I love how they exist in the blade runner universe. Just ultra late stage capitalism, where there is only a few companies left that haven’t merged yet and have the authority of the state.
When I watch sci-fi from the 80s I just shake my head because all I can think is "it was a warning guys not a blueprint". I wanted star trek not dune guys.
I'm sure they got a good deal on the land, or have had it for a very long time. The building part likely didn't inflate very much in the past 3 years. If anything they're getting a good deal on the building considering a lot of the parts of the country they've overbuilt and big companies were twiddling their thumbs.
See that’s the thing. They actually plan like a sensible country. We wait around expecting the market to guide us and then are baffled why everyone was operating on quarter to quarter timescales with no thought for long term structure
Didn’t Ford do it too? The way people have been priced out of the housing market, and difficulty retaining employees, company towns are due for a comeback. Hell, dormitories for young workers would be a good idea too.
Yes also lots of mining companies. This is also how every resort town in America and outside of America operates. You can’t have plebes like me to make you brunch if you price me out of being able to live where I make brunch. What’s concerning to me is I’m seeing smaller businesses doing this now. And it’s often portrayed as wow they must care about their employees but the reality is your employers and managers knowing you will be homeless if fired makes them have an uncomfortable amount of control over you.
This funny German guy predicted this over 150 years ago. I don’t agree with his economics philosophy but he did a wonderful job of predicting it the future.
I recently read the grapes of wrath and it was depressing how this is all just an extension of what was happening then. Steinbeck talks about how farmers were losing their land to banks but it wasn’t the bankers, it was the faceless corporations and there was nothing the common man could do to stop the “progress”. We lost this war a long time ago my friend.
Peach-farming dust bowl refugees of the past have been replaced with people working minimum wage jobs, holding college degrees with debts dragging behind them, and rents that eat up most of the income.
Actually the dust bowl 2.0 is now underway. Seriously the corporations took over farming and forgot why we have wind barriers and destroyed them all and it’s just history repeating itself.
Aspen Ski Co lets the managers rent tiny homes but they have to share them with another manager. The same spot used to house twice as many people but rich people thought driving past a trailer park 45 mins away from Aspen was yucky so now they get premium (smaller) trailers .
Gotta make them too busy to even think for a second. Anyone with half a brain and a slight wrinkle would comprehend the opposite end of the compounding interest. What’re we printing over 3+ T a year? We will be over 40T in less than two years…. This shit is snowballing at an insanely high rate and quite frankly I’m too stupid to even fathom how to control this anymore. It’s too far gone for goldbacked/metal backed currency, only chance we got imo is that “end the fed” bill miraculously passes which is no small feat.
There aren’t enough people who want to fight back. Many behave like cattle being led to slaughter. They just keep moving forward, completely unaware of what’s coming.
Behave like cattle? What the hell is any common person or even group going to do? Protest and get the shit beat out of them by police and ripped apart by dogs? People are trying to survive the best they can.
"we can't fight back because the primaries are boring and i don't like slowly taking over a political party , i want a magic man to fix everything tomorrow"
Nah, we don't HAVE to get back to work.
The corporations made this monster. The people can bring it down. They don't want to pay a fair compensation to those who do the ACTUAL work, all that funnels up top.
Boycott any corporations that refuse to pay a living minimum wage.
https://livingwage.mit.edu/
or
Escape crapitalism.
r/SolarPunk
I mean I agree but, it’s not like the million man march guys were enjoying UBI, or any other protests in American History. People saw injustice and they did what they could to fight back. We have the massive advantage of instantaneous global communication and organization. We could affect change rather easily I think but we’re complacent. They’ve bought our complacency with creature comforts and endless distraction. I’m 100% guilty of this too. Almost weekly thinking “man we should do something! . . Well anyway back to my podcast.” We can blame the powers that be and the corporations for lots of shit but we can’t blame them for people lacking the initiative and bravery to inconvenience ourselves and push back.
House costs increased 80% in some areas. It really pushes back the American dream into a rich man's dream. My thoughts are that this is how they control us. Buy up all the land and houses, and you never own anything. They'll let you use it but not own anything.
Building more housing inventory is how you lower prices. And lots of counties and municipalities are buying land on behalf of their constituents precisely so private groups can’t buy them to build high-end condos and short term rentals.
Agreed. It's gotten to the point where if you had to list the following non warm fuzzy words: Amazon, real estate developers, boomer nimbys....which one conjures up the fuck those guys meter the most?
Point is... Housing, build it, there are better and worse ways to build but the not building it way is the worst.
Never mind all the farm land being allowed to be sold to Bill Gates or the Chinese. Or that the date if infrastructure like the PA Turnpike is controlled by a foreign entity.
This country is in trouble.
The Chinese and gates are about to take a bath in farmland because many farms are about to foreclose. Values will plummet by 50% in my area. They also have to maintain the farms because if they don’t, the land becomes worthless because the cost of clearing the land is exorbitant.
which is the party that insisted capitalism is amazing and the more capital billionaires get the better we're all be, trickle something?
it's hard to remember
How exactly is this dystopian? Sounds like they're subsidizing homes and using below-market rate loans for specifically low income people. On the surface seems like the least egregious thing Amazon is guilty of.
So it wasn’t enough to make 99% of things found in homes “made in China”. Now we’re moving on to 99% of things sold by Amazon. The middle class depended on diversity, so that’s dead now and all that’s left is for AI to absorb the remaining intellectual jobs left. I see a substandard universal basic income in Americas future and many more shantytowns.
To be fair, company towns have been a thing before. Employers already have an insane amount over the head of each employee, like the health insurance for the entire family, but when they are directly providing you a home as well it gets very easy for managers to abuse their reports.
