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Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

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Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#411

Post by plandis »

grecy wrote: post #161
jpatokal wrote: post #24

The RFP is rather more interesting than the marketing page: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/Anything... The 2nd criterion is basically the total amount of sweet, sweet taxpayer dollars available to subsidize them: Please provide a summary of total incentives offered for the Project by the state/province and local community. In this summary, please provide a brief description of the incentive item,…

And anyone wonders why the USA does not have money for healthcare, higher education, high speed rail, etc. etc. I am in West Africa and everyone continually asks about the corruption. At least here it's up front and honest. The guy with the AK-47 just wants $5. In the USA, it's the guys in suits getting billions.

It might be morally questionable but isn't Amazon doing what you're describing? Most companies shopping around don't publically announce their plans to move in exchange for tax breaks. Amazon, OTOH, is explicitly calling this out.

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#412

Post by JBlue42 »

williamsmj wrote: post #401
BatFastard wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. but metro Atlanta area itself is very progressive.

True, but I'm not referring here to whether the local community is politically progressive. The issue isn't whether there is nice record shops and an NPR affiliate. I'm referring to the real possibility that Atlanta might become subject to laws that pretty much every corporation in America would consider a major downside when choosing where to site a HQ. I assume this is what they are referring to in the CFP when the…

That probably excludes anywhere outside of the NE or West Coast.

Even then, the metro areas are blue, rest of the states are red, like everywhere else in the country.

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#413

Post by plandis »

fooey wrote: post #209
baron816 wrote: post #143

You have to consider that this may be a political move by Bezos. The term "anti-trust" has been brought up a lot lately in regards to 'Big Tech.' If Amazon becomes a big employer in a lot of low population states, it would effectively be buying itself those states's Senators and creating an 'Amazon Industrial Complex.' On the other hand, Bezos might want to just move the margins and try to make a purple state blue. F…

As a generalization, the people who want to work for Amazon tend to be more on the progressive wing, and an HQ in a heavily conservative region would make it harder to hire talent. I would guess places like Denver/Boulder (where Google has a site coming), Boston, Portland, or Las Vegas are much more likely than Austin, Charlotte, or Salt Lake City

Why do you think that Ohio (Cincinnati) is a conservative stronghold? They are typically considered a swing state.

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#414

Post by midnitewarrior »

williamsmj wrote: post #401
BatFastard wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. but metro Atlanta area itself is very progressive.

True, but I'm not referring here to whether the local community is politically progressive. The issue isn't whether there is nice record shops and an NPR affiliate. I'm referring to the real possibility that Atlanta might become subject to laws that pretty much every corporation in America would consider a major downside when choosing where to site a HQ. I assume this is what they are referring to in the CFP when the…

> and an NPR affiliate

Just one NPR affiliate? We've got 2!

Some of our politicians are from the stone age though.

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#415

Post by midnitewarrior »

XR0CSWV3h3kZWg wrote: post #369
matrix wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A reasonable choice to be sure, but I do disagree on the weather and mass transit part. Atlanta's urban sprawl means that fewer residents live near a transit stop than in most cities of comparable size. And the weather - obviously that's a personal choice, but for me the heat and humidity in summer is debilitating.

ATL does have marta it's just that white people neglected it for most of it's history. The last year I lived in ATL I took marta to work as my commute.

Amazon needs to locate west / southwest in / just out of the city. It will be very convenient to the airport, existing MARTA lines, inject new life into that part of town, and it would be cheap for Amazon.

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#416

Post by williamsmj »

JBlue42 wrote: post #412
williamsmj wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but I'm not referring here to whether the local community is politically progressive. The issue isn't whether there is nice record shops and an NPR affiliate. I'm referring to the real possibility that Atlanta might become subject to laws that pretty much every corporation in America would consider a major downside when choosing where to site a HQ. I assume this is what they are referring to in the CFP when the…

That probably excludes anywhere outside of the NE or West Coast. Even then, the metro areas are blue, rest of the states are red, like everywhere else in the country.

> That probably excludes anywhere outside of the NE or West Coast.

ding ding ding! My bet would be on Pittsburgh. Maaaaybe Minneapolis, Madison, Detroit or Philadelphia.

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#417

Post by wpietri »

barry-cotter wrote: post #106
wpietri wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's so little talent Citation needed. For example, the University of Michigan's engineering school is well ranked in many areas, grants 3,000 degrees a year, and is an hour away: https://www.engin.umich.edu/about/facts/

I'd be quite surprised if Amazon hires less than 3,000 software engineers a quarter. U Michigan may be a good or great engineering school but if it's an hour away it rounds to part of the national market.

Stanford and SF are a similar distance, and I don't think anybody would say that Stanford "rounds to the national market" for SF companies. I certainly know plenty of U of M grads who have ended up in Detroit, so I suspect your theory needs some work.

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#418

Post by ceejayoz »

nambit wrote: post #381
blackguardx wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The skepticism is that the US is a place where the government isn't supposed to pick the winners and losers. If we want to go down this road, we should do what what many Asian countries do and offer incentives for anyone to open a facility in a given geographic region. Skepticism over the job creation part is because there are usually no guarantees with how many jobs the company ends up creating. In the Foxconn case,…

If there are better ways to generate it, then I'm sure they'll come to the fore. I agree that the practice is unfair and the government should pass some laws preventing it, but for the cities themselves, there's no better way to generate such job/tax growth. If you've seen Amazon's crazy hiring for the past few years, you wouldn't doubt that they'll create a lot of jobs.

Most of those jobs would've still been created without tax breaks, though. These incentive packages are a race to the bottom, transferring taxpayer money into major corporations with dubious returns.

Re: Amazon to Build Second HQ in North America

#419

Post by midnitewarrior »

logfromblammo wrote: post #345
vadym909 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. Atlanta is a great choice.

Except that I want to live in Atlanta even less than I want to live in Seattle. It has a kind of psychic oppression field over it that makes me want to immediately turn around and leave. Atlanta looks good on paper. It always does. But actually being in the city tells me a different story. That said, I think only Atlanta, NYC, Chicago, or Boston could absorb the extra demand for skilled employees without sucking the…

Nobody's going to Chicago. The state government is in shambles, and taxes are going way up. The state is flirting with insolvency.

Boston and NYC are all developed expensive. Atlanta still has undeveloped area inside the city limits or old industrial areas that can be removed and replaced.

Chattanooga wouldn't work because they want an international airport and major university.

Atlanta has the world's busiest airport and Georgia Tech (engineering), Emory (business, medicine). Atlanta is also a huge transportation hub of the Southeast.

Detroit is a cesspool, but does have the added advantage of everything being cheap, lots of places to develop, and lots of transportation infrastructure, but no international airport.

It looks like Amazon wrote this RFP for Atlanta.

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