You are telling me 50 jobs that is all Apple offered. A dam disgrace indeed. This state is high in unemployment to begin with.Tim Cook and Apple better get their act together.
You ARE joking? As if nobody knew in advance that 50 jobs were what would be created.
Quote:
An unemployed Maiden resident voiced doubt to the Post that jobs at the data center are actually accessible to locals. ?People from around here don?t get those jobs,? he said. ?Really, furniture is the only thing I know. Those data jobs are not for us.?
Some people are just so negative! I don't think it is Apple's fault that (A) the furniture business is slumping, and (B) that furniture is all you know. And what about all the people who had work for a year or more on the construction? I bet they are really unhappy about those jobs.
Besides, if 50 more people move into the area, then that will be 50 more people needing homes, and 50 more people eating at the local diner, and who know, some of them may even buy some furniture,
The reason their unemployment is so high is because the customers in the urban centers are not buying high quality handcrafted hardwood furniture. If they are buying furniture at all it is from the cheap sellers like Ikea who specialize in disposable press board, laminated, some assembly required, junk.
The land sale is a one time deal, and only benefitted a few landowners.
Do you have any data to show that the yearly taxes on the land will exceed the amount that would have been paid by the former landowners, and if so that this increase offsets all the tax breaks?
Let's see. What is the total site? 100 acres? Farmland in NC was probably worth a few thousand dollars an acre. Let's be generous and call it $1 M. Apple increased the value to $1,000 M. So, even with a 50% reduction in taxes, Apple's paying far more than the previous owners did. And farmland is generally taxed at a lower rate than industrial land, so the difference may be even greater.
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Originally Posted by freediverx
How does the sale of electricity benefit the residents of the town or state? If anything, I'd think it would drive up the cost of energy.
I'm not sure where electricity comes into the equation. Apple plans to generate their own power, so it shouldn't have any impact.
Quote:
Originally Posted by freediverx
The construction jobs are, again, a one time deal.
So? Does that mean there's no value to the community? They bought enough materials for a $1 B data center - some of that would have been purchased locally. They hired enough people to build a $1 B data center. Most of them would have been local. There would have been a significant impact.
Quote:
Originally Posted by freediverx
The data center is practically autonomous, with only 50 employees. There's no massive hiring of locals nor the local business benefits of serving an army of data center workers since there's only 50 employees.
I love the way outsiders who know nothing about the situation think they know enough to judge the community's leaders.
"Only" 50 employees is a lot in an impoverished town of 3400 people. Plus the 200 indirect jobs being created.
The city obviously thought it was a good enough deal to do it. Note that there are no civic leaders or business owners complaining. The only ones complaining are a few whiners who expected million dollar checks to magically appear in their mailboxes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by freediverx
At what point do we consider the downsides of the tax breaks on education and social services that benefit all the residents of the town and state?
As you've been told (several times), even with the discount, Apple's efforts here will INCREASE taxes available to the city, not decrease them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by freediverx
The tax break is not "free". It comes at the expense of government services such as education, at a time when education and other vital services are under the worst strain in almost a century. Where is the equation showing that the lost tax revenue is made up for, over the long term, by actual benefits?
How do you come up with this nonsense? The city will end up with $46 M in NEW tax revenues (minus the small amount that they were previously collecting on the land) based on the fact that Apple is getting a 50% break worth $46 M. The city will immensely benefit from $46 M in new tex revenues.
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Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody
According to the article there are 150 ancillary personnel as well so that's an extra 200 people that have to live, eat and shop in the area.
It's not much, but as many have said already, what's the logic of making up fake jobs use so people will have one? The only fault here would be if Apple implied that there were going to be thousands of jobs and then delivered only the 200. I'm pretty sure without even looking into it that this wouldn't be the case however.
It's not much? 200 new jobs in an impoverished city of 3400 people (probably 1500 workers) with 13% unemployment? It's HUGE.
