>For years, Amazon enabled everybody to bypass sales tax which gave Amazon a 4-8% advantage on books over brick and mortar that had to pay both rent and sales tax.
In 1992, SCOTUS ruled in Quill vs. North Dakota[0] that a business must have a "nexus" in a particular state to be required to collect sales taxes. I'd note that Amazon was founded in 1994.
And so, yes Amazon did have an advantage WRT sales taxes. But it wasn't, as you said, "outright illegal" until 2018 with SCOTUS' ruling in South Dakota vs. Wayfair Inc.[1] At which time, IIRC, Amazon continued collecting sales taxes that it had already been collecting in many states, as already it had nexuses (warehouses, distribution centers, etc.) in many places.
I'd note that I'm not "defending" Amazon here. They do plenty of shady stuff WRT pricing, as well as abusing their employees, suppliers and third-party sellers.
Why don't we take them to task for that stuff instead of making stuff up? Just sayin'
>They are going to learn a tough lesson about the modern economy and how things can get worse them for sure. The desire to burn it all down came from despair over a loss of status and economic anxiety, which was/is justified because the R/D party before Trump legitimately did not care about them at all and had fantastical notions about globalization turning everyone into winners, and ignored all evidence to the contrary.
To be fair, much of the hollowing out of the rust belt/rural areas is/was as you mention (although, I'd say that Trump doesn't give a rat's ass about those folks either, they were just a means to an end), but what's unsaid is the lack of infrastructure investment by the states themselves.
Had the state governments paid attention to the lack of decent educational opportunities, broadband, transportation and opportunities for the "new economy" (as compared with the withering/now withered manufacturing economy), there would be significant investment/start ups in/of tech companies in those areas, as the cost of living and capital/real estate costs are much lower in the "rust belt" and similar areas.
But no such investment was made by those state governments, so those areas left damaged by the loss of manufacturing jobs were left to rot. Not just by the Federal government, but even more so by the state and local governments in those areas.
There were/are other factors in play too, but you rarely (if ever) hear anyone calling state/local governments to task over this stuff -- it's always the "Feds" who, in point of fact, can certainly help, but remaking areas with sagging economies is much more a state/local thing, IMNSHO.
I think part of the issue there is there's free movement in America of capital/labor so it's hard to justify investments. Eg. why have the state pay to give each member or your state elite college educations if they are going to move to another state anyway? Your global businesses are going to move as well the second it makes financial sense to?
>I think part of the issue there is there's free movement in America of capital/labor so it's hard to justify investments. Eg. why have the state pay to give each member or your state elite college educations if they are going to move to another state anyway? Your global businesses are going to move as well the second it makes financial sense to?
You misunderstand my point. Which is probably my fault. My apologies. I'll attempt to clarify:
I don't advocate for states to "pay to give each member or your state elite college educations." Rather, I was commenting on the disinvestment[0] in higher education by the states, resulting in poorer educational outcomes as well as fewer educated professionals to serve as innovators, knowledge workers and entrepreneurs in those states.
I'd posit that if many states in the rust belt invested in quality education, rather than forcing big tuition increases/student debt, more folks would stay in those states, with the positive economic benefits across those state economies improving the lots of everyone.
As for "global" businesses, they're mostly an outlier[1], at least in the US with ~15,000,000 businesses with less than 100 employees and ~170,000 businesses with more than 100 employees (of which only 45,000 or so have more than 500 employees).
And why, exactly, do folks leave such places? Why, for the better economics of states that invest in infrastructure and education. Folks wouldn't leave if they could do just as well or better in their hometowns. But (for a whole bunch of reasons, the ones I cite included), those places don't have the same economic opportunity because they don't have the infrastructure or skilled workforce to do so. If they did, companies would flock to those places as the cost of living and cost of doing business are significantly lower.
Why is Silicon Valley a hub for business?[2] Strong educational institutions, good infrastructure and a skilled workforce?
Why are prisons the highlight of six of the seven poorest counties in the US?[3] Poor or no educational institutions and a lack of skilled workers.
I hope I've clarified my point. My apologies for not doing so initially.
