Arlene Martinez

Comms+ @GoodJobsFirst. Support: econ development equity, corporate reform. Past: @usatoday @mcall @vcstar @latimes. Bilingüe. 👋🏾

[Arlene Martinez @avmartinez]

Source: @IPS_DC
https://t.co/2x9ZPJbASC

[Arlene Martinez @avmartinez]

ya, or this
https://t.co/S5xAZcn0Ys
cc: @ilsr

[USA TODAY @USATODAY]

In communities across the nation, Dollar General is rooted in value beyond savings. Story from @DollarGeneral

[Silicon Valley Fodder @Playerinthgame]

It’s like Groundhog Day. We fall for it every single time. Amazon operated at a loss for ten years, playing the long con.

[Silicon Valley Fodder @Playerinthgame]

When will people understand that this predatory pricing model will always be true of anything coming out of Silicon Valley? It is literally their only model. 1. Operate at a loss so everyone signs up 2. Wipe out competitors 3. Slam users with profane monopolistic costs

[Real Democracy, Real Freedom @freedomfromlib]

@MorePerfectUS This myth that the private market is opposed to its greatest funder, the US government, is billionaire propaganda.

[Matthew “Movies” Thomason @ThomasonTown]

FYI, DuckDuckGo not only allows you to totally disable AI summaries but also allows you to filter out AI images.

[Good Jobs First @GoodJobsFirst]

Musk, Jassy, Pichai, Zuckerberg, and Nadella are among company leaders that have racked up over $18,400,000,000 in fines for stealing worker wages, defrauding the government, environmental violations, etc etc.
"AI safety" hardly seems to be their concern.
https://t.co/DMCcE416CT

[Arlene Martinez @avmartinez]

Source: @IPS_DC
https://t.co/2x9ZPJbASC

[Arlene Martinez @avmartinez]

Between 2018-21, Amazon avoided paying $12.5 billion in federal corporate taxes.
Since 2017, Bezos pocketed $36.6 billion in capital gains from selling shares of his company stock.
Pretty sure that would help that teacher in Queens, and millions of others people.

[More Perfect Union @MorePerfectUS]

Jeff Bezos on CNBC: "If people want me to pay more billions, then let's have that debate, but don't pretend that that's gonna solve the problem. You could double the taxes I pay, and it's not gonna help that teacher in Queens.... Airbnb isn't causing high rents. What's really causing high rent is government intervention."

[theselongwars @theselongwars_]

still not quite over the fact that i watched 15 year olds get sued for millions of dollars for downloading twelve songs and now we all have to accept AI slop because every tech company in the known universe decided that IP laws don't exist now that they're inconvenient for them

[Jacobin @jacobin]

Mayor Zohran Mamdani mocks Ronald Reagan’s infamous quote.

“I can think of nine words more terrifying than ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help…’”

“I worked all day and can’t feed my family.”

[Arlene Martinez @avmartinez]

After the unexpected death of its ED, IRE is looking for its next leader.

Great job leading a vital organization.

[Investigative Reporters & Editors @IRE_NICAR]

IRE is in a major period of transition and growth.

The organization has launched the search for its next executive director, welcomes new Director of Development Lynnie McIlvain and is preparing for Board elections beginning June 2.

Watch IRE Board President @hinklej 's latest message.

[Hedgie @HedgieMarkets]

🦔Meta's $10 billion Hyperion data center in Richland Parish, Louisiana, will receive $3.3 billion in state and local tax breaks over 20 years, enough to fund the state's entire police budget for more than seven years. The deal exempts Meta from sales and use taxes on roughly $35 billion in GPUs.
Louisiana is one of 36 states offering tax breaks for data centers, with Virginia foregoing $1.9 billion annually, Georgia $2.6 billion, and Texas jumping from $150 million to over $1 billion in a single year. Only 11 of those 36 states disclose which companies receive the breaks. Local opposition blocked 48 data center projects worth $156 billion in 2025.

My Take
Louisiana taxpayers are subsidizing Meta's GPU purchases at a rate exceeding what the state spends on most of its public services, and Meta is spending $135 billion on capex this year. The company does not need help getting off the ground. The justification comes down to 500 operational jobs once construction ends, which does not pencil out in any honest accounting of public investment return. The race keeps happening because states are competing against each other, and the only beneficiaries are the hyperscalers playing them off.

25 of the 36 states giving away billions refuse to disclose which companies are receiving the breaks, which removes the accountability that would normally check this kind of arrangement. Good Jobs First says the $3.3 billion estimate likely understates the true subsidy because nobody outside the deal actually knows what got promised in the contract. Local opposition blocking $156 billion in projects last year is the only mechanism currently slowing the race, and the disparity between what hyperscalers are getting and what communities receive in return is wide enough that a reckoning on these deals is coming. The only question is whether it arrives before the next 3,000 data centers get built or after.

Hedgie🤗

[Good Jobs First @GoodJobsFirst]

You might balk at that expensive restaurant item ... "unless someone else is paying the bill.
Owners of teams worth billions think the same way.
Economists say that 'gold plating effect' makes stadiums more expensive when taxpayers pitch in."
https://t.co/d32T2HkF2j

[David Sirota @davidsirota]

Data centers poll badly because nobody wants to live near noise & nobody likes their electricity bills going up, especially if those negative consequences also enrich tech oligarchs, kill off jobs, ruin kids' brains & produce stupid Internet videos. This isn't hard to understand.

[Arlene Martinez @avmartinez]

Local governments and schools are increasingly buying through Amazon instead of competitive bidding, and we're all paying more.
One school district paid $57 for Kleenex; another $36. Same product. Same day.
What can we do about it? @kennedysmith w/more:
https://t.co/2ErSiWqnWd

[More Perfect Union @MorePerfectUS]

Kevin O’Leary claims people opposing his massive Utah data center are being “bussed in.”

But we talked to protesters. They’re locals, and they’re pissed at this millionaire swooping in.

"I don't understand why Utah is letting a Canada company come in and take advantage of us.”

[ProPublica @propublica]

1/ Tear gas was created to incapacitate grown men.

So when we started seeing reports of kids hurt by tear gas deployed by federal immigration agents, we wondered how often it was happening.

We began to count 🧵

[Matt Stoller @matthewstoller]

The monopoly round-up is out. I profiled a nasty private equity rolling up of bowling alleys called Bowlero, and the Lina Khan generation of antitrust lawyers trying to stop them in their tracks. As goes bowling, so goes America. https://t.co/PG7s8m1qwd

[Arlene Martinez @avmartinez]

Whenever an activity suddenly double, triples, or even quadruples in price, taking a look at ownership is a good place to start.

[David Sirota @davidsirota]

🚨NEWS: Following a @LeverNews investigation, a federal antitrust case is being filed against the private-equity backed conglomerate taking over America's bowling alleys.

The suit accuses Bowlero of perpetrating “the veritable destruction of the decades-old pastime of bowling."