I'm the Slime.

We knew it would be sickening, and apparently so did Mayor Greg Fischer's henchmen, seeing as they fought hard to keep the Amazon giveaway proposal under wraps.

Has Fischer resigned yet?

'Camp Alexa' and $2.5 billion over 20 years: What Louisville offered Amazon in HQ2 pitch, by Darcy Costello and Ben Tobin (Louisville Courier Journal)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — If Amazon brought its second headquarters to Louisville, city officials pitched the company, it could settle its employees on a riverfront campus spanning both sides of the Ohio River, retire to a "Camp Alexa" retreat location at General Butler State Park and enjoy $2.5 billion in incentives over 20 years "based on the sharing of future revenues."

The 137-page bid for Amazon's "HQ2" project, which Mayor Greg Fischer's adfarm-near-me/">ministration has refused to release for two years, offers city-owned land and facilities downtown for an urban headquarters and sells the city's affordability, spirit of "exploration" and ability to serve as a regional talent magnet.

"Louisville is THE place to live, work, create and innovate," officials write in the document. "Swinging for the fences? Invented here. We believe that the homestretch is just the beginning. Just like our hometown hero Muhammad Ali, Louisville is the Greatest of All Time."

Hospital Radio.

We've been listening to Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, for much of this blog's existence. During that 15-year period, Amazon has become the tail that wags the dog, with Apple, Facebook, and Google competing to be the flea with the second-place trophy.

One rather wishes that a few of those delusional Republicans in mid-prattle about "competition" could explain how monopolies and free markets can co-exist. They can't. Perhaps that's why they're so quiet -- but it doesn't have to be that way.

And the Democrats? Don't get me started on their cowardice in the face of monopolistic entities like these.

Amazon Is a Private Government. Congress Needs to Step Up, by Stacy Mitchell (The Atlantic)

Reining in the tech giants will help restore American democracy.

 ... The hearing was one of the final steps in the subcommittee’s bipartisan, yearlong probe into whether Amazon and three other tech companies—Apple, Facebook, and Google—are abusing their market power to thwart competition and entrench their own dominance, and if so, what Congress should do about it. The committee is expected to release its report in early September, and it could well be damning. The report may call for regulating the tech giants’ behavior, splitting them up into smaller companies, or both.

Despite all of this, Amazon’s share price barely budged after the hearing, suggesting that Wall Street harbors little fear that anything will come of the investigation. The very next day, Amazon announced record profits ... these developments illustrate the challenges facing lawmakers who want to rein in the U.S.-based tech titans. Even if they can put forward a convincing case that, for instance, Amazon is unfairly crushing small companies, most Americans can hardly imagine that the government will act, or even that it can.

The problem isn’t just that Amazon employs more lobbyists than the U.S. Senate has members. It’s that the machinery of government has been dysfunctional for so long that Americans forget it even exists. This is especially true when it comes to questions of how the economy is structured. Both political parties long ago abdicated their responsibility to be a check on the accumulation and the abuse of private power. Americans who believe this deference to big business is unwise have been conditioned to see ourselves as helpless.

snip

For that reason, what happens next in the investigation is crucial. The committee’s work is that of a democracy rediscovering its capacity to determine how the economy should operate—and how to hold the powerful accountable to the law. Its ultimate outcome will speak to two of the most consequential economic questions Americans face. One is whether a handful of tech giants will continue to wield outsize power over our commerce and communications. The other is whether we’re still capable of governing ourselves.

snip

The burden is on the subcommittee to show Americans that what Amazon and the other tech giants are doing is both wrong and harmful. Armed with witness statements and internal company documents, the subcommittee and its staff are framing an argument: Although these companies may still produce the occasional innovative product, they’re not nearly as inventive as they would have us believe. Rather, they have achieved their extraordinary reach through raw power. The tech giants have become gatekeepers, and they exploit that control to advance their own interests. At the hearing, the subcommittee members translated the sometimes-arcane language of antitrust law into words everyone understands. They talked of spying, stealing, and bullying.

Costs, benefits and all things Amazon.

Just as I was reading articles about Amazon -- opposition in NYC and the larger-scale damage done -- news started arriving: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Headquarters.

Some thoughts via Twitter:

Justin Miller: Amazon didn't need New York's talent, they wanted New York's dollars. That's what they're admitting here.

