'All humanity has left the area': paying for Tesla's Gigafactory
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
I don't get this.
Firstly, aren't most of the taxes they were exempted from at the state level, not the local level?
Secondly, don't the new Tesla employees live in the local communities, pay property taxes on their homes (or by proxy via rentals) and shop and pay sales tax at local merchants?
Finally, while you can for sure say that the tax breaks mean that Nevada is bringing in less tax revenue than they would have if Tesla had built the gigafactory there with 0 tax incentives, I don't see how they are making the case that there are fewer tax dollars coming in.
The one thing I can see is the argument that there are lots of new people living in these communities, and the fact that revenue hasn't increased proportionally is an issue. That seems thin to me as they say Sparks is a community with 100k+ residents and perhaps 1,000 new Tesla/Tesla-adjacent people have moved to the area. A 1% population change should not create a measurable crisis for the public works infrastructure of a city that was already well run.
Ultimately, this reads to me as a hit-piece against Tesla with a thin core of truth: Because Tesla moved in the cost of living has been driven up in the form of higher rents (and perhaps other ancillary things, but, mostly rent/housing). Ultimately, this is entirely disconnected from the premise of the article that the tax breaks are to blame and therefore the entire article comes across as completely disingenuous to me.
Nonetheless, the author doesn't seem to have written much of anything about Elon or his projects in the past couple years, but starting with Elon's media spat in June, he's penned this, and two other articles about him.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/04/elon-musk... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/10/a-great-i...
The article does a good job of illustrating the growing crisis among lower class people. But its framing is suspect.
The employees raise rent and make locals homeless. Landlords often don’t live in the small towns where they own property these days. The employees buy gas and groceries from corporate outlets and shop online. The locals, desperate for low prices, do the same.
Your vision sounds like something my parents would say. I don’t know where you people come from but it sounds incredible.
That's not inherently true. I will concede that it may force people to move to other accommodations that they can afford, but, they're not forcing anyone to be homeless.
> Landlords often don’t live in the small towns where they own property these days.
Maybe not, but, those landlords are paying property taxes locally. The guy who mows the lawns and the guy who unplugs the toilets all live locally. They are creating jobs inside that community and raising the standard of living for everyone.
> The employees buy gas and groceries from corporate outlets and shop online.
Why do you say corporate stores like its a bad thing? Keep in mind, even if you contend that they're moving profit out of the community they are still creating jobs inside that community. Someone needs to stock the shelves, bag the groceries and pump the gas.
Like trailer parks.
> Maybe not, but, those landlords are paying property taxes locally. The guy who mows the lawns and the guy who unplugs the toilets all live locally. They are creating jobs inside that community and raising the standard of living for everyone.
[...]
Why do you say corporate stores like its a bad thing? Keep in mind, even if you contend that they're moving profit out of the community they are still creating jobs inside that community. Someone needs to stock the shelves, bag the groceries and pump the gas.
That seems like a contradiction. Creating jobs is not the ultimate goal, the ultimate goal should be to provide usable public infrastructure.
If you create jobs all you want but at the same time move the profit from those jobs away (because the company stores don't have to pay taxes either) then what exactly is won?
Well, more jobs means more job options, which means better quality of life. Not to imply that it is a net gain, but it is a factor to consider.
You're right though, I hadn't thought of that perspective for the US.
Is that net-tax logic invertible? Can employees exempt themselves from paying taxes if their employer already does so?
The Rockefeller foundation would like nothing more than to see Tesla fail.
[1]https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/12/08/the-rockefeller-...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rockefeller-family-feud-with-ex...
"However, the much wealthier Rockefeller Foundation, whose endowment tops $4bn, is understood to be opposed to divestment for now."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/23/rockefel...
If I were to suggest that the article was written in bad faith, I'd be more willing to link it to Elon's recent agitation of media figures on Twitter.
Carroll doesn't seem to have written much of anything about Elon or his projects in the past couple years, but starting in June, he's penned this, and two other articles on the man.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/04/elon-musk... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/10/a-great-i...
The foundation was founded after the publication of “oil crimes” as a means to restore the Rockefeller family reputation and while it did likely whitewashed a lot of crap it never had any oil related interests.
Also, while touching, it is not clear that a few anecdotes is evidence of a town going downhill due to tax cuts; finding 4-5 people to talk about how great or how miserable things are is always possible no matter in which direction ground conditions have actually changed.
It may just be me getting more sensitive to it, but as someone that views themselves as a liberally leaning moderate, there's a distinct feeling that both ends of the political spectrum have become steaming dumpster fires in their attempts to push their perspectives. Sure, I think one side is a bigger fire, but that doesn't change the fact that the stink is pervasive and coming both directions.
I sincerely hope it's mostly me being over-sensitive, as otherwise it's yet another thing to lament the loss of and fear the future for. :/
> These days many residents in Sparks – a sunbaked, low-rise city of 100,000 people located 20 miles from the factory – express humbler dreams: food, shelter, health care.
Sparks, Nevada is a Reno suburb. The clear implication of the text is that this awful megacorp backed by sneering politicians in the Big City is squeezing The Suffering Rural Poor just to fill their pockets. And the truth is they went to some random restaurant and interviewed a bunch of perfectly normal, very urban Nevadans until they got quotes they liked.
The whole article drips with this. Even the core thesis: that the tax breaks were too large (with which I agree!) is completely unsubstantiated. It just asserts without evidence that it's already being felt, which is unlikely. And it even implies that it came alongside infrastructure budget cuts, which I strongly suspect not to be the case.
Awful clickbait writing.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/05/25/business/tesla-...
The atlantic and others already attacked him. Expect the attacks to pick up. It's embarrassing how thin skinned, petty and biased journalists are. I'm not much of a musk fanboy, but it's obvious what these journalists ( if we can really call them that ) are doing.
Also what is theguardian, a british newspaper's and other british newspapers' fascination with america? It seems like I read more "news" about america from british newspapers than american newspapers online.
Now there's some creative spin, describing five megabucks as "net zero".
Even accepting the premise that the budget needs to be adjusted for inflation (some of which is, after all, increasing costs of such things as land and labor) over such a short time period, that's a rate of nearly 3.8% annually, which strikes me as remarkably high.
I'm curious why a company would sell off its tax credits. Present value vs future value, or ? I assume they sell them for a discount, or else why would anyone buy them?