And I'm curious where you came up with the claim that Apple implied that there would be thousands of jobs. No one who knows anything about data centers would ever suggest such a thing.
What about the construction jobs created to build the facility, the trucking to move items in and out, etc. If, once built, only 50 are required, good for Apple, but maybe those fifty will inspirer some S/C kids to get into Computer Science in college instead of Sociology.
You are telling me 50 jobs that is all Apple offered. A dam disgrace indeed. This state is high in unemployment to begin with.Tim Cook and Apple better get their act together.
Apple likely didn't promise them some set quota of jobs so there is no promise that wasn't kept. They agreed to more than fair prices for the land, they are paying property taxes etc. But get off the high horse because they don't owe that area the answer to anyone being unemployed simply because they built there
Most of these folks that are disappointed probably never bothered to do any research into what exactly was going on. They heard Apple was building something and made assumptions without actual facts. Or they did some googling and read on some rumor site an article that implied that the center could provide hundreds of jobs and didn't understand that that was a rumor and said site had zero factual info. So their hopes were raised foolishly and were dashed when reality arrived
You are telling me 50 jobs that is all Apple offered. A dam disgrace indeed. This state is high in unemployment to begin with.Tim Cook and Apple better get their act together.
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Originally Posted by Radjin
Isn't 50 better then none? And what logic is there to hiring more then one needs?
Just the ratings of an irritational sociialist. It's how their minds work.
You are telling me 50 jobs that is all Apple offered. A dam disgrace indeed. This state is high in unemployment to begin with.Tim Cook and Apple better get their act together.
In a town of a reported 3,400 adults, 50 jobs represents a potential employment increase of 1.47%. Every little bit helps, do the math.
And if the doubting and unemployed Maiden resident who stated: “People from around here don’t get those jobs, furniture is the only thing I know", he can move to High Point and secure work in the furniture trade.
It's getting so that anything that Apple does proves to be a disappointment.
On the blogs sure. Because disappointment gets more page hits. Apple does something great and you get the Apple fans coming to crow about it. But Apple does something bad and you get the haters coming to bring the hate and the fans coming to tell them to shut up and go away. And the blogs etc page hits and thus $$$$ from Adsense or whatever
Well, some tax revenue is certainly better than none and I am sure Apple brings in nice chunk to the state. They will probably bring more after 10 years.
Most of the technical work to maintain modern data centers are done remotely so very few people are needed on the ground to phyiscally monitor the environment. Although Apple would still need landscaping companies, parking lot cleaners etc...
It's unfortunate that Apple and others can not build factories to assemble their products in NC or anywhere else in the states because it is just not economical. Steve Jobs personally told the president that the fact that the US can not build factories is an issue, the US government needs to take this very seriously. A factory in NC would surely put a lot of local people to work but instead all the jobs are going to China and Brazil.
Time will tell.
Hate to say this firstly goods assembled in the US is uncompetitive otherwise they wouldn't have use Asian companies to do so. Secondly the actions by unions will make many think twice to set up shops in the US.
And it is kind of funny to blame the company for not offering employment when it is not necessary to do so and these people should read Atlas Shrugged. And it damned funny to hear over the BBC someone saying the 1% of the richest should share their wealth with the have nots.
It is that attitude which is why the West is in the mess it is. Liberal thinking that says a) Employ people, even if you do not need or cannot afford them. b) Loan people money for items or property they havn't a hope in hell of repaying.
Further down the road, the wheels then start to fall off. As is happening now as overpaid council staff (here in UK anyway) are sapping up money that could otherwise pay for actual services.
Apple can do what they like, they are a private company. All that matters is they are environmentally responsible & treat their workers well, not to mention, help in the community. Perhaps by funding a local bus service for the elderly or similar.
Yup, I'm sure a small town in North Carolina has a bunch of liberal thinking constituents. Please don't try to reduce the real estate bubble down to an ignorant simplification of what actually happened. I also wonder how this benefits the area in an indirect way.