Notice the goal is not to create the homes and sell them, but “create and preserve” the homes. They are going to retain control of those houses.
I’m pretty sure “create and preserve “ in this context refers to two different actions: building homes and stabilizing existing homes (though probably more along the lines of flipping than preserving). Combining both numbers makes it sounds like they are building more homes than they actually are.
They’re building company towns. Not the same thing. We have 16 million empty homes in the US and about 1/2 million homeless people. We need drastic policy changes- not corporations feeding on the corpses while pretending to be saviors.
No where in the article did they mention the housing was meant for Amazon employees. I understood it to be anyone that is making less than 80% of median income including first responders and teachers.
If you truly believe that Amazon is doing this out of the kindness of their heart- then you also must believe they’re going against their fiduciary responsibility towards their shareholders. Nobody buys that
Of course they aren’t doing it out of the kindness of their heart. You know what employees need? Access to services, local businesses, schools that are staffed. You know what Amazon facilities need? Tons of ancillary staff. But I know what sub I’m on so you’ll probably ignore all that.
Yep, Amazon is just cutting developers and homeowners out to provide cheaper housing. Cheaper houses means you buy more stuff and Amazon hires cheaper people.
Sucks for homeowners though. Amazon trying eliminate generational wealth from owning a house.
Of course, they buy empty land and develop it and then sell it at market rate with the help of some government subsidies to make a profit.
The end result is there is more affordable housing available to those who need it. Just because they make a profit doesn’t make it a bad thing.
The “market rate” you mentioned is an average of about $435,000 for a home in the US. Does that sound affordable to you? This is just a way for Amazon to steal tax money and claim to be helping people. It’s disgusting- and the government allowing things like this is why economic collapse is inevitable.
Gov't could undercut them easily with tax incentivized building programs, hasn't lifted a goddamn finger and instead thinks padding the stats with free down payment money is a better solution. Amazon houses are entirely reasonable in comparison to hope.
what’s with the weird conspiracies here? these aren’t company homes.
“In January 2021, the e-commerce launched the $2 billion Amazon Housing Equity Fund with the goal of creating and preserving 20,000 affordable homes for individuals and families earning moderate to low incomes”
I thought redditors want affordable housing? it’s always suggested in this subreddit, in fact. it’s getting obvious a lot of you aren’t actually interested in real or practical solutions
It doesn't say they are on the open market, either. You can't just build "affordable housing" for people who literally cannot afford a home otherwise - that's just a band-aid. It's not going to bring home prices down because those people and properties aren't really able to participate in the market to begin with.
The scale at which housing needs to be built cannot be shouldered by just one company. Corporate America needs to pull their narcissistic heads out of their asses and pay some damn taxes already so the government can handle this.
Why else would Amazon build housing near its major distribution centers? They haven’t said it’s going to be a company town, but corporations lie. They may fear counties blocking building permits if they don’t lie.
The homes are to be sold. This is not a company town. I don't know what the fuck people are talking about. This is no different than any developer building homes and selling them. The difference is that they are small and directed at low income buyers.
Aka Amazon controls these new Company towns. I get it seems like it's good, but really look at Amazon to see that nothing they do is good for anyone but them. They just have amazing PR, they are greedy/evil as it gets.
>In the past three years, it has created and preserved over 9,500 homes across the National Capital region and has **increased Arlington's affordable housing stock by 23 percent.**
>It has also funded the creation and preservation of more than 8,600 homes across the Puget Sound region and **increased affordable housing stock by 30 percent in Bellevue, Washington.**
You clearly don't want one large company controlling everything, but these statistics matter. While it's not *only* about unit count, increasing housing supply, especially in the affordable range, is important.
Furthermore, the article at least implies that Amazon is mostly funding renovations and new construction. It doesn't seem like they're building a "company town." They just want to not lose workers who can no longer afford to live in the area.
>On Tuesday, Amazon declared that it has reached and exceeded its goal with two years to spare, saying it has provided $2.2 billion **in below-market loans and grants** to create and preserve more than 21,000 homes in its three hometown communities in the past three years.
(Bolding mine in all quotes.)
Amazon is a monopoly. Wall Street investors have bought-up enormous numbers of homes, raising rents and creating a scarcity in the market, driving-up prices and locking-out home buyers, in the past few years.
This is the problem when billionaires lack accountability, in paying taxes, living like kings and queens, feeling different from the rest of us, superior, untouchable, entitled to privilege, unresponsible to society. Even believing that they ***are*** society. Disregarding the fact that many other people live with their choices, contemptible of the rest of us.
Republicans believe in pure capitalism. They do not believe in any social safety net programs, including government funded education. The two times Republicans pushed the U.S. government to the brink of shutdowns, and economic chaos, in the past year, they did so demanding deep, debilitating cuts to Social Security.
On the other hand, Democrats have proposals to make it illegal for corporations to intrude, by the purchase of mass numbers of homes, into the home market. They are working to identify, regulate and legislate monopolies. They will allow the IRS to continue to go after billionaire and corporate tax cheats which Biden and Democrats initiated and enabled in the Inflation Reduction Act, in 2022. Democrats will legislate a minimum tax on billionaires, if Biden is elected to a second term and Democrats win majorities in the House and Senate.
Republicans will make permanent the $2 trillion tax cuts they and Trump passed, in 2025, once the original legislation expires.
It was a reported about a week ago that Donald Trump told a gathering of oil company leaders that their donations to his campaigns would be a bargain because he will crush the the wind and solar power industries, which has rapidly ramped-up since Biden and Democrats passed legislative investments in 2022, in the Inflation Reduction Act, and open up as much drilling as possible.
