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Comment by mrbgty | Hacker News Reader

There's another problem here that isn't addressed by whether its a net plus revenue to the city. The tax break isn't applied across the board to all companies which means that Amazon is getting an unfair competitive advantage.

I don't really think of a company like Amazon needing a competitive advantage.

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I can't find where I originally saw this, but as a thought exercise:

What if, instead of giving $1,500,000,000 to Amazon, NYC gave out $60,000 subsidies to some 25,000 (!!!) local small businesses?

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Now this is interesting. This would be a little like an accelerator "spray and pray" model, where economically you would only need a small percentage of those companies to become large job creators and tax payers for this to work out in the city's favor. You got my vote Jake!

What kind of new infrastructure can a small business afford with $60,000 that would enable them to become a large job creator?

I think the idea is that it would kick a handful that might have been stuck or failed over an "activation energy" hump into becoming medium-to-large businesses someday.

Like a catalyst.

I don't know if it would be better than this Amazon stuff or not, but it feels healthier.

That's more than a lot of startup accelerators give, so I think the answer is that it potentially lets a company get it's footing long enough to experience growth and self-sustain. This is a Y-Combinator affiliated website, after all...

Why do small businesses need to become "large job creators"? If in ten years those subsidies create an average of just one new job each, the return is equal to what Amazon promises.

That's not true at all.

If they make 1 new minimum wage job each, it would actually cost the city way more.

Sure, not all jobs are created equal. But there are a million variables here: when the job is created, the salary, whether it's filled by a current resident or a newcomer, how much public infrastructure the worker uses, etc.

More to the point, though, the goal of the city isn't to maximize its revenue — it's to make its citizens lives better. A minimum wage job for a poor current resident might be better the community than high-paying job for an imported knowledge worker, even if the latter means more money for the city.

And you glossed over all of those things to make a politically convenient point. And I was just pointing that out.

If you believe the latter I don't know what to tell you. Move to Detroit? The idea that less tax revenue is somehow good for funding social programs seems insane to me. Not sure how you're going to begin to justify that.

Or even better, what if NYC didnt levvy the tax at all, and gave the money back to its citizens!

Divided evenly across citizens and given lump-sum, the bulk of the money would be likely spent within the next few months, creating a spike of economic activity. People go shopping, businesses make some extra profit, maybe hire a new employee...

Maybe because using such taxes in a smart way is a smarter way of giving the money back?

What defines ‘smart’? I can think & consider & carefully plan — and still do something foolish. Moreover, what you consider wise I may consider foolish. Who am I to judge your choice, and who are you to judge mine?

It would certainly be democratic to give the money back to the citizens, permitting each to spend it as he will; then each would get a vote on what he thinks the best expenditure is.

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