Hard to believe that only 50 jobs were created. However potential is there for more jobs.
Perhaps North Carolina residents weren't aware that this was basically a high tech venture and that the average person in NC would not have the qualifications to obtain these jobs.
On the other hand, once the tax abatement is finished NC will derive nice revenue that it wouldn't have had otherwise.
Bottom Line: Perhaps this wasn't the biggest boom to NC in terms of jobs and revenue. On the other hand the potential is there and having Apple as a responsible, caring corporation in their state is a big plus.
I wouldn't care if I work there or not if it means I'll get my property taxes chopped in half.
It's not your taxes that are getting cut. It's the taxes that Apple is paying on the property where the building was built. Your taxes are exactly the same.
The reason for such a cut is that property taxes are based on the perceived value of the land. Before that was private residential land and forest, value is rather low. Now it's a high tech office park type commercial land, high value. Very high value in fact. So the taxes would be several times what the original owners were paying. And some of it might have been state or local owned and exempt from taxes at all. So whereas before all that land might have be taxed at say $10k a year, now it could be like $1mil or more. So even cutting it in fact for a few years, they are getting way more money than before.
Same with the personal taxes. it's not your taxes that are being cut but rather what the state and local income tax would be for the 50 folks Apple brought in to run the place. Those 50 folks are still paying their full share but Apple's pay into the system is lower. But given that it is likely that all 50 of those folks are at least new to the area of not the state, it's still an increase in local tax money, plus they had to buy or rent a home, they buy food etc.
Hate to say this firstly goods assembled in the US is uncompetitive otherwise they wouldn't have use Asian companies to do so. Secondly the actions by unions will make many think twice to set up shops in the US.
And it is kind of funny to blame the company for not offering employment when it is not necessary to do so and these people should read Atlas Shrugged. And it damned funny to hear over the BBC someone saying the 1% of the richest should share their wealth with the have nots.
So what's your plan? What's a reasonable wage to raise a family on? Maybe we should all work for minimum wage. You probably don't believe in that either. How much does a person in the US need to make to buy these products. I love these race to the bottom arguments.
then what exactly did the community get in return for the $46 million tax breaks and loss of revenue from the 50% reduction in property taxes and 85% reduction in personal taxes
Until we know how much Apple is paying in taxes etc we can't really say that the reduction is a problem
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that will only place increased strains on already struggling services such as education ?
There's no data to support that notion. No one said that Maiden can't get jobs there cause they can't run their schools etc. Heck for all we know, all the folks in the data center are childless and thus not benefiting from the taxes they are paying which fund such services (remember the breaks on only on corporate taxes, not individual taxes for the employees)
...someone saying the 1% of the richest should share their wealth with the have nots.
Many wealthy people end up giving huge fortunes to charity, not because they should but because they choose to. Same with ecological preservation. Animals have few rights but some people choose to protect them anyway, at their own expense. Morality and selfless acts of kindness are some of the things that makes being an intelligent specie different than one that is dependent on the survival of the fittest.
Contrary to what you may have been taught, greed is not good.
Me thinks that North Carolinians should stop whining. They voted for unemployment and that's exactly what they got. They're also going to vote for unemployment again, so too bad for them.
And as many people have already pointed out, 50 is better than 0, and it's a server farm, vast numbers of employees are not needed.
I don't care where Apple has their server farms as long as my iPad automatically uploads to the cloud every time that I plug it into the wall.
Apple should build their next server farms in someplace like Alaska and they can get cheap cooling for all their gear and probably also less whining from ignorant locals.
I'm glad that Americans don't build my Macs. Can you imagine the whining and what would happen when the nasty and corrupt Unions get involved?
Besides the 50 jobs some construction workers sure got paid well to build the center. Eventually the tax breaks will run out and the city will have a nice income. A server center needs delivered goods on a daily basis so the town should see a rise in delivery service jobs. In other words, the trickle down effect makes the 50 jobs able to support several times as many jobs that would not have been available if that data center weren't located there.