United Black Front: "Amazon is the richest corporation in the world,” Zachary Lerner says in Long Island City. “There’s no reason that we should have ever considered giving $3 billion to this corporation to come to New York City."

Every Billionaire Is A Policy Failure: Here's the thing: Amazon is still perfectly welcome to build in NYC--always has been. They just have to give up the bullying. You can't have a "positive, collaborative relationship" with a community if your terms are 'pay our $3B bribe or we're out.'

Consequently, this story is a tad obsolete.

"Don't Let Door Hit You on the Way Out": People Power Credited as Amazon Reportedly Reconsiders New York HQ2, by Jake Johnson (Common Dreams)

"Can everyday people come together and effectively organize against creeping overreach of one of the world's biggest corporations? Yes, they can," says Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

In the face of widespread and impassioned opposition from local politicians, progressive members of Congress, and ordinary New Yorkers, Amazon is reportedly having second thoughts about its plan to locate a second headquarters site in Long Island City.

"Can everyday people come together and effectively organize against creeping overreach of one of the world's biggest corporations? Yes, they can," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) declared on Friday in response to the news, which was met with glee by advocacy groups that have opposed the New York government's deal with Amazon since it was unveiled in November.

"Bye, don't let the door hit you on your way out," wrote the North Brooklyn branch of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), echoing a sentiment that was shared across social media.

"Our community's organizing is paying off! Let's keep it going!" added Make the Road New York, a state-level advocacy group ...

And why it matters.

New Study Shows Full Cost of Explosive Amazon Growth on Communities Nationwide

When Amazon recently closed its books on 2018, it made headlines with a third straight year of record-making profits. However, a new exclusive analysis from Civic Economics and the American Booksellers Association makes clear that the titanic growth of the world’s most valuable public company has resulted in as-yet-unrecognized loss and stagnation for America's cities, towns, and local communities.

The new report — Prime Numbers: Amazon and American Communities — quantifies the stark economic cost exacted nationwide as a result of Amazon's online retail sales.

Reviewing the most recent four years of Amazon's U.S. retail sales, Prime Numbers documents that in 2018 alone Amazon and its third-party vendors sold $189 billion of retail goods. The report’s analysis reveals that the nationwide results of those sales were:

• 540 million square feet of displaced retail space,
• 900,000 displaced retail jobs, and
• $5.5 billion to $7.0 billion in uncollected sales tax.
• For the period of 2014–2018, the cumulative loss in uncollected sales tax is estimated to be as high as $22.5 billion.

In contrast, Prime Numbers also documents the enhanced positive impact of locally owned, independent businesses for communities, as compared to both chain competitors and Amazon and its third-party Marketplace vendors.

Looking at the most recent numbers for the independent bookstore channel nationwide, the study reports that approximately 28 percent of all revenue of indie bookstores immediately recirculates in the local economy. This translates into a massive local impact advantage of 610 percent over Amazon (which recirculates only 4 percent locally) ...

Inhumanely treated Amazon workers in Europe go out on strike because Bezos didn't give them a new city hall.

Good for them -- Amazon's workers in Europe, that is.

'We Are Not Robots': Amazon Workers Across Europe Walk Out on Black Friday Over Low Wages and 'Inhuman Conditions', by Jessica Corbett (Common Dreams)

Amazon CEO "Jeff Bezos is the richest bloke on the planet; he can afford to sort this out," says a U.K. union leader

Amazon workers across Europe staged a walkout on Black Friday—when retailers offer major deals to holiday season shoppers the day after Thanksgiving—to protest low wages as well as "inhuman conditions" at company warehouses.

Eduardo Hernandez, a 38-year-old employee at an Amazon logistics depot in Madrid, Spain—where about 90 percent of staff walked off the job—told the Associated Press that the action was intentionally scheduled on the popular shopping day to negatively impacting the company's profits.

"It is one of the days that Amazon has most sales, and these are days when we can hurt more and make ourselves be heard because the company has not listened to us and does not want to reach any agreement," he said.

Protests were also planned for Amazon facilities in Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany ...

Choosing between Donald Trump and Jeff Bezos is like the choice of Pabst or High Life. It's no choice at all.

Center of the target.

Trump's enemy is not your friend: why we shouldn't defend Amazon, by Thomas Frank (The Guardian)

Why must we choose between the worst president of our lifetimes and one of the most rapacious corporate enterprises in the country?

