyone into a volcano, so that's not so bad.

16

@9: No, Bezos just wants you to do that.

18

Amazon will pay $0 in federal taxes in 2019. Why do people support corporate welfare? How is this good for anyone (except Bezos)? Making the wealthiest man in the world even wealthier while concern trolling about how liberals are so quick to destroy the opportunity for more Amazon jobs nationwide. Fuck Amazon.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/amazon-federal-taxes-2019_n_5c660227e4b01757c369c5b3

19

There's two kinds of people in Seattle:
1) people who think Seattle would curl up and die if Amazon left
2) people who were here before Amazon took over, and know what a magical city this used to be.

20

@19

3) people who realize the city will never again be the hipster-nostalgia Dirtbag Disneyland it was when they were young, even if Amazon is burned to the ground.

22

Not everything Amazon does is about Seattle.

23

If we throw Sawant into the volcano, would Bezos sign a long-term lease?

24

@21 MY ELECTED OFFICIALS did not vote for the GOP tax cut scam(s) not during Reagan (I couldn't vote then, but my mother did and the same applies) not during GW Bush and not in this current shit show either. Not one person I ever voted for, ever, has supported the corporate welfare system and with regard to the latest tax cut scam, only the GOP voted for it and I have never lived in a state or a county in state where my reps were GOP. Nice try, though. I contact my reps non-stop and I actually believe, starting with the brand new crop we just elected, we need an entirely brand new congress as well as a new resident of the WH.

25

@23: How do we prevent the volcano from throwing her back?

26

I finally figured out Charles' deal: he thinks the city should thank him for his presence and contribution. The rest of us are (or were) eventful to the city that it wasn't some other shithole. I guess it's February 15th, buying rose pedals in bulk to scatter at Charles' feet as he walks should be cheap at least.

27

@12- Nearly all of our volcanoes are in blue states.

@20-exactly! Those who remember the cheap-rent paradise that Seattle used to be pre- Amazon are forgetting about the minimum-wage jobs they used to have and the periodic crushing recessions in down years for Boeing.

28

@20: “Dirtbag Disneyland”

Remember when Dirtbag Disneyland, Stenchgrinder, and Balls Aren’t Blue opened for The Posies at The Showbox? That was what, a quarter-century ago? Man, I still recall walking out of that show and tripping over the stil-cooling corpse of DD’s lead guitarist, sprawled in the parking lot, syringe lodged firmly in arm. That was the third one that week in that parking lot! The City Council should have extended the Pike Place historical zone over that parking lot right then and there; waiting 25 years was criminal. No wonder they got sued,

Thanks for the reminder! Good times, man; good times!


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