I just don't think it's that simple. A lot of states/regions have tried to make their own silicon valley over the past 15 years for illustration, throwing money and tax incentives at the problem, and results have been mixed. Even SF's attempt to transform itself as an tech industry city has yielded mixed results for its residents and they'd have to be considered a relative success story at a minimum on this front.
There's just too many factors outside the state's control, beyond a lack of political support for those types of investments.
I never said it was. In fact, I repeatedly said that lack of infrastructure and disinvestment in higher education were among the reasons for the lack of economic activity in the rust belt and similar.
That said, without decent infrastructure and a skilled workforce, it's much, much harder to attract new businesses, innovators and entrepreneurs. Other factors (as I noted in both the comments to which you replied) are impactful as well, but I chose to focus on two that are (IMHO, at least) rather important.
Yeah I don't see any alternative. The dream of (re)building your local economy around industries that boomed 100 years ago is a fantasy and the global economy has moved on. It's just hard me to necessarily point fingers as you have, I just see so many factors here. It takes long term vision + some acceptance of failed investment + some sacrifice, all things we currently seem to have no desire/stomach for.
> The dream of (re)building your local economy around industries that boomed 100 years ago is a fantasy and the global economy has moved on.
What industries, specifically, are you thinking about?
Because if those industries did not disappear completely but were instead offshored to arbitrage labor, then the global economy has definitely NOT moved on.
Those industries were almost entirely automated years ago.
You aren't going to bring manufacturing back to the US and get jobs on the assembly line like your grandfather had, those jobs simply no longer exist. The few jobs that do exist won't pay enough money for a home with a two-car garage like your grandfather had on the assembly line either, they will pay barely subsistence wages like working in an Amazon warehouse. And American manufactured goods won't be competitive like they were when the US could leverage its industries against a Western world that was still rebuilding after the war. No one is going to want to buy American Ladas, and Americans won't be able to afford them.
> I just see so many factors here. It takes long term vision + some acceptance of failed investment + some sacrifice, all things we currently seem to have no desire/stomach for.
>This has to be illegal. You can't slap on a $20 sales tax fee at the end when it's actually $12 and pocket the difference as profit.
Not sure where you are, but this is pretty much de rigueur in the US for a whole bunch of stuff, notably telecom (mobile and fixed line), ISP, cable TV, electric utilities, as well as other stuff. On your invoice, you'll see stuff like "regulatory recovery fee", "franchise fee", "FCC Admin fee" and the like. None of which are taxes or government imposed fees. Rather, they're just using standard cost-of-doing-business expenses to tack on to your bill while claiming the price is at least 10-15% less.
My favorite is the $23/month "broadcast TV surcharge," which the cable company claims is to cover fees paid to the networks they carry. Since they have to pay these folks to carry their content anyway, they should just include it in the normal price, right? But if they did, that alone would increase the "price" by at least 15-20%.
As such, at least in the US, what law makes this "illegal?" Please tell me as it would save me at least $100/month in such fees/surcharges, or at least the "price" would be the actual "total you owe" price on the bottom line.
>I mean, why do you think the US nuked Japan at the end of WW2? Because it was the most expedient and economic way to kill enough people to break the government's will to fight and make them surrender.
Except that's not really true. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had little to do with "ending the war more quickly"[0]:
"The Soviet invasion of Manchuria and other Japanese colonies began at midnight on August 8, sandwiched between the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And it was, indeed, the death blow U.S. officials knew it would be. When asked, on August 10, why Japan had to surrender so quickly, Prime Minister Suzuki explained, Japan must surrender immediately or "the Soviet Union will take not only Manchuria, Korea, Karafuto, but also Hokkaido. This would destroy the foundation of Japan. We must end the war when we can deal with the United States."
As postwar U.S. intelligence reports made clear, the atomic bombs had little impact on the Japanese decision. The U.S. had been firebombing and wiping out Japanese cities since early March. Destruction reached 99.5 percent in the city of Toyama. Japanese leaders accepted that the U.S. could and would wipe out Japan's cities. It didn't make a big difference whether this was one plane and one bomb or hundreds of planes and thousands of bombs."
I've read this too but it doesn't disprove what US was thinking at the time.