... Confronting concentrated, autocratic economic power is what Democrats used to do. It was the definition of the species. They fought against monopolies in oil and food and transport that ripped off producers with one hand and consumers with the other. But now it’s Trump who, in his clumsy and authoritarian way, is trying to swipe that legacy.

I am making a tricky point here, so let me be clear: I don’t like Amazon, and I don’t like Donald Trump either. I would approve enthusiastically if a president started enforcing antitrust laws, but that’s not what Trump is proposing to do. What we are being offered instead is a choice between the worst president of our lifetimes and one of the most rapacious corporate enterprises in the country. And, eagerly, we are lining up with one or the other.

This in turn seems to me an almost perfect representation of the wretched choices available to Americans these days, as well as the megadoses of self-deception we are swallowing in order to make them. It is everything that is wrong with our politics, and it extends from the most sweeping matters of state right down to the individual reader.

The brutal conclusion:

And this is where we are now in the world’s greatest democracy. We have the billionaire Republicans, with their bigotry and their war on all things public, and the billionaire Democrats, with their oblivious ideology of globe and technology. To the common people, assembled in all our majesty, the momentous question is posed: who do you hate more?

Zirin: "Sports Tax Scams Laid the Groundwork for Amazon Bidding Madness."

Try to imagine another major American sports writer saying this:

Our love of sports laid the groundwork for the madness of "lotteryism." We’re the frog in the slowly boiling water. And they are not content merely to cook us. We’re also their dinner.

And, as the ever-masterful Zirin notes in this essay, "lotteryism (is) little more than corporate theft, in collusion with often Democratic Party–led governments."

Earlier this morning, Zirin tweeted this closing thought.

You think it's possible that Trump is turning up the vile racism at precisely this moment to push through a tax bill that benefits the 1% so we fight each other while he robs us blind?

Think so? It seems to be working, isn't it?

Sports Tax Scams Laid the Groundwork for Amazon Bidding Madness, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

Cities that have been most shameless in their stadium spending are now groveling for Amazon’s largess

The terrific podcast Citations Needed, hosted by Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson, call it “lotteryism”—the grotesque process where local and state governments bid for Fortune 500 companies by offering billions of dollars in tax breaks in the hopes that they will relocate to their cities. The most high-profile example of this right now is, of course, Amazon. Politicians across the country are offering absurd packages to attract the new “Amazon HQ2” headquarters. These enticements will gut services for those who depend on public schools, hospitals, public transportation, and basic infrastructure. This is not to say that Amazon won’t bring jobs to these cities. It is making promises of thousands of permanent hires. But the pound of flesh being offered for these jobs is frightening.

Chicago has said Amazon could keep employees’ income tax, a total estimated at $1.32 billion, according to the Seattle publication The Stranger. New Jersey has offered a staggering $7 billion dollars in tax breaks. Boston has offered to have city employees be privatized workers when doing work under the auspices of Jeff Bezos’s empire: his own army of the underclass. Southern California is offering $100 million in free land. Fresno is offering to “place 85 percent of every tax dollar generated by Amazon into a so-called ‘Amazon Community Fund.’” This would give Amazon control over where our taxes flow, which undoubtedly would be in the direction of its own well-compensated employees—think parks, bike lanes, condo development—creating a new model of gentrification, directly subsidized by the traffic tickets and meters and regressive taxation of the poor.

Fresno’s economic development director Larry Westerlund told the Los Angeles Times, “Rather than the money disappearing into a civic black hole, Amazon would have a say on where it will go. Not for the fire department on the fringe of town, but to enhance their own investment in Fresno.” Sure would suck to have your home on fire if you live on the “fringe of town.”

This is little more than corporate theft, in collusion with often Democratic Party–led governments. And publicly funded sports stadium scams and Olympic bidding wars laid the groundwork for it. They have normalized the idea that our tax dollars exist to fund the projects of the wealthy, with benefits trickling down in ways that only produce more thirst ...

Metro Louisville's pitch to Amazon promises “a quality of life second to none for every Amazonian.”

Dude.

Amazonian

Am·a·zo·ni·an

1. of, like, or characteristic of an Amazon
2. [oftena-] of an amazon; tall, strong, aggressive, etc.: said of a woman
3. of the Amazon River or the country around it

Promising (at least to me, given my proclivities), but maybe GLI, Wendy and the gang should have found a few liberal arts majors to work on the prose -- or pros, as opposed to amateurs.

