Creatures of the Amazon

May 28, 2011 | Filed Under Editorial Cartoons 

Creatures of the Amazon



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Comments

4 Responses to “Creatures of the Amazon”

  1. Dan on May 29th, 2011 9:08 am

    I’m confused. Is the gastropod Amazon or SC Legislature? The toxic reference is more applicable to WalMart.

  2. Kevin on May 31st, 2011 8:23 am

    I don’t believe Amazon is going to be “toxic” to small businesses. It seems that the real players trying to knock Amazon away are the big box retailers and the special interest groups they fund that pretend to represent Main Street. Amazon presents a baseline amount of competition due to it being an online retailer only, and therefore locations for distribution centers are irrelevant to the amount of competition they introduce into the market, other than that it helps them expand.

    Ultimately, the incentives are buying us jobs. None of the incentives we have offered them, to my knowledge, are new. Even the sales tax exemption is an old idea, given to QVC, who now charges sales tax. I can understand not wanting to spend or give up so much tax revenue to acquire jobs, but what you don’t pay in investing for jobs you ultimately will pay in unemployment and welfare for the unemployed and underemployed (not to mention lost future tax revenue).

    I do have to say, though, that I wish this state went as far to help small businesses already here. While no single small business may be able to bring hundreds of jobs, helping the whole collective of small businesses may just result in hundreds of jobs.

  3. Robert Ariail on May 31st, 2011 4:15 pm

    Well argued , Kevin. I’m starting to come around to this position, but still have a problem with our legislature picking winners and losers through tax breaks and giveaways. What we need is comprehensive tax reform to make the tax code fair and level for small and large businesses.

  4. Robert Ariail on May 31st, 2011 4:21 pm

    Dan, I agree the toxic reference can easily be applied to Walmart and other big box stores. The gastropod is the legislature and the toxic slime is it’s use (or misuse) of the tax code to pick winners in the marketplace with no regard to existing small businesses.

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