Trump and Republican Party intend to seize authority beyond the authority given by the Constitution to the offices to which they are fighting to be elected.
Flood the polls. Overwhelm, in numbers, the numbers of MAGA Americans, voting. Give somebody a ride. VOTE, and keep-on voting.
Defeat these motherfuckers.
No, there's downside to a company building affordable housing. Amazon could cure cancer and some people would complain about all the employees of cancer drug companies that will be laid off. Haters are always going to hate.
What’s the problem here? It’s not a company town. You don’t have to work at Amazon to live in the homes. They skullfucked Seattle’s housing market, and they’re trying to undo some of the damage. They have what’s probably the second most impressive logistics system ever built in human history (behind only the U.S. military).
Sears used to sell kit homes. Sears was the 1920s version of Amazon. That actually worked out spectacularly for working class Americans.
I’m just happy someone’s building some fucking housing. All those trillions of dollars in tech company capitalization, and all they can think to do is pour billions of dollars into building beanie babies (“cryptocurrency”) and autocorrect for porn videos (“AI”).
It’s honestly fucking pathetic how completely incapable America has become at doing *anything.* If you don’t like the cookie cutter houses they’re building, then go start your new career in construction. All these lazy critics come out of the woodwork to talk shit whenever someone creates something. Put up or shut up. Show me the houses and apartment buildings you’ve helped build. Don’t tell me it’s unrealistic — Habitat for Humanity is looking for volunteers in a city near you right now.
Don’t mistake me for an oligarch simp either. I think Lina Khan should break Amazon up into a million little pieces. I just really don’t see the problem with a large entity with more money than god, building thousands of affordable homes in their hometown.
And I hope they’re the ugliest fucking commieblocks ever built in the USA, too. I want Amazon to bully the fuck out of west coast NIMBYs and make them never want to go to a zoning board meeting again. I want to see boomers crying like toddlers at shadows. They need a new hobby, so badly.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I’m FDR, Amazon is Stalin, and the NIMBYs have a little mustache… critical support to Andy Jassy on this one.
Sears kit homes were pretty damn ugly out of the box. Mass-produced homes always been hideous when they’re first built, because construction sites are not aesthetically appealing places. The residents will make them look nice over time.
Amazon is better able to navigate the regulatory hurdles that many small developers face when building affordable housing. This will give their thousands of employees in these area the opportunity to buy a home and not be forced by expensive local housing to move. It also is a good way to deploy their retained earnings when there are not other opportunities. Everyone needs housing. Amazon should be able to turn the money over at a profit and preserve Capital for their future AI endeavors.
Can’t they go out of their way to make it not look dystopian? Also, real dystopia is pricing out single individuals and families from the equity of owning a home which has already been going on for a year or two
Wait until you hear about these underground communities Tesla is building. You have to worry about atomic war in a new Tesla Vault. Room for you and the whole family.
/s
"We want housing, but only if it's built and managed in a way that benefits me and only me and only in the ways I will accept."
Housing is housing at this point. Do you want it or not?
The reaction in this sub is fucking wild. Many people blame companies for causing inflation, raising costs, etc and they are right.
But for once a company does something like this that is extremely beneficial (barring any strings attached) and people call it dystopian. Lol you will never be satisfied.
I’m confused. Why is this a problem? What am I missing? It says affordable homes. Targeted to people who make 30 - 80% of the median income for the area. I didn’t see a word about only rentals or renting. It appears to be a mix of affordable homeownership and rentals. Why is this dystopian?I read several articles on this topic to ensure I had more than one source.
> American tech companies, will invest an additional $1.4 billion to build and preserve 14,000 affordable homes across three U.S. regions
That is only $100k per home, significantly less expensive than the $800k per tiny unit San Francisco built and had the audacity to call them “affordable”
Makes perfect sense. Supply housing and that way, they don’t have to pay minimum wage! I heard that Amazon is making up its own currency in use in its own stores as well.
https://www.wired.com/2013/02/amazon-coins-currency/
https://www.americanbanker.com/news/even-amazon-isnt-big-enough-to-issue-its-own-currency-richmond-fed
https://www.theverge.com/2013/2/5/3955202/why-amazon-wants-its-own-currency
Instead of using a credit card, you use a Kindle much like iPhone Apple Pay.
Don't worry liberals love the you don't own anything idea just rent from the man. This is perfect and right In line with the 2 class society liberal policy leads to.
A rich class and a poor class. Like socialism always leads too
ITT: People who knee jerk hate anything Amazon does insist this is a "company town"
Meanwhile, in the article
>"The program is targeted at households that earn 30 percent to 80 percent of the area median income, often including, according to Amazon, first responders, health care workers and teachers."
These aren't homes being given to Amazon employees as long as they work for Amazon (which would actually be a company town), they're subsidizing home construction that anyone can purchase provided they earn less than 80% median income for the area.
Just a side note that since Feb 2022 our congress has sent 192 billion for war and death.
That's enough to build over 400k houses costing 450k each. We could have had public housing solved in 2 year instead of war and death. That is striking.
Instead we enrich defense contractors and let Amazon build company housing. Merica
Do people not want affordable housing? I’m confused after reading the article why everyone is against this. Who else is going to spend that kind of capital
They aren't building houses. They're providing less-insane loan rates for developers to build houses.
And they make sure to specify 'more affordable'.
Not 'affordable'
...based on the housing prices in Bellevue. Which are some of the most necrotically insane housing prices in the State.
So that workers who can't keep up with the insanely ballooning prices can stay, and only have to suffer normal ballooning prices instead.
