KCRag Forum

rxlexi wrote: ↑Tue Nov 13, 2018 12:52 pm

Could you imagine if Walmart went from being this small retail company to getting involved in all aspects of things related to the internet (Our Lives). There would be outrage.

Can you imagine if Walmart put a multi-thousand job satellite office in DT KC? There would be celebration

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Those who tuned in from the very first episode of Amazon’s hunt for an HQ2 may recall one telling element of the initial bid for its next quarters outside of Seattle: The tech giant wanted good transportation. Wherever Amazon landed, direct access to trains and buses, in addition to highways and airports, would be critical. So in that sense, this season’s twist ending—it picked New York City and the Washington, D.C. suburbs—was no surprise. These are two of the best-connected transportation cities in the United States.

Few other cities on the shortlist of final contenders could have reasonably absorbed the influx of 50,000 workers on their existing transportation networks—which is why the news of transit’s primacy came as a reality check for otherwise strong candidates. “I felt like the region performed strongly on all of the criteria,” one booster in Raleigh, North Carolina, which made it to the last cut, told the News & Observer in the distant universe of September 2017. “And then you get to transit and you think, well that might be our weakness. Because we don’t have a mass transit system in place yet.”
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bspecht wrote: ↑Sun Dec 02, 2018 11:47 am
(Calling Crystal City the 'D.C. suburbs' is a bit of a stretch.)

The Supreme Court of the United States has never issued a firm opinion on whether the retrocession of the Virginia portion of the District of Columbia was constitutional. In the 1875 case of Phillips v. Payne the Supreme Court held that Virginia had de facto jurisdiction over the area returned by Congress in 1847, and dismissed the tax case brought by the plaintiff. The court, however, did not rule on the core constitutional matter of the retrocession. Writing the majority opinion, Justice Noah Haynes Swayne stated only that:

The plaintiff in error is estopped from raising the point which he seeks to have decided. He cannot, under the circumstances, vicariously raise a question, nor force upon the parties to the compact an issue which neither of them desires to make.

The constitutionality of the retrocession has been called into question. The contract clause found in Article One of the United States Constitution prohibits states from breaching contracts to which they are themselves a party. By annexing Alexandria in 1847, Virginia may have breached its contractual obligation to "forever cede and relinquish" the territory for use as the permanent seat of the United States government. President William Howard Taft also believed the retrocession to be unconstitutional and tried to have the land given back to the District.

Amazon is reconsidering plans for a new headquarters in New York amid a torrent of public opposition, according to the Washington Post.

Executives have had internal discussions about whether to proceed with the New York plan or explore alternatives, the Post reported, citing two sources familiar with the company’s thinking.
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Under grilling at a recent city council hearing – where he further angered critics by saying Amazon would oppose any effort by its New York workers to unionize – company vice-president Brian Huseman dropped a veiled hint that the giant could pull out.

“We were invited to come to New York, and we want to invest in a community that wants us,” he said.
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Amazon is ditching its plans to build a new headquarters in New York after facing backlash from members of the community.
"After much thought and deliberation, we've decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens," Jodi Seth, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in a statement.
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In its statement, Amazon said it has no plans to "reopen the HQ2 search at this time." Instead, it plans to move forward with its office expansions in Virginia as well as Nashville, where it is building a new hub expected to employ 5,000 people.
That makes Virginia the clear winner of Amazon's very public HQ contest.
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beautyfromashes wrote: ↑Sat Feb 16, 2019 10:48 pm Would I pay 3B upfront to get 27B? Yep! No question.

mister816 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 16, 2019 10:55 pm

beautyfromashes wrote: ↑Sat Feb 16, 2019 10:48 pm Would I pay 3B upfront to get 27B? Yep! No question.

ofcourse. anyone who knows even a little about business would but then again, is 27B guaranteed? Where would the money be going? Look at Johnson county giving billions in tax cuts over the years and where did that leave them? cutting money from schools to compensate? I completely understand what amazon could do for a city and i also understand what it could do to harm a city. Queens did not send them packing for no reason.

mister816 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 16, 2019 9:06 pm I don't know if i want that chance anymore. The fact that they would want literally billions of dollars worth of tax incentives to build here give me pause. Jeff Bezos could literally spend 3% of his net worth and build a HQ but he would want the city to foot that bill. I don't want that at all.

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That’s not the case here, obviously. But doesn’t the fact that Amazon picked New York and a D.C. suburb in the first place tell you anything, Governor Parson?

If not, we will be the ones break it to you: The chances that Amazon or any other major tech company would locate a headquarters in a state where you can still be fired for being gay aren’t good.

“Open for business” used to mean a place with lower taxes and less regulation. But more and more, tolerance and diversity are not just highly valued by businesses, but mandatory.
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Garber and his like-minded colleagues are entitled to introduce any legislation they want, of course. The rest of us are just as entitled to denounce the proposals as retrogressive and unsuitable for a state that professes support for tolerance, human equality and freedom of thought.

Same-sex marriage is a constitutional right in all 50 states. Since the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that right, thousands of committed same-sex couples have been married across the country without damage to the public welfare. In fact, the opposite is the case: Marriage equality has enriched the nation.

Some Kansas lawmakers want to create parody marriages. Instead, Kansans should reject parody legislation like this, which addresses a non-problem with bigotry and hate.

FangKC wrote: ↑Mon Feb 18, 2019 7:53 pm My guess is that this is one of the first strikes, of many to come, against corporate welfare.