Besides the fact that the publicity alone was well worth all the tax breaks etc for the the city and state. Other firms may follow Apple's lead.
Yup, I'm sure a small town in North Carolina has a bunch of liberal thinking constituents. Please don't try to reduce the real estate bubble down to an ignorant simplification of what actually happened. I also wonder how this benefits the area in an indirect way.
Comments
You are telling me 50 jobs that is all Apple offered. A dam disgrace indeed. This state is high in unemployment to begin with.Tim Cook and Apple better get their act together.
You ARE joking? As if nobody knew in advance that 50 jobs were what would be created.
An unemployed Maiden resident voiced doubt to the Post that jobs at the data center are actually accessible to locals. ?People from around here don?t get those jobs,? he said. ?Really, furniture is the only thing I know. Those data jobs are not for us.?
Some people are just so negative! I don't think it is Apple's fault that (A) the furniture business is slumping, and (B) that furniture is all you know. And what about all the people who had work for a year or more on the construction? I bet they are really unhappy about those jobs.
Besides, if 50 more people move into the area, then that will be 50 more people needing homes, and 50 more people eating at the local diner, and who know, some of them may even buy some furniture,
The reason their unemployment is so high is because the customers in the urban centers are not buying high quality handcrafted hardwood furniture. If they are buying furniture at all it is from the cheap sellers like Ikea who specialize in disposable press board, laminated, some assembly required, junk.
So this is Apple's fault?
The land sale is a one time deal, and only benefitted a few landowners.
Do you have any data to show that the yearly taxes on the land will exceed the amount that would have been paid by the former landowners, and if so that this increase offsets all the tax breaks?
Let's see. What is the total site? 100 acres? Farmland in NC was probably worth a few thousand dollars an acre. Let's be generous and call it $1 M. Apple increased the value to $1,000 M. So, even with a 50% reduction in taxes, Apple's paying far more than the previous owners did. And farmland is generally taxed at a lower rate than industrial land, so the difference may be even greater.
How does the sale of electricity benefit the residents of the town or state? If anything, I'd think it would drive up the cost of energy.
I'm not sure where electricity comes into the equation. Apple plans to generate their own power, so it shouldn't have any impact.
The construction jobs are, again, a one time deal.
So? Does that mean there's no value to the community? They bought enough materials for a $1 B data center - some of that would have been purchased locally. They hired enough people to build a $1 B data center. Most of them would have been local. There would have been a significant impact.
The data center is practically autonomous, with only 50 employees. There's no massive hiring of locals nor the local business benefits of serving an army of data center workers since there's only 50 employees.
I love the way outsiders who know nothing about the situation think they know enough to judge the community's leaders.
"Only" 50 employees is a lot in an impoverished town of 3400 people. Plus the 200 indirect jobs being created.
The city obviously thought it was a good enough deal to do it. Note that there are no civic leaders or business owners complaining. The only ones complaining are a few whiners who expected million dollar checks to magically appear in their mailboxes.
At what point do we consider the downsides of the tax breaks on education and social services that benefit all the residents of the town and state?
As you've been told (several times), even with the discount, Apple's efforts here will INCREASE taxes available to the city, not decrease them.
The tax break is not "free". It comes at the expense of government services such as education, at a time when education and other vital services are under the worst strain in almost a century. Where is the equation showing that the lost tax revenue is made up for, over the long term, by actual benefits?
How do you come up with this nonsense? The city will end up with $46 M in NEW tax revenues (minus the small amount that they were previously collecting on the land) based on the fact that Apple is getting a 50% break worth $46 M. The city will immensely benefit from $46 M in new tex revenues.
According to the article there are 150 ancillary personnel as well so that's an extra 200 people that have to live, eat and shop in the area.
It's not much, but as many have said already, what's the logic of making up fake jobs use so people will have one? The only fault here would be if Apple implied that there were going to be thousands of jobs and then delivered only the 200. I'm pretty sure without even looking into it that this wouldn't be the case however.