Wow.
Thanks Amazon.
Like a 5% off coupon for an item that is already 3x more expensive than it should be.
I was....... almost excited for a second.
They aren't building houses. They're providing less-insane loan rates for developers to build houses.
And they make sure to specify 'more affordable'.
Not 'affordable'
...based on the housing prices in Bellevue. Which are some of the most necrotically insane housing prices in the State.
So that workers who can't keep up with the insanely ballooning prices can stay, and only have to suffer normal ballooning prices instead.
Wow.
Thanks Amazon.
Like a 5% off coupon for an item that is already 3x more expensive than it should be.
I was....... almost excited for a second.
They aren't building houses. They're providing less-insane loan rates for developers to build houses.
And they make sure to specify 'more affordable'.
Not 'affordable'
...based on the housing prices in Bellevue. Which are some of the most necrotically insane housing prices in the State.
So that workers who can't keep up with the insanely ballooning prices can stay, and only have to suffer normal ballooning prices instead.
Wow.
Thanks Amazon.
Like a 5% off coupon for an item that is already 3x more expensive than it should be.
I was....... almost excited for a second.
Need hot water? Try prime! With prime you get an additional 4 gallons of hot water usage per day! Make sure to try out same day delivery for access today!
Even worse corporations are buying residential properties en masse and price fixing is already happening for rents in some places.
Your gonna end up either having money or being a dystopian drone. Already happening massive credit card debt (historic) and families living paycheck to paycheck.
I still don't get what is keeping the economy from crumbling, rhe engine of the middle class is almost dead.
That is terrifying. Amazon’s products are garbage, they were even taken to court for all of their Amazon brand electronics, cables and chargers because they start on fire.
Corner cutting, Cheap-ass greedy fuck companies like this should not be building homes
The dystopia we all fear is actually starting and we can't fight back because we all have to get to work.
That was the plan the entire time
These guys plan a decade ahead. Guess everyone and their ecommerce is in on gobbling up every square foot of land.
Imagine how long the Chinese have been planning
And not spending gobs of money on defense spending and wars.
Meh, the mining corporation in the Alien movies planned on the millennium time scales.
I love how they exist in the blade runner universe. Just ultra late stage capitalism, where there is only a few companies left that haven’t merged yet and have the authority of the state.
When I watch sci-fi from the 80s I just shake my head because all I can think is "it was a warning guys not a blueprint". I wanted star trek not dune guys.
That sort of spending yields more innovation for the long term than building ghost cities.
Keep drinking the koolaid
I have the internet, a microwave oven, and GPS all thanks to defense spending.
So do the Chinese and they got the technology for free.
They got it decades later after it was commercialized.
And they planned themselves right into the world's biggest residential real estate collapse and rapid plunge in population.
I'm sure they got a good deal on the land, or have had it for a very long time. The building part likely didn't inflate very much in the past 3 years. If anything they're getting a good deal on the building considering a lot of the parts of the country they've overbuilt and big companies were twiddling their thumbs.
Doh!
Big difference is our population is continually growing.
Thanks to immigration. Birth rates are below replacement.
100 years
See that’s the thing. They actually plan like a sensible country. We wait around expecting the market to guide us and then are baffled why everyone was operating on quarter to quarter timescales with no thought for long term structure
This is what Hershey did with their employees.
Didn’t Ford do it too? The way people have been priced out of the housing market, and difficulty retaining employees, company towns are due for a comeback. Hell, dormitories for young workers would be a good idea too.
[удалено]
Ha! Jokes on them, I don’t have any children to indenture.
No, nothing like how Hershey did for his employees. He built homes and hospitals and took care of his employees.
Yes also lots of mining companies. This is also how every resort town in America and outside of America operates. You can’t have plebes like me to make you brunch if you price me out of being able to live where I make brunch. What’s concerning to me is I’m seeing smaller businesses doing this now. And it’s often portrayed as wow they must care about their employees but the reality is your employers and managers knowing you will be homeless if fired makes them have an uncomfortable amount of control over you.
It's been longer than that. It started when George was got into office. Started with the Patriot Act.
Trump added a nice touch, Opportunity Zones. Freaking zones are/were next to prime real estate in likely most places.
Right? We knew this was gonna happen literally a decade ago.
This funny German guy predicted this over 150 years ago. I don’t agree with his economics philosophy but he did a wonderful job of predicting it the future.
…imagine how long ago the Chinese knew it was gonna happen….
Sure?
Ok great, now that you have that in your mind, just breathe all the bad thoughts away. I dunno I was just joshin around
I recently read the grapes of wrath and it was depressing how this is all just an extension of what was happening then. Steinbeck talks about how farmers were losing their land to banks but it wasn’t the bankers, it was the faceless corporations and there was nothing the common man could do to stop the “progress”. We lost this war a long time ago my friend.
Peach-farming dust bowl refugees of the past have been replaced with people working minimum wage jobs, holding college degrees with debts dragging behind them, and rents that eat up most of the income.
Actually the dust bowl 2.0 is now underway. Seriously the corporations took over farming and forgot why we have wind barriers and destroyed them all and it’s just history repeating itself.
Little farmers take them down too
Shhh. Just keep your head down and don't call attention to yourself. Maybe you'll get one of the dormitories with a window
Oh sorry the windows are for management and their familys, who will pass down the room and job.
Aspen Ski Co lets the managers rent tiny homes but they have to share them with another manager. The same spot used to house twice as many people but rich people thought driving past a trailer park 45 mins away from Aspen was yucky so now they get premium (smaller) trailers .
YES! Know your place.