People think others think like them. US being a democratic country and considering the value of a life to be high, I have no trouble believing that the US government did think the Japanese government would consider the cost of continued fighting to be too high.
> The "prompt and utter destruction" clause has been interpreted as a veiled warning about American possession of the atomic bomb[1]
We now largely know strategic bombing does not work [2] but it still doesn't stop some from trying now, it certainly did not back then.
That's not what US military leaders were saying then. Not saying that others weren't confused about that, but the US Military establishment knew what was up.
You hinted at it, and in my initial post included the statement that the atomic bombs (and especially the second -- Nagasaki -- bomb) were supposed to serve as a warning to the Soviets, not any attempt to limit casualties or shorten the war. However, I removed it because I couldn't find any direct quotes about it.
Then again, that's not something the US government would want publicized at that time, given that the USSR was their putative ally at that moment. As such, I'm not surprised that my cursory search didn't find any such quote from that period.
From the article I linked in my previous post[0]:
>General Dwight Eisenhower voiced his opposition at Potsdam. "The Japanese were already defeated," he told Secretary of War Henry Stimson, "and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." Admiral William Leahy, President Harry Truman's chief of staff, said that the "Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender….The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan." General Douglas MacArthur said that the Japanese would have gladly surrendered as early as May if the U.S. had told them they could keep the emperor. Similar views were voiced by Admirals Chester Nimitz, Ernest King and William Halsey, and General Henry Arnold.
I left out this bit, again from the same link I shared previously[0]:
>U.S. and British intelligence officials, having broken Japanese codes early in the war, were well aware of Japanese desperation and the effect that Soviet intervention would have. On April 11, the Joint Intelligence Staff of the Joint Chiefs predicted, "If at any time the USSR should enter the war, all Japanese will realize that absolute defeat is inevitable." Japan's Supreme War Council confirmed that conclusion, declaring in May, "At the present moment, when Japan is waging a life-or-death struggle against the U.S. and Britain, Soviet entry into the war will deal a death blow to the Empire."
The emperor's surrender speech made direct reference to the atomic bombs.
Following the Hiroshima bombing on August 6, and the Soviet declaration of war and Nagasaki bombing on August 9, the Emperor's speech was broadcast at noon Japan Standard Time on August 15, 1945, and referred to the atomic bombs as a reason for the surrender.
"Furthermore, the enemy has begun to employ a new and cruel bomb, causing immense and indiscriminate destruction, the extent of which is beyond all estimation. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in the ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but it would also lead to the total extinction of human civilization."
>It doesn't mean everybody being arrested is guilty but if you have a say 20% accurate arrest rate and you run it over the entire population you're going to remove a large amount of criminals.
By that logic, why bother arresting anyone? Just shoot them dead. Who cares if they're guilty or not? That'll stop crime for sure, right?
Apparently, Blackstone's Formulation[0] doesn't resonate with some folks.
Nor does Niemoller's plaintive cry[1]. It kind of makes you wonder what sort of world those folks want to live in since they don't seem to be living in the real world.
And if the consequences for everyone weren't so dire, it might be instructive for those folks to end up with the pointy end of the stick for which they're advocating.
> Apparently, Blackstone's Formulation[0] doesn't resonate with some folks.
We have some truly Authoritarian, anti-American forces in American politics today. The "tough on crime" crowd doesn't agree with that formulation, especially if the right people suffer.
In 1992, SCOTUS ruled in Quill vs. North Dakota[0] that a business must have a "nexus" in a particular state to be required to collect sales taxes. I'd note that Amazon was founded in 1994.
And so, yes Amazon did have an advantage WRT sales taxes. But it wasn't, as you said, "outright illegal" until 2018 with SCOTUS' ruling in South Dakota vs. Wayfair Inc.[1] At which time, IIRC, Amazon continued collecting sales taxes that it had already been collecting in many states, as already it had nexuses (warehouses, distribution centers, etc.) in many places.
I'd note that I'm not "defending" Amazon here. They do plenty of shady stuff WRT pricing, as well as abusing their employees, suppliers and third-party sellers.
Why don't we take them to task for that stuff instead of making stuff up? Just sayin'
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quill_Corp._v._North_Dakota
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Dakota_v._Wayfair%2C_Inc.
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