It's not much? 200 new jobs in an impoverished city of 3400 people (probably 1500 workers) with 13% unemployment? It's HUGE.
And I'm curious where you came up with the claim that Apple implied that there would be thousands of jobs. No one who knows anything about data centers would ever suggest such a thing.
So this is Apple's fault?
Do have a reading comprehension problem or did you accidentally reply to the wrong post?
You are telling me 50 jobs that is all Apple offered. A dam disgrace indeed. This state is high in unemployment to begin with.Tim Cook and Apple better get their act together.
Apple likely didn't promise them some set quota of jobs so there is no promise that wasn't kept. They agreed to more than fair prices for the land, they are paying property taxes etc. But get off the high horse because they don't owe that area the answer to anyone being unemployed simply because they built there
Most of these folks that are disappointed probably never bothered to do any research into what exactly was going on. They heard Apple was building something and made assumptions without actual facts. Or they did some googling and read on some rumor site an article that implied that the center could provide hundreds of jobs and didn't understand that that was a rumor and said site had zero factual info. So their hopes were raised foolishly and were dashed when reality arrived
You are telling me 50 jobs that is all Apple offered. A dam disgrace indeed. This state is high in unemployment to begin with.Tim Cook and Apple better get their act together.
Isn't 50 better then none? And what logic is there to hiring more then one needs?
Just the ratings of an irritational sociialist. It's how their minds work.
You are telling me 50 jobs that is all Apple offered. A dam disgrace indeed. This state is high in unemployment to begin with.Tim Cook and Apple better get their act together.
In a town of a reported 3,400 adults, 50 jobs represents a potential employment increase of 1.47%. Every little bit helps, do the math.
And if the doubting and unemployed Maiden resident who stated: “People from around here don’t get those jobs, furniture is the only thing I know", he can move to High Point and secure work in the furniture trade.
It's getting so that anything that Apple does proves to be a disappointment.
On the blogs sure. Because disappointment gets more page hits. Apple does something great and you get the Apple fans coming to crow about it. But Apple does something bad and you get the haters coming to bring the hate and the fans coming to tell them to shut up and go away. And the blogs etc page hits and thus $$$$ from Adsense or whatever
Well, some tax revenue is certainly better than none and I am sure Apple brings in nice chunk to the state. They will probably bring more after 10 years.
Most of the technical work to maintain modern data centers are done remotely so very few people are needed on the ground to phyiscally monitor the environment. Although Apple would still need landscaping companies, parking lot cleaners etc...
It's unfortunate that Apple and others can not build factories to assemble their products in NC or anywhere else in the states because it is just not economical. Steve Jobs personally told the president that the fact that the US can not build factories is an issue, the US government needs to take this very seriously. A factory in NC would surely put a lot of local people to work but instead all the jobs are going to China and Brazil.
Time will tell.
Hate to say this firstly goods assembled in the US is uncompetitive otherwise they wouldn't have use Asian companies to do so. Secondly the actions by unions will make many think twice to set up shops in the US.
And it is kind of funny to blame the company for not offering employment when it is not necessary to do so and these people should read Atlas Shrugged. And it damned funny to hear over the BBC someone saying the 1% of the richest should share their wealth with the have nots.
It is that attitude which is why the West is in the mess it is. Liberal thinking that says a) Employ people, even if you do not need or cannot afford them. b) Loan people money for items or property they havn't a hope in hell of repaying.
Further down the road, the wheels then start to fall off. As is happening now as overpaid council staff (here in UK anyway) are sapping up money that could otherwise pay for actual services.
Apple can do what they like, they are a private company. All that matters is they are environmentally responsible & treat their workers well, not to mention, help in the community. Perhaps by funding a local bus service for the elderly or similar.
Yup, I'm sure a small town in North Carolina has a bunch of liberal thinking constituents. Please don't try to reduce the real estate bubble down to an ignorant simplification of what actually happened. I also wonder how this benefits the area in an indirect way.