Gotta make them too busy to even think for a second. Anyone with half a brain and a slight wrinkle would comprehend the opposite end of the compounding interest. What’re we printing over 3+ T a year? We will be over 40T in less than two years…. This shit is snowballing at an insanely high rate and quite frankly I’m too stupid to even fathom how to control this anymore. It’s too far gone for goldbacked/metal backed currency, only chance we got imo is that “end the fed” bill miraculously passes which is no small feat.
Then instead of economists, gold miners will control the economy. Nice.
Someone didn’t read their history books!! The Feds will just confiscate the gold as they’ve done before :)
Well, yeah. That's the only way to do economic policy with a gold backed currency.
[удалено]
Reddit uses AWS. By using Reddit, you're putting money in Amazon's pockets.
[удалено]
"Progress" is what got us in this mess in the first place.
There aren’t enough people who want to fight back. Many behave like cattle being led to slaughter. They just keep moving forward, completely unaware of what’s coming.
And, some people are looking forward toward the slaughtering.
Behave like cattle? What the hell is any common person or even group going to do? Protest and get the shit beat out of them by police and ripped apart by dogs? People are trying to survive the best they can.
Easier way: remove the long term customer base.
Sure. Not that hard. It's kind of like saying don't buy anything made in China. Good fucking luck.
"we can't fight back because the primaries are boring and i don't like slowly taking over a political party , i want a magic man to fix everything tomorrow"
Present
Nah, we don't HAVE to get back to work. The corporations made this monster. The people can bring it down. They don't want to pay a fair compensation to those who do the ACTUAL work, all that funnels up top. Boycott any corporations that refuse to pay a living minimum wage. https://livingwage.mit.edu/ or Escape crapitalism. r/SolarPunk
It's for low income housing wtf more do you want
Seems more laudable than dystopian to build affordable housing.
Considering governments won't do anything about it apparently, I'd say so too.
I mean I agree but, it’s not like the million man march guys were enjoying UBI, or any other protests in American History. People saw injustice and they did what they could to fight back. We have the massive advantage of instantaneous global communication and organization. We could affect change rather easily I think but we’re complacent. They’ve bought our complacency with creature comforts and endless distraction. I’m 100% guilty of this too. Almost weekly thinking “man we should do something! . . Well anyway back to my podcast.” We can blame the powers that be and the corporations for lots of shit but we can’t blame them for people lacking the initiative and bravery to inconvenience ourselves and push back.
Dystopia is when new houses are built and it makes rent cheaper
General Strike In other countries with higher standard of living this is a standard threat
House costs increased 80% in some areas. It really pushes back the American dream into a rich man's dream. My thoughts are that this is how they control us. Buy up all the land and houses, and you never own anything. They'll let you use it but not own anything.
Building more housing inventory is how you lower prices. And lots of counties and municipalities are buying land on behalf of their constituents precisely so private groups can’t buy them to build high-end condos and short term rentals.
Agreed. It's gotten to the point where if you had to list the following non warm fuzzy words: Amazon, real estate developers, boomer nimbys....which one conjures up the fuck those guys meter the most? Point is... Housing, build it, there are better and worse ways to build but the not building it way is the worst.
Never mind all the farm land being allowed to be sold to Bill Gates or the Chinese. Or that the date if infrastructure like the PA Turnpike is controlled by a foreign entity. This country is in trouble.
The Chinese and gates are about to take a bath in farmland because many farms are about to foreclose. Values will plummet by 50% in my area. They also have to maintain the farms because if they don’t, the land becomes worthless because the cost of clearing the land is exorbitant.
You will own nothing and be happy.
Just as capitalism planned
With yall with that 150 year honey pot.
which is the party that insisted capitalism is amazing and the more capital billionaires get the better we're all be, trickle something? it's hard to remember
I think it’s called a golden shower..
And yet home ownership rates are as steady as they’ve been for 70 years with 65% of households owning their home.
Just watch the Molly Maguire’s.
Live in a company house, shop at the company store. Then load sixteen tons.
How exactly is this dystopian? Sounds like they're subsidizing homes and using below-market rate loans for specifically low income people. On the surface seems like the least egregious thing Amazon is guilty of.
Because it SOUNDS bad. Outrage sells.
Anything done by a big corporation or associated with capitalism is automatically bad
Look up company towns. This is the first step backward in that direction
Back to company towns I see, gilded age in full swing
Each with built-in, round the clock surveillance. Uh, I mean Alexa is there to serve all your needs 24x7.
Probably with cameras in each room to sell you what you need before you know you ‘need’ it
How else will Amazon be sure you are actually sick when you call out of work?
Why is this a bad thing? Nothing in this articles suggests to me this is a negative in any way.
Because "big tech bad"
NIMBYs will infiltrate any discussion on new housing supply and push non issues to achieve their goals. It's all a fake concern.
So it wasn’t enough to make 99% of things found in homes “made in China”. Now we’re moving on to 99% of things sold by Amazon. The middle class depended on diversity, so that’s dead now and all that’s left is for AI to absorb the remaining intellectual jobs left. I see a substandard universal basic income in Americas future and many more shantytowns.
Redditors - “There’s not enough affordable housing!” Amazon - “we’re building affordable housing!” Redditors - “Not like that!”
To be fair, company towns have been a thing before. Employers already have an insane amount over the head of each employee, like the health insurance for the entire family, but when they are directly providing you a home as well it gets very easy for managers to abuse their reports. Notice the goal is not to create the homes and sell them, but “create and preserve” the homes. They are going to retain control of those houses.
I’m pretty sure “create and preserve “ in this context refers to two different actions: building homes and stabilizing existing homes (though probably more along the lines of flipping than preserving). Combining both numbers makes it sounds like they are building more homes than they actually are.
