'We pay taxes so the corporations don’t have to': Amazon to get 100% tax cut for project in Mississippi — when the state has the ‘highest rate of poverty in America.'

Its no wonder Amazon wanted to build there. Poor people make for cheap labour. It might even have been a good deal for Mississippi if they had forced Amazon to allow unions there for getting a free pass!

And in 5 years they are going to automate the entire thing providing precisely 0 jobs to the local economy.

That would be pretty rough. Outcompete all the other employers in town so they all go out of business and then automate all the jobs.
- I mean, that's literally what Amazon does. Anyone remember diapers.com? Amazon lowered their prices on diapers, losing at least $200 million, to stop diapers.com's growth. When the business started losing money, Amazon bought them, and then shut them down.
  Then immediately raised their prices on diapers. I fucking hate Amazon, like, literally refuse to purchase anything from them. I'd rather pay 3 times the price then give Amazon a penny for literally anything.
  They're already implementing automation and robots into their warehouses, once one of their engineers making six figures (compared to Bezos's billions) comes up with a way to automate delivery, you can bet your ass and mine they'll drop all of their subcontracting delivery companies with zero notice or fucks given. I'm amazed they haven't gone after chewy.com or barkbox, but maybe they are.
  I remember back in like 2015-2017, when I finally swore off Amazon, I posted on Reddit asking what other shopping sites people recommended that weren't Amazon, and was downvoted and chastised for even asking because not wanting to suck Amazon's Dick-of-Convenience wasn't comprehendible, and look where that fucking got us.
  Sorry, this is a long response to your comment, and that's the end of my rant, but just... Fuck Amazon, to the moon and back... Twice.
- That's the plan. And they are barely being subtle about it. https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/operations/how-amazon-deploys-robots-in-its-operations-facilities https://www.geekwire.com/2023/amazon-unveils-sequoia-warehouse-robotics-system-and-starts-testing-agilitys-digit-robot/ https://www.engadget.com/amazon-says-its-new-ai-powered-robots-reduce-fulfilment-time-by-25-percent-122517342.html
  There are so many more. The end goal is fully automated fulfillment canters and automated drone delivery. The company who currently employs more people than any other in the country is 100% trying to eliminate the "labor" line item on their balance sheet.
- They still need consumers though right? I mean they can't automate that away can they? Cause I consume a lot of stuff and it takes a fair amount of effort, also it is like the only thing I am really good at.

Didn't you kick us out and ruin some perfectly good tea over something something representation?

And ironically, Washington, DC has no representation, so they've fucked it on many fronts!

data centers have low personell overhead don't they? Didn't some state nix their data center incentives precisely because of how few jobs they bring vs how much utilities they consume.

The only reason I can think of building it there is easy access to water.

Yeah I think it's funny that the bill specifically says that they have to add 50 jobs a year but it doesn't say 50 high paying jobs just 50 jobs. If they hire 50 janitors a year that fulfills their quota. And, not to put too fine a point on it but Mississippi's population is over 2,961,279 and 19.1%(the number of people under the poverty line in Mississippi) is 565,604. 50 jobs a year isn't going to do fuckall for that state. But I sure as hell bet that the Republicans in there State legislature are going to have their pockets well lined.
- 50 Part Time Jobs of 1 hour each week (maybe) and it pays minimum wage. Also I might replace any/all of them at any time with offshore, and H1B talent.
  Best I can do
  Multi Trillion Dollar Company
- 1 job, but the applicants only last a week, so 52 people employed per year!
- not to put too fine a point on it
  say I'm the only bee in your bonnet
- No comment on the accuracy of their prediction but they claim:
  The project is the largest economic development project in Mississippi’s entire history and is expected to create at least 1,000 “high-paying, high-tech” jobs by 2034.
  If that comes to pass, that’s a big deal and this type of facility and these jobs do not just walk away when the incentives end

Eat the rich. Fucking disgusting.

Someone bring a truckload of seasoning!
- Be the change you wish to see in the world
Yes, human cannibalism is quite disgusting.
- How would you know unless you've tried it already?

Why do you think they have the highest rate of poverty? They give all their money to people who don't need it.

It's kinda like when David Cross said, of the south, someone who's morbidly obese yet still malnourished comes from there.

And the populace will still keep voting in conservatives just to stick it to the liberals.

But seriously when are we gonna eat Bezos? I'm a vegetarian but I'll take a bite of the billionaire to show my commitment. I'll bring coleslaw.

Nobody's brave enough to start the process.
- Exactly.
  It will never be more than just talk. The time for that kind of action was in the distant distant past. Like history book past. I seriously doubt we could ever do something like that in the United States.

By the way, if Amazon is doing a project for them, that actually means they're not just paying Zero in taxes, they're also getting paid by the state.

But jerbs creetion!

I mean, Mississippi probably is a good place to put things if you're looking for low labor costs and need to be in the US anyway, even without negotiating a tax break.

I'm not sure that it's the best place to put datacenters, though, which is what this appears to be. Mississippi's got a warm climate, and datacenters tend to need to spend on cooling.

googles

https://dataspan.com/blog/data-center-cooling-costs/

How much does it cost to cool a data center? A cooling system is one of the most expensive parts of any data center. According to research, anywhere between 30% to 55% of a data center’s energy consumption goes into powering its cooling and ventilation systems — with the average hovering around 40%.

