Opposing taxes to help the homeless the same year you become the world’s richest human: not a great look.

This Ringer examination of the rise and fall of Seattle’s proposed “Head Tax” (a.k.a. “Amazon Tax”) mirrors something currently being proposed in San Francisco, in which large companies pay an additional per-employee tax to fund programs addressing the very problems created by their massive success — knock-on effects of income inequality and population surge, such as homelessness, traffic/transit congestion, displacement, etc.

No one wants to punish success, but as a resident of one of these cities, it’s getting dire. And at the end of the day, someone will have to pay a bit more to set up solutions to these problems.

Obviously these are intertwined; tax businesses more, wages might go down. Leave cities to solve these problems without raising taxes on anyone, that money comes out of other services. So: what’s the best pocket to pick here?

Who should pay more to battle homelessness – individuals, cities, or businesses?

7-11, terrified, clings to the hope that Amazon Go never sells cigarettes.

This week Amazon launched their first Amazon Go store in Seattle, an automated convenience store that watches what you pick up, and automatically charges you as you leave.

But the technology that is also inside, mostly tucked away out of sight, enables a shopping experience like no other. There are no cashiers or registers anywhere. Shoppers leave the store through those same gates, without pausing to pull out a credit card. Their Amazon account automatically gets charged for what they take out the door.

Later in the article Amazon says that eliminating cashiers frees up humans to do other less-automated tasks, like restocking or performing customer service, which, sure. But for most, this store will be no different than a giant walk-in vending machine.

I think of how rarely today, compared to decades past, that I need to interact with humans for basic tasks. I can buy a tank of gas without interacting with anyone. I haven’t been inside a bank in years. Movie theaters are down to ticket-tearers and pop-corn poppers, who surely won’t be around much longer. I’m totally fine with self-checkout at grocery stores or in Amazon’s new convenience store concept. And I actively tense up at the approach of an employee in the rare instances I browse a physical clothing store vs buying online. Bartenders, though — take away my favorite local bartender and my life would be poorer for it.

What retail scenarios (if any) would you still rather deal with people vs automation?*

(*Automated customer service lines don’t count. Everyone hates those.)

Which ones do you currently dislike most and want replaced fast? Or currently enjoy and hope they don’t automate away?

What unforeseen side effects, beyond job losses, might arise as this trend continues?

Above: list of cities where houses “with good schools, but you know, still near cool restaurants” are about to get annoyingly expensive.

This week, Amazon announced its shortlist of cities being considered for “HQ2”, their second giant corporate facility bringing tens of thousands of supposedly good-paying tech jobs.

Plenty can be argued about the vast tax incentives being given away to one of the richest businesses around, the propriety of a private company making municipalities grovel to be blessed with precious new-economy jobs — and we should have those conversations too!

But today I was struck by a more tangential thought about demographics. Several of these cities are in places that young, educated, progressive people (a.k.a. voters) are leaving in order to move to coastal urban centers that are already filled with other young progressive people like them — because that’s where the good jobs are. That migration is what’s throwing off the traditional balance of urban/rural, (a.k.a. progressive/conservative) in the states whose major cultural centers are on the decline due to industries shrinking or consolidating (particularly, say, Indiana or Ohio). One big company keeping more of those people in-state theoretically breeds other off-shoot companies, and helps keep the urban vs rural percentage in a state with only mid-size cities bluer.

Essentially, where Amazon places its second headquarters could literally swing a state, electorally.

Should progressive people be encouraging big companies to move jobs to red-to-purple states to drive more urbanization in smaller US cities?

Does this give more power to corporations, or politicize economic decisions, in ways we should be wary of? Or is this all power and political will corporations have now, that we the people should exert more influence over?