Exclusive: Greater Louisville’s Amazon proposal, a great pitch, or a foul ball? (LEO Weekly)

We knew it would not be long before the local application for Amazon’s second headquarters was leaked, and it so happens that LEO got a peek at it — first.

The bid detailed on a six-part website, a collaboration of government and business leaders in Louisville, Kentucky and Southern Indiana, touts the region’s obvious, best selling point — location, location, location. It also employs expected hyperbole — “unprecedented collaboration with university and public administration partnerships, as well as strong incentives and easy transit.” Ha! “Easy transit …” And then there is the boast of “a quality of life second to none for every Amazonian.”

In what seemed like defeatist, meta, self-reflection, the introduction says picking Louisville involves “swinging for the fences” because we “may not be the obvious choice for Amazon, but we are the bold choice.” The phrasing and, as it turns out, much of the intro video, parrots Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ annual shareholder letter. Using his words is smart, perhaps, but once he gets the joke, will Bezos be willing to risk a $5 billion mistake… er, investment by coming here? ...

... Certainly, in the coming days and weeks, arguments will be had about the proposal’s content. We thought it would be instructive to take a critical look at how the proposal was presented — Did Louisville use its millisecond elevator pitch effectively, or has the door shut on us before we had a chance? So we asked someone from a local advertising agency for their thoughts (he asked to remain anonymous) ...

Previously:

Amazon's bid: More required reading that Wendy Dant Chesser and One Southern Indiana will add to their bonfire of the vacuities.

Amazon's bid: More required reading that Wendy Dant Chesser and One Southern Indiana will add to their bonfire of the vacuities.

Wendy is positively giddy -- and liberal arts degree holders should be scared.

Here’s what we know about Louisville’s Amazon bid, by Caitlin Bowling (Insider Louisville)

While other cities are publicly touting potential sites and incentives for Amazon’s secondary headquarters or crafting gimmicks to attract attention, the city of Louisville has remained relatively mum when it comes to its bid.

Louisville’s economic development arm Louisville Forward is spearheading the effort, but it has culled information from various other entities inside and outside of Jefferson County to help strengthen its proposal ...

... Wendy Dant Chesser, president and CEO of chamber of commerce One Southern Indiana, said the experience was fun because of the collaborative spirit surrounding it.

“If we can work together and be successful, we can all benefit from it,” she said. “We put in a package what I think is indicative of what the region has to offer. Now will it be enough? We will have to wait to hear from Amazon.”

It's always fun when you're playing with house (taxpayer) money. Now for that pesky fine print. I'm guessing there aren't copies of this article in the break room at 1Si.

Amazon’s Uneven Playing Field, by Olivia LaVecchia (Motherboard)

Amazon is looking for a big subsidy to build its new headquarters—the latest move in the company’s long history of using the government to get favors its rivals can’t.

In the hierarchy of the corporate world today, Amazon is near the top. It's one of the top five most valuable companies traded on the major exchanges, and founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is now the second-richest person in the world.

People tend to think that Amazon has gotten there simply by out-competing everyone else. But there's another part of the story of Amazon's rise. From the very beginning, a core part of Amazon's strategy has been taking advantage of public benefits not available to its competitors.

Now, bidding is set to close Thursday on the latest play in this strategy: Amazon's decision to launch a public auction for the location of its second North American headquarters. In that auction, Amazon is angling for such a substantial public handout that, as Amazon itself puts it in its Request for Proposals, the "magnitude may require special incentive legislation." Since Amazon opened bidding, more than 100 cities across the U.S. and Canada have publicly announced their interest in the Amazon sweepstakes, and have given over conference rooms and staff time to work on the bid, launched PR stunts, and started hashtags. Experts say that the end result of all of this hype could be a multi-billion dollar giveaway from taxpayers to Amazon.

Middle fingers: "It’s never been better to be a big company in America, but it has rarely been a worse time to be an entrepreneur."

What Democrats might be doing about it.

Indeed, the opening reference is intended as ironic, because ...

"America’s biggest companies have never been bigger, but all too many people are sitting in a McDonald’s, drinking coffee and wondering where their town went."

If you agree that "small is losing the war against big," then a logical corollary would be ceasing to accept at face value the bilge dispensed by oligarchy-based entities like One Southern Indiana.

There are other ways, you know. But Wendy's not going to be telling you about them, is she?

