Hacker News Reader

Comment by longerthoughts | Hacker News Reader

> just another mechanism for wealth transfer from the poor to the rich

I'm not sure this type of competition is a great thing for citizens, but is this really a wealth transfer from the poor to the rich? Doesn't most tax revenue in the US come from the rich, meaning they're covering most of the bill? In that case it would be more like wealth transfer from rich people to rich companies with some of that wealth making its way back to a subset of rich people and companies (i.e. investors).

I'm sure there are secondary effects impacting the poor but I'm not sure it's as simple as mean rich people reaching into the pockets of the poor - there's not enough money there for it to be a compelling strategy.

View on HN

> but is this really a wealth transfer from the poor to the rich? Doesn't most tax revenue in the US come from the rich, meaning they're covering most of the bill?

Doesn't matter where tax money came from, that part we are not changing. What changes is where that money goes. It could pay for schools, Medicaid, homeless shelters. Now there is going to be less of that, as we are building a helipad for Bezos with some of that money instead.

Which is why it's a wealth transfer towards the rich.

> It could pay for schools, Medicaid, homeless shelters

Yes, it could, but that doesn't mean it would in the absence of the incentive for Amazon. I didn't see any indication in the article that this would be paid for by reallocating funds from social programs or education. Has NY indicated how they're funding the incentive elsewhere? If this isn't known, how can you confidently say it's a transfer of wealth from poor to rich?

To be clear, I absolutely think there are probably more socially responsible things to do with the money, but there's a difference between opportunity cost and exploiting NY's poor to build Bezos a helipad.

Just go another level deeper - this was tax money that would otherwise go towards city programs that would disproportionately benefit the poor. The end result is a transfer from the poor to Amazon's shareholders (and possibly may result in a net benefit to NYC)

>this was tax money that would otherwise go towards city programs that would disproportionately benefit the poor

Where did NY indicate that they're reallocating money from those programs?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com