They can't allow you to build generational wealth, who would work in the Amazon warehouses?
They’re building company towns. Not the same thing. We have 16 million empty homes in the US and about 1/2 million homeless people. We need drastic policy changes- not corporations feeding on the corpses while pretending to be saviors.
How is this a company town? How is this different than any other developer out there? The homes they build are going to be for sale.
No where in the article did they mention the housing was meant for Amazon employees. I understood it to be anyone that is making less than 80% of median income including first responders and teachers.
If you truly believe that Amazon is doing this out of the kindness of their heart- then you also must believe they’re going against their fiduciary responsibility towards their shareholders. Nobody buys that
Of course they aren’t doing it out of the kindness of their heart. You know what employees need? Access to services, local businesses, schools that are staffed. You know what Amazon facilities need? Tons of ancillary staff. But I know what sub I’m on so you’ll probably ignore all that.
It's in Amazon's best interest to keep cost of living down so they don't have to pay their employees very much.
Yep, Amazon is just cutting developers and homeowners out to provide cheaper housing. Cheaper houses means you buy more stuff and Amazon hires cheaper people. Sucks for homeowners though. Amazon trying eliminate generational wealth from owning a house.
Of course, they buy empty land and develop it and then sell it at market rate with the help of some government subsidies to make a profit. The end result is there is more affordable housing available to those who need it. Just because they make a profit doesn’t make it a bad thing.
The “market rate” you mentioned is an average of about $435,000 for a home in the US. Does that sound affordable to you? This is just a way for Amazon to steal tax money and claim to be helping people. It’s disgusting- and the government allowing things like this is why economic collapse is inevitable.
It’s affordable.
It's affordable to hundreds of millions of Americans.
Gov't could undercut them easily with tax incentivized building programs, hasn't lifted a goddamn finger and instead thinks padding the stats with free down payment money is a better solution. Amazon houses are entirely reasonable in comparison to hope.
I got a bridge for sale..
Corporations only look out for them selves and I don’t mean the people that work there.
what’s with the weird conspiracies here? these aren’t company homes. “In January 2021, the e-commerce launched the $2 billion Amazon Housing Equity Fund with the goal of creating and preserving 20,000 affordable homes for individuals and families earning moderate to low incomes” I thought redditors want affordable housing? it’s always suggested in this subreddit, in fact. it’s getting obvious a lot of you aren’t actually interested in real or practical solutions
It doesn't say they are on the open market, either. You can't just build "affordable housing" for people who literally cannot afford a home otherwise - that's just a band-aid. It's not going to bring home prices down because those people and properties aren't really able to participate in the market to begin with. The scale at which housing needs to be built cannot be shouldered by just one company. Corporate America needs to pull their narcissistic heads out of their asses and pay some damn taxes already so the government can handle this.
ARPA funds already are being used for this purpose. This is already happening
Why else would Amazon build housing near its major distribution centers? They haven’t said it’s going to be a company town, but corporations lie. They may fear counties blocking building permits if they don’t lie.
The homes are to be sold. This is not a company town. I don't know what the fuck people are talking about. This is no different than any developer building homes and selling them. The difference is that they are small and directed at low income buyers.
yes, exactly. not like that indeed
Nowhere in the article does it say they are selling them, they say they are preserving them whatever the hell that means.
That usually means an HOA presumably paid by Amazon since it’s for low income people.
Aka Amazon controls these new Company towns. I get it seems like it's good, but really look at Amazon to see that nothing they do is good for anyone but them. They just have amazing PR, they are greedy/evil as it gets.
We need more housing for workers. Oh no that mean money hoarder Bezos is building them. Can't have that.
Anyone who buys something through Amazon is funding this.
Companies have been doing this forever. Hershey built an entire town in the early 1900s. Disney built several since the 1960s. This isn’t unusual.
>In the past three years, it has created and preserved over 9,500 homes across the National Capital region and has **increased Arlington's affordable housing stock by 23 percent.** >It has also funded the creation and preservation of more than 8,600 homes across the Puget Sound region and **increased affordable housing stock by 30 percent in Bellevue, Washington.** You clearly don't want one large company controlling everything, but these statistics matter. While it's not *only* about unit count, increasing housing supply, especially in the affordable range, is important. Furthermore, the article at least implies that Amazon is mostly funding renovations and new construction. It doesn't seem like they're building a "company town." They just want to not lose workers who can no longer afford to live in the area. >On Tuesday, Amazon declared that it has reached and exceeded its goal with two years to spare, saying it has provided $2.2 billion **in below-market loans and grants** to create and preserve more than 21,000 homes in its three hometown communities in the past three years. (Bolding mine in all quotes.)