Monopolies Are Killing America, by Ross Baird and Ben Wrobel (The Development Set)

From rural farms to inner cities, small is losing the war against big. And we don’t see it getting better.

... The regulars asked what I did, and I told them I run a firm that funds small businesses — specifically, high-growth startups. One man pointed out the window at a nearly deserted clapboard Main Street and said, “Small business, man, that’s all we got. We used to have the hardware store there; when they opened the Lowe’s twenty miles away, well, that went under. The Walmart in Locust Grove killed off a few more. Now, McDonald’s is all we have.”

The most basic American rights — which the authors of the Declaration of Independence called “inalienable” — are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The American promise is equality of opportunity. These rights weren’t universal when Thomas Jefferson first inked these words in 1776.

And while, at first glance, America has become more free for women, people of color, and others who weren’t landed gentry in 1776, I’d argue that thanks to monopolies, American freedom is quickly in decline — and because of the unchecked power of big enterprise, we’re on the road to serfdom.

It’s never been better to be a big company in America, but it has rarely been a worse time to be an entrepreneur.

Mike Moore chases his re-tail.

Jeffersonville recently held a groundbreaking for a $9M retail complex, and Mayor Mike Moore pronounced it good.

“Living in Jeff my whole life, I can tell you that if you wanna go to a store or to a restaurant or a mall for the most part in the past you always had to get in the car and drive 10 or 20 miles and go to Louisville or go someplace else. Where we stand here today is about to become the biggest economic boom for retail that the city of Jeffersonville has ever seen,” Mayor Moore said.

The renovation will cost $9 million. The mayor says that's "chump change", compared to the money it will bring back to the city.

At roughly the same time, Warren Buffett was confirming the death of retail as we know it (emphasis below is ours).

Buffett isn't just sounding off about the demise of traditional retail — he has been pulling his money out of the industry as well.

Berkshire Hathaway fired a warning signal for the retail industry in February when it sold off $900 million of Walmart stock, choosing instead to invest billions in airlines.

The sale left Buffett with nearly no shares of Walmart at a time when world's largest retailer is investing billions in the battle to catch up to Amazon.

Of course, back in 2012 when Amazon announced its Jeffersonville (River Ridge) facility, visions of cool beans danced in Moore's head.

Jeffersonville Mayor Mike Moore says the new facility represents a turnaround for the city.

"We are extremely excited to have Amazon join our business community," Moore said. "An addition like this shows Jeffersonville is at the forefront of a national rebound."

Perhaps some day soon, Amazon will cut out the middle man and annex Jeffersonville outright. Then Moore can be given the job of sweeping the parking lot of the abandoned retail acreage made redundant by the likes of Amazon.

Well, a boy can dream.

"Why the New York Times’s Amazon story is so controversial, explained."

I hear they have a branch at River Ridge.

Why the New York Times’s Amazon story is so controversial, explained, updated by Ezra Klein (Vox)

On Sunday, the New York Times published a massive exposé of Amazon's "punishing" work culture. The company, the Times alleged, "is conducting a little-known experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers, redrawing the boundaries of what is acceptable."

It is here:

Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace ... the company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers to get them to achieve its ever-expanding ambitions, by Jodi Kantor and Streitfeldaug (NYT)

SEATTLE — On Monday mornings, fresh recruits line up for an orientation intended to catapult them into Amazon’s singular way of working.

They are told to forget the “poor habits” they learned at previous jobs, one employee recalled. When they “hit the wall” from the unrelenting pace, there is only one solution: “Climb the wall,” others reported. To be the best Amazonians they can be, they should be guided by the leadership principles, 14 rules inscribed on handy laminated cards. When quizzed days later, those with perfect scores earn a virtual award proclaiming, “I’m Peculiar” — the company’s proud phrase for overturning workplace conventions.

At Vox, Klein finds the middle of the target.

... Behind both the Times article and the responses to it is a larger debate about the future of high-prestige, white-collar work in America and the toll it takes on family life. This article, like many before it, is fundamentally about whether some of the most privileged, productive, and highly compensated workers in the world can have both the job they want and the life they want.

But it's important not to lose sight of a more urgent reality: As bad as white-collar workers may have it at Amazon and elsewhere, their blue-collar brethren have it much, much worse, and have much less power to negotiate better conditions.

Rep. Clere has all of us working!