Surprisingly, fifth per capita in renewable energy
https://findenergy.com/ms/
I didn’t find rankings per state on the cost per KwH in the time I spent looking, but Mississippi rates are about one/third what we pay in Massachusetts
So, yeah, good deal for Amazon.
- Not to mention all that sweet electricity y'all buy from us Canadians, or is that just NY?
Mississippi is the very definition of geologically stable. Weather events are rare enough. Tornados aren't much of a thing. Katrina levelled Gulfport like a nuclear bomb but go as far as Hattiesburg and there were only a few shingles blown off.
As for cooling, water is plentiful.
Apparently they are also loud af and stress people and animals in a pretty big radius of the data center.
You get the Mississippi River though, which can help with both cooling and clean power.
- That's a thought on the cooling. I don't know how much water-cooling datacenters is a thing, but I remember Google spending a while considering floating datacenters for that reason.
  It looks like Madison County, where they're building it, isn't on the Mississippi, though.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madison_County,_Mississippi
  It does apparently have some smaller rivers, and maybe they could use those if they're doing water cooling.
  I don't think that hydropower is a factor either. Apparently they're looking at it, but not on the Mississippi River, and are in fact the only state in the US to have no hydropower generation (at least as of 2021):
  https://www.psc.ms.gov/sites/default/files/2021-08/FromtheDeskOfBB_HydropowerMissedOpportunityinMS.pdf
  In terms of hydropower, according to this document from the Mississippi state government, as of 2021, Mississippi is the only US state to do zero hydropower generation. While there are conventional hydropower/hydroelectric facilities that are in nearly every state, one state sticks out as having zero generation from hydroelectric resources – Mississippi.
That's interesting. I wonder if there's more data centers in colder areas that take advantage of the local weather to cool.
Don't forget hurricanes.

Where do the $10 billion AMZN bucks go? Do any at all go to MS public coffers? The construction will be done by provate companies, components bought from private companies. How about electricity and water? Do those costs go to publicly owned infrastructure? What about the land, surely it's leased but is it owned by the state of MS? If it's just a $10 billion expenditure from Amazon to other corporations and hedge funds it's pretty worthless to the general public, and giving corporate welfare instead of cOMpEtiNG iN ThE fReE MArkET makes it actively harmful to the public good. How many people with potentially groundbreaking ideas will continue to be wage slaves because their state has no grant money to help them start a business? How many children will continue the cycle of poverty (working for Amazon in this case, probably) because their municipality doesn't have fully staffed schools to help them learn to think critically and guide them to scholarships etc.?

AMZN is up 2.8% today.

There's more to factor in than just job creation. Presumably this isn't a project that going to build on undeveloped land. The land Amazon is building on is likely abandoned warehouse/factory that isn't paying income tax anyway. There's almost definitely going to be environmental clean up involved is the project, which wouldn't happen without the project. Power and water utilities get a new customer that will pay a lot of money and likely on time. A data center requires new fiber to be laid, which should also allow local residential areas access to better internet as well.

There's also the potential that this aws data center attracts a Google or Microsoft data center and they don't get as good of a deal to be the second or third mover. All the employees need housing, for high paying jobs that could mean new construction or upgrades to existing homes. Best case scenario the public schools in the area improve, worst case there's a new private school that offers some scholarships for a handful of kids that aren't from well off families.

Not getting taxes and having condemned abandoned buildings is worse than not getting taxes and having a functioning business in rhe area.

Wow, that sure is a lot of assumptions!
- as is often the case with conservative politics, it’s a trade off between real-world negatives and hypothetical positives.

The article is great for outrage clicks but seems to be missing the point

Mississippi is a poor state that needs to attract jobs and taxes
Mississippi offered a temporary incentive to a large company to attract jobs and taxes. This is very common
Large companies like bribes. Of course it will take advantage of a good deal

So this is business as usual, and the real argument is how likely that temporary incentive is to pay off for Mississippi, and did Mississippi offer too much

Mississippi is a poor state that needs to attract jobs and taxes
They got 1000 jobs and no taxes. 500,000 people in Mississippi live below the poverty line.
Even if every single one of those 1000 jobs are $200k a year super high paying tech jobs, and they're taxed at a ludicrously high rate of 40%, that's only $80M in income taxes per year. I wonder how that compares to if Amazon was charged taxes on their income.
In 2023, Amazon reported a profit of about $30B. If that profit were taxed at just 4%, an order of magnitude less than the personal income tax estimation I used earlier, you're looking at one point two BILLION dollars annually in taxes, several orders of magnitude more than the income tax number.
Mississippi is getting absolutely fleeced in this deal. Absolutely bent over and railed, and you're asking whether or not they should say* "thank you".
Mississippi offered a temporary incentive to a large company to attract jobs and taxes. This is very common
It's also very stupid, and it means that the politicians that offered these deals are stupid beyond belief, corrupt beyond belief, or both.
Large companies like bribes. Of course it will take advantage of a good deal
This is an absolutely terrible deal for the people of Mississippi, one that should have never been made.
If you think that this article is outrage bait, I don't think I wanna know what actually outrages you.
- If you think that this article is outrage bait, I don’t think I wanna know what actually outrages you.
  I think it’s outrage bait because it’s strong in emotions but light on facts.
  Clearly someone thought this was a good deal for Mississippi: I’d like to see those numbers. I’ll be happy to be outraged by the numbers, but not by some random TikToker
  Then again, maybe whoever thought it was a good idea, learned math in Mississippi
- Yo, I'm sorry but you just don't understand anything you're talking about.
  This is talking about Mississippi state taxes, not federal. Mississippi can't determine whether Amazon pays federal taxes.
  And you're comparing the federal taxes on a few employees in just one state to the global profit of Amazon.
  It's not even comparing apples and oranges, it's more like apples and tilapia.
1000 high paying tech jobs aren't going to help people living in poverty. Tax money could, though.