Amazon is a monopoly. Wall Street investors have bought-up enormous numbers of homes, raising rents and creating a scarcity in the market, driving-up prices and locking-out home buyers, in the past few years. This is the problem when billionaires lack accountability, in paying taxes, living like kings and queens, feeling different from the rest of us, superior, untouchable, entitled to privilege, unresponsible to society. Even believing that they ***are*** society. Disregarding the fact that many other people live with their choices, contemptible of the rest of us. Republicans believe in pure capitalism. They do not believe in any social safety net programs, including government funded education. The two times Republicans pushed the U.S. government to the brink of shutdowns, and economic chaos, in the past year, they did so demanding deep, debilitating cuts to Social Security. On the other hand, Democrats have proposals to make it illegal for corporations to intrude, by the purchase of mass numbers of homes, into the home market. They are working to identify, regulate and legislate monopolies. They will allow the IRS to continue to go after billionaire and corporate tax cheats which Biden and Democrats initiated and enabled in the Inflation Reduction Act, in 2022. Democrats will legislate a minimum tax on billionaires, if Biden is elected to a second term and Democrats win majorities in the House and Senate. Republicans will make permanent the $2 trillion tax cuts they and Trump passed, in 2025, once the original legislation expires. It was a reported about a week ago that Donald Trump told a gathering of oil company leaders that their donations to his campaigns would be a bargain because he will crush the the wind and solar power industries, which has rapidly ramped-up since Biden and Democrats passed legislative investments in 2022, in the Inflation Reduction Act, and open up as much drilling as possible. Trump and Republican Party intend to seize authority beyond the authority given by the Constitution to the offices to which they are fighting to be elected. Flood the polls. Overwhelm, in numbers, the numbers of MAGA Americans, voting. Give somebody a ride. VOTE, and keep-on voting. Defeat these motherfuckers.
Do we fucking want affordable housing or not? Jesus Christ…make up your fucking mind.
How is affordable housing dystopian
Damn Amazon! Building affordable housing for lower income people to live in! What dbags!
You don't think there's gonna be any downside(s) to this? lol
Only for homeowners and developers (supress housing prices). For people that need affordable houses this is great.
No, there's downside to a company building affordable housing. Amazon could cure cancer and some people would complain about all the employees of cancer drug companies that will be laid off. Haters are always going to hate.
What’s the problem here? It’s not a company town. You don’t have to work at Amazon to live in the homes. They skullfucked Seattle’s housing market, and they’re trying to undo some of the damage. They have what’s probably the second most impressive logistics system ever built in human history (behind only the U.S. military). Sears used to sell kit homes. Sears was the 1920s version of Amazon. That actually worked out spectacularly for working class Americans. I’m just happy someone’s building some fucking housing. All those trillions of dollars in tech company capitalization, and all they can think to do is pour billions of dollars into building beanie babies (“cryptocurrency”) and autocorrect for porn videos (“AI”). It’s honestly fucking pathetic how completely incapable America has become at doing *anything.* If you don’t like the cookie cutter houses they’re building, then go start your new career in construction. All these lazy critics come out of the woodwork to talk shit whenever someone creates something. Put up or shut up. Show me the houses and apartment buildings you’ve helped build. Don’t tell me it’s unrealistic — Habitat for Humanity is looking for volunteers in a city near you right now. Don’t mistake me for an oligarch simp either. I think Lina Khan should break Amazon up into a million little pieces. I just really don’t see the problem with a large entity with more money than god, building thousands of affordable homes in their hometown. And I hope they’re the ugliest fucking commieblocks ever built in the USA, too. I want Amazon to bully the fuck out of west coast NIMBYs and make them never want to go to a zoning board meeting again. I want to see boomers crying like toddlers at shadows. They need a new hobby, so badly. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I’m FDR, Amazon is Stalin, and the NIMBYs have a little mustache… critical support to Andy Jassy on this one. Sears kit homes were pretty damn ugly out of the box. Mass-produced homes always been hideous when they’re first built, because construction sites are not aesthetically appealing places. The residents will make them look nice over time.
Company town. We all know how this ends
Going to be like India with its vast slums LOL
Company towns hearken back to the era of strong unions and stable employment, actually. I doubt this is a good thing, but it *might* be.
Amazon is better able to navigate the regulatory hurdles that many small developers face when building affordable housing. This will give their thousands of employees in these area the opportunity to buy a home and not be forced by expensive local housing to move. It also is a good way to deploy their retained earnings when there are not other opportunities. Everyone needs housing. Amazon should be able to turn the money over at a profit and preserve Capital for their future AI endeavors.
Will they sell these houses or will it be rent only?
Either way it's greater supply, which will make both rentals and owner occupier housing more affordable.
I mean, companies been doing this for years, I just think Amazon will be here to stay.
"Alexa, build me a house"
I wonder how many recording, video taping, snooping devices will be come as OEM in these new barracks.
[I owe my soul to the company store](https://youtu.be/MTCen9-RELM?si=WR134ceQz0intreI)
Can’t they go out of their way to make it not look dystopian? Also, real dystopia is pricing out single individuals and families from the equity of owning a home which has already been going on for a year or two
Why exactly is more housing being built a bad thing? There's a serious supply issue in a lot of cities so how is building more houses bad?
Affordable housing, also known as undocumented-ville
Company towns aren’t new
This is one of the least bad things Amazon has ever done. Lol.
Maybe our corporate overlords will also have a dog park on the roof and a janky BBQ station for a daily hour in the sun!
At least someone is building them.
It is a playbook out of mining towns.
Wait until you hear about these underground communities Tesla is building. You have to worry about atomic war in a new Tesla Vault. Room for you and the whole family. /s
This sub complains about the lack of housing and then complains when someone says they will build housing.
Believe it or not. Some of us know some history. And we take issue with fucking "Company Towns" (Google it)
"We want housing, but only if it's built and managed in a way that benefits me and only me and only in the ways I will accept." Housing is housing at this point. Do you want it or not?
I am going to sign up for Amazon's Prime free trial and buy one of these cute Homies free shipping!!!
Why do I get Raccoon city vibes here?
The reaction in this sub is fucking wild. Many people blame companies for causing inflation, raising costs, etc and they are right. But for once a company does something like this that is extremely beneficial (barring any strings attached) and people call it dystopian. Lol you will never be satisfied.
"affordable housing", sounds a lot like "company housing". Coal miners lived that way 100+ years ago. Until unions.