And that's a wonderful thing, because now the Amazon monolith can hire the very same people it puts out of work. Gotta love American capitalism, eh? Have I been assigned to a multinational yet? That's what is meant by "right", right?

We've seen the Amazon job "pro," so now for the "con."

We've seen the Amazon job "pro," so now for the "con."

Here's what the newspaper told you:

A river of jobs: Lines were long for Amazon job fair with 1,000 positions promised, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

NEW ALBANY — It’s said the early bird gets the worm, and in New Albany on Thursday, there were plenty of applicants hungry for one of the 1,000 jobs Amazon.com Inc. has promised to bring to Southern Indiana by 2015.

Here's what the newspaper didn't tell you (heavily excerpted):

I Want It Today: How Amazon’s ambitious new push for same-day delivery will destroy local retail, by Farhad Manjoo (Slate)

In response to pressure from local businesses, many states have passed laws that aim to force Amazon to collect sales taxes (the laws do so by broadening what it means for a company to have a physical presence in the state). Amazon hasn’t taken kindly to these efforts.

But suddenly, Amazon has stopped fighting the sales-tax war.

Why would Amazon give up its precious tax advantage? This week, as part of an excellent investigative series on the firm, the Financial Times’ Barney Jopson reports that Amazon’s tax capitulation is part of a major shift in the company’s operations.

Now Amazon has a new game. Now that it has agreed to collect sales taxes, the company can legally set up warehouses right inside some of the largest metropolitan areas in the nation. Why would it want to do that? Because Amazon’s new goal is to get stuff to you immediately—as soon as a few hours after you hit Buy.

It’s hard to overstate how thoroughly this move will shake up the retail industry. Same-day delivery has long been the holy grail of Internet retailers, something that dozens of startups have tried and failed to accomplish. (Remember Kozmo.com?) But Amazon is investing billions to make next-day delivery standard, and same-day delivery an option for lots of customers. If it can pull that off, the company will permanently alter how we shop. To put it more bluntly: Physical retailers will be hosed.

Amazon is investing $130 million in new facilities in New Jersey that will bring it into the backyard of New York City; another $135 million to build two centers in Virginia that will allow it to service much of the mid-Atlantic; $200 million in Texas; and more than $150 million in Tennessee and $150 million in Indiana to serve the middle of the country.

The straight fulfillment excitement from the Clere Channel Network, as delivered the very next day by Amazon.

Sainthood surely cannot be far away ... but for whom?

Here's the press release, as submitted to NAC by the Indiana House Republicans.

Economic incentives draw Amazon.com, over 1,000 jobs

STATEHOUSE – Amazon.com, Inc. announced its plans to locate a new fulfillment center in Jeffersonville, Ind., creating up to 1,050 new jobs by 2015 and approximately $150 million in investment in the state.

“We’ve made Indiana one of the most taxpayer and business friendly states in the nation, and it’s paying off,” said Rep. Clere. “That climate combined with Southern Indiana’s ideal location for logistics and fulfillment operations makes it likely that Amazon’s exciting news will be followed by other similar announcements.”

Amazon.com expects to open the new facility at the River Ridge Commerce Center this fall – the fifth fulfillment center in Indiana. The Seattle-based company already has fulfillment centers in Indianapolis, Plainfield and Whitestown with operations covering more than 4 million square feet.

“As we continue to rebound from the recession, look for Indiana to lead the charge in job creation and economic development,” said Rep. Clere. “Indiana is positioned for unprecedented economic expansion and growth.”

According to the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC), they offered Amazon.com up to $2 million in conditional tax credits and up to $300,000 in training grants based on the company's job creation plans. These tax credits are performance-based, meaning until Hoosiers are hired, the company is not eligible to claim incentives.

Also, the IEDC and the Indiana Department of Transportation will allocate funds to improve Cox Road. River Ridge Development Authority has approved additional property tax abatement through the enterprise zone and will support infrastructure improvements.

This latest economic development announcement adds to the state’s growing transportation and logistics industry. Indiana is home to more than 4,700 miles of mainline rail track, three international airports and more than 11,000 total highway miles. Each year, more than 1.1 billion tons of freight travels through Indiana, making it the fifth busiest state for commercial freight traffic in the nation.

“The outlook for Southern Indiana is exciting as the prospects for new business and employment opportunities are very encouraging,” said Rep. Clere.