Perhaps North Carolina residents weren't aware that this was basically a high tech venture and that the average person in NC would not have the qualifications to obtain these jobs.
On the other hand, once the tax abatement is finished NC will derive nice revenue that it wouldn't have had otherwise.
Bottom Line: Perhaps this wasn't the biggest boom to NC in terms of jobs and revenue. On the other hand the potential is there and having Apple as a responsible, caring corporation in their state is a big plus.
I wouldn't care if I work there or not if it means I'll get my property taxes chopped in half.
It's not your taxes that are getting cut. It's the taxes that Apple is paying on the property where the building was built. Your taxes are exactly the same.
The reason for such a cut is that property taxes are based on the perceived value of the land. Before that was private residential land and forest, value is rather low. Now it's a high tech office park type commercial land, high value. Very high value in fact. So the taxes would be several times what the original owners were paying. And some of it might have been state or local owned and exempt from taxes at all. So whereas before all that land might have be taxed at say $10k a year, now it could be like $1mil or more. So even cutting it in fact for a few years, they are getting way more money than before.
Same with the personal taxes. it's not your taxes that are being cut but rather what the state and local income tax would be for the 50 folks Apple brought in to run the place. Those 50 folks are still paying their full share but Apple's pay into the system is lower. But given that it is likely that all 50 of those folks are at least new to the area of not the state, it's still an increase in local tax money, plus they had to buy or rent a home, they buy food etc.
Hate to say this firstly goods assembled in the US is uncompetitive otherwise they wouldn't have use Asian companies to do so. Secondly the actions by unions will make many think twice to set up shops in the US.
And it is kind of funny to blame the company for not offering employment when it is not necessary to do so and these people should read Atlas Shrugged. And it damned funny to hear over the BBC someone saying the 1% of the richest should share their wealth with the have nots.
So what's your plan? What's a reasonable wage to raise a family on? Maybe we should all work for minimum wage. You probably don't believe in that either. How much does a person in the US need to make to buy these products. I love these race to the bottom arguments.
then what exactly did the community get in return for the $46 million tax breaks and loss of revenue from the 50% reduction in property taxes and 85% reduction in personal taxes
Until we know how much Apple is paying in taxes etc we can't really say that the reduction is a problem
that will only place increased strains on already struggling services such as education ?
There's no data to support that notion. No one said that Maiden can't get jobs there cause they can't run their schools etc. Heck for all we know, all the folks in the data center are childless and thus not benefiting from the taxes they are paying which fund such services (remember the breaks on only on corporate taxes, not individual taxes for the employees)
...someone saying the 1% of the richest should share their wealth with the have nots.
Many wealthy people end up giving huge fortunes to charity, not because they should but because they choose to. Same with ecological preservation. Animals have few rights but some people choose to protect them anyway, at their own expense. Morality and selfless acts of kindness are some of the things that makes being an intelligent specie different than one that is dependent on the survival of the fittest.
Contrary to what you may have been taught, greed is not good.
And as many people have already pointed out, 50 is better than 0, and it's a server farm, vast numbers of employees are not needed.
I don't care where Apple has their server farms as long as my iPad automatically uploads to the cloud every time that I plug it into the wall.
Apple should build their next server farms in someplace like Alaska and they can get cheap cooling for all their gear and probably also less whining from ignorant locals.
I'm glad that Americans don't build my Macs. Can you imagine the whining and what would happen when the nasty and corrupt Unions get involved?
Besides the fact that the publicity alone was well worth all the tax breaks etc for the the city and state. Other firms may follow Apple's lead.
Yup, I'm sure a small town in North Carolina has a bunch of liberal thinking constituents. Please don't try to reduce the real estate bubble down to an ignorant simplification of what actually happened. I also wonder how this benefits the area in an indirect way.
Liberals in NC? That's like Eskimos in Hawaii.