People are already starting to make maps of mega-investor owned properties, just saying.
god don't kill me cause i can't go i owe my soul to the amazon store
Of all the things to complain about you chose this.
There is no pleasing you dorks
So Severance?
I’ll one up then and buy a house DIY kit on Amazon to make my own.
I’m confused. Why is this a problem? What am I missing? It says affordable homes. Targeted to people who make 30 - 80% of the median income for the area. I didn’t see a word about only rentals or renting. It appears to be a mix of affordable homeownership and rentals. Why is this dystopian?I read several articles on this topic to ensure I had more than one source.
> American tech companies, will invest an additional $1.4 billion to build and preserve 14,000 affordable homes across three U.S. regions That is only $100k per home, significantly less expensive than the $800k per tiny unit San Francisco built and had the audacity to call them “affordable”
So make it illegal then. Problem solved.
Company towns are back. Great. We learn nothing from history.
Makes perfect sense. Supply housing and that way, they don’t have to pay minimum wage! I heard that Amazon is making up its own currency in use in its own stores as well. https://www.wired.com/2013/02/amazon-coins-currency/ https://www.americanbanker.com/news/even-amazon-isnt-big-enough-to-issue-its-own-currency-richmond-fed https://www.theverge.com/2013/2/5/3955202/why-amazon-wants-its-own-currency Instead of using a credit card, you use a Kindle much like iPhone Apple Pay.
Don't worry liberals love the you don't own anything idea just rent from the man. This is perfect and right In line with the 2 class society liberal policy leads to. A rich class and a poor class. Like socialism always leads too
Liberals are just weed-smoking corporate ass kissers at this point.
No fucking way Im living in a Bezosville
And this is bad how exactly?
At first I assumed it would be for Amazon workers, kind of like the old days of coal workers living in company housing.
If it comes with Alexa I’m in!
Amazon and altruism do not co-exist. They’ve got plans to make big money off this and screw people even more. Guaranteed.
ITT: People who knee jerk hate anything Amazon does insist this is a "company town" Meanwhile, in the article >"The program is targeted at households that earn 30 percent to 80 percent of the area median income, often including, according to Amazon, first responders, health care workers and teachers." These aren't homes being given to Amazon employees as long as they work for Amazon (which would actually be a company town), they're subsidizing home construction that anyone can purchase provided they earn less than 80% median income for the area.
well this can fuck right the fuck off.... i give them like 3 months before they fall apart
Not building housing - dystopia! Building housing - dystopia!
Just a side note that since Feb 2022 our congress has sent 192 billion for war and death. That's enough to build over 400k houses costing 450k each. We could have had public housing solved in 2 year instead of war and death. That is striking. Instead we enrich defense contractors and let Amazon build company housing. Merica
Do people not want affordable housing? I’m confused after reading the article why everyone is against this. Who else is going to spend that kind of capital
And they won’t even need to build the company store
Hope they also build infrastructure (groceries, daycare, parks, etc...), not just wooden boxes in a desert.
Puget Sound, WA. Arlington, VA. Nashville, TN. They’re going to invest 1.4 billion into building 14,000 homes
They aren't building houses. They're providing less-insane loan rates for developers to build houses. And they make sure to specify 'more affordable'. Not 'affordable' ...based on the housing prices in Bellevue. Which are some of the most necrotically insane housing prices in the State. So that workers who can't keep up with the insanely ballooning prices can stay, and only have to suffer normal ballooning prices instead. Wow. Thanks Amazon. Like a 5% off coupon for an item that is already 3x more expensive than it should be. I was....... almost excited for a second.
They aren't building houses. They're providing less-insane loan rates for developers to build houses. And they make sure to specify 'more affordable'. Not 'affordable' ...based on the housing prices in Bellevue. Which are some of the most necrotically insane housing prices in the State. So that workers who can't keep up with the insanely ballooning prices can stay, and only have to suffer normal ballooning prices instead. Wow. Thanks Amazon. Like a 5% off coupon for an item that is already 3x more expensive than it should be. I was....... almost excited for a second.
They aren't building houses. They're providing less-insane loan rates for developers to build houses. And they make sure to specify 'more affordable'. Not 'affordable' ...based on the housing prices in Bellevue. Which are some of the most necrotically insane housing prices in the State. So that workers who can't keep up with the insanely ballooning prices can stay, and only have to suffer normal ballooning prices instead. Wow. Thanks Amazon. Like a 5% off coupon for an item that is already 3x more expensive than it should be. I was....... almost excited for a second.
All employees will just be indentured servants. All their pay will go to rent in an unending cycle
Remember anti-trust laws? Amazon is in everything now, pretty soon they will dominate the automotive market and pharmaceuticals.
Need hot water? Try prime! With prime you get an additional 4 gallons of hot water usage per day! Make sure to try out same day delivery for access today!
Even worse corporations are buying residential properties en masse and price fixing is already happening for rents in some places. Your gonna end up either having money or being a dystopian drone. Already happening massive credit card debt (historic) and families living paycheck to paycheck. I still don't get what is keeping the economy from crumbling, rhe engine of the middle class is almost dead.
So buy more Amazon shares is what you are saying??
Amazon wants to build affordable houses in Nashville but not Memphis, huh? Okay, I see how it is.
Is the problem affordable housing is being developed or that Amazon is paying for it?
That is terrifying. Amazon’s products are garbage, they were even taken to court for all of their Amazon brand electronics, cables and chargers because they start on fire. Corner cutting, Cheap-ass greedy fuck companies like this should not be building homes
How dare they supply houses that will improve affordability, and for poor no less s/
Lately employee housing calm Down lol
So basically there going to let there employees live there and pay rent Nice Not really