Ed Mays's video: The Fight to Tax Amazon

While ¾ of working class people in Seattle have experienced job loss since March 13th, exasperating the housing crisis which has people living in tents and RVs everywhere, the wealth of the world’s richest man, Amazon founder and chair Jeff Bezos has increased from $113B to $147B in the same period. That’s $34 Billion in two months. What’s worse, the housing crisis in Seattle is largely due to him. Because of the Amazon tech-boom a thousand people per week were moving in, making an already bad traffic situation impossible and doubling the cost of housing. This made many long time residents refugees and many more homeless. After destroying a perfectly good city, Bezos who never believed in paying taxes, organized a PR campaign with other large businesses and hired signature gatherers to stop a small tax passed by the City Council of a paltry $275 per employee per year. Under pressure generated by the so-called “jobs tax” propaganda, the Council retreated from the plan designed to help create affordable housing and offset some of the damage. All that is changing. Due to pressures from the COVID-19 pandemic, voters in metropolitan Portland, Oregon, Seattle’s sister city to the south just approved an income tax on high-income earners and large businesses to put money into services for the homeless. Seattle, home to the richest men in the world may soon do the same. Led by “militant socialist” [Seattle PI] Councilmember Kshama Sawant and Councilmember Tammy Morales, a Tax Amazon ballot initiative and corresponding legislation to fund emergency COVID relief for workers, as well as a massive expansion of green jobs and social housing is in the works. This show is from a Town Hall organized on Zoom May 28th which features Councilmember Sawant and John Burbank Founder of the Economic Opportunity Institute and includes several other panelists. It explains why it’s about time we start taxing the rich. Read the proposed resolution here: https://tinyurl.com/TAresolution3 h. *************************** Pirate TV is a 58 minute weekly TV show that provides the book talk and lecture content for Free Speech TV. Pirate TV challenges the Media Blockade, bringing you independent voices, information and programming unavailable on the Corporate Sponsor-Ship. These posts are for YouTube and are usually longer than the broadcast versions. You will notice that I don't monetize my videos. I'm irritated by constant interruptions as I'm sure are you, and I would like to have a say over sponsorship. If you would like to pitch in to support this work, consider a donation: http://www.edmaysproductions.net/piratetvsubdirectories/support.html or PayPal: PirateTVSeattle@gmail.com