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The New York Hustle of Amazon’s Second Headquarters

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Re: The New York Hustle of Amazon’s Second Headquarters

#21

Post by jerglingu »

watertom wrote: post #5

Amazon negotiated in bad faith and as such any deals should be voided. I'd like to NYC mayor call out Amazon instead of allowing the good people of NYC to be railroaded. What the cities have submitted were nothing more than proposals, they are not contracts and are not binding. Considering the new information that has come to light mayor de Blasio. More than anything Northern Virginia should withdraw their proposal,…

> More than anything Northern Virginia should withdraw their proposal, Amazon wants the Government cloud business so bad that Virginia has Amazon over a barrel.

Don't they already have this essentially locked in?

https://aws.amazon.com/govcloud-us/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEc6kVAXSs8&feature=youtu.be...

Second link has the CIO of the CIA talking about it

Re: The New York Hustle of Amazon’s Second Headquarters

#22

Post by jhall1468 »

jetcata wrote: post #13

The level of greed that Amazon and Bezos continue to demonstrate is sickening.

He's doing what most companies do: try to reduce their legal tax liability. If CEO's didn't do this, the boards of these companies would replace them with someone that will do it.

You are blaming Bezos and an entity for standard corporate fair. That's a symptom of the problem.

Re: The New York Hustle of Amazon’s Second Headquarters

#24

Post by clairity »

bradleyjg wrote: post #11

For the nation as a whole it's a bad deal, in a prisoner's dilemma if everyone cooperates the payoff matrix is globally optimal. But for New York City it's a good deal, and those claiming otherwise refuse to look at the math and instead want to go with how the deal makes them feel. $150,000 x 25,000 = $3.75B/year. At NYS + NYC effective tax rate of around 9.25% at that income level that's around 350MM in income tax a…

you make it sound like those numbers are completely comprehensive and without agenda, and that these subsidies are an unmitigated good. but they completely ignore jobs lost, companies shuttered, environmental impacts, and opportunity costs.

you're looking only at inflows and ignoring outflows. no systems dynamicist would take such an analysis seriously. systems have boundaries (by definition), and you must look at all traversals across the boundaries, not just the ones you like.

plus, you ignore the fact that amazon probably would have set up shop in nyc for far fewer, and probably even zero, dollars in subsidies. i.e., the same benefits without redirecting tax dollars to the already rich.

yes to more, savvy economic development; no to corporate giveaways.

EDIT: to your point about actors acting rationally, i would hope a group of business owners who don't get such subsidies put a bill before the people to either hold amazon accountable to promised performance or rescind/restrict the subsidies (or failing that, vote the bums out). the economic development program dollars they used should be directed toward entrepreneurs and small businesses, not mega-corps.

Re: The New York Hustle of Amazon’s Second Headquarters

#25

Post by booleandilemma »

bradleyjg wrote: post #11

For the nation as a whole it's a bad deal, in a prisoner's dilemma if everyone cooperates the payoff matrix is globally optimal. But for New York City it's a good deal, and those claiming otherwise refuse to look at the math and instead want to go with how the deal makes them feel. $150,000 x 25,000 = $3.75B/year. At NYS + NYC effective tax rate of around 9.25% at that income level that's around 350MM in income tax a…

And yet I just heard that the MTA is raising prices again this year.

How many Fortune 100 companies need to move here before we get a working subway system?

Re: The New York Hustle of Amazon’s Second Headquarters

#26

Post by jhall1468 »

__float wrote: post #3

Has anyone seen specifics on how they'll be held accountable? They've made promises for x jobs with $y average salaries, but if they don't meet that, then what? https://ny.curbed.com/2018/11/16/18098589/amazon-hq2-nyc-que... suggests that nearly $1.3 billion is not tied to any amount of job creation at all.

That article is an example of people not understanding what this deal is. Amazon is not receiving $3B in public dollars, they are receiving $3B in tax breaks. They are shifting a small % of that via PILOT and some other funding Amazon has agreed to.

I don't understand how people think this is in any way a bad deal for NY.

Re: The New York Hustle of Amazon’s Second Headquarters

#27

Post by stevenwoo »

watertom wrote: post #5

Amazon negotiated in bad faith and as such any deals should be voided. I'd like to NYC mayor call out Amazon instead of allowing the good people of NYC to be railroaded. What the cities have submitted were nothing more than proposals, they are not contracts and are not binding. Considering the new information that has come to light mayor de Blasio. More than anything Northern Virginia should withdraw their proposal,…

It looks like the only public official who could change the terms now is Cuomo since he used unique powers of the NY governor's office to make the deal to override municipal laws. It might be possible for the state legislature to try to amend it but it's totally out of NYC officials' hands. https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeff-bezos-is-right-at-home-in...

Re: The New York Hustle of Amazon’s Second Headquarters

#28

Post by onetimemanytime »

bradleyjg wrote: post #11

For the nation as a whole it's a bad deal, in a prisoner's dilemma if everyone cooperates the payoff matrix is globally optimal. But for New York City it's a good deal, and those claiming otherwise refuse to look at the math and instead want to go with how the deal makes them feel. $150,000 x 25,000 = $3.75B/year. At NYS + NYC effective tax rate of around 9.25% at that income level that's around 350MM in income tax a…

If NYC was a smaller city you'd have to price in the depression once Amazon went of business or lost market share /cut costs. But NYC is huge and 25,000 people will not skew it that much either way.

Re: The New York Hustle of Amazon’s Second Headquarters

#29

Post by jhall1468 »

watertom wrote: post #5

Amazon negotiated in bad faith and as such any deals should be voided. I'd like to NYC mayor call out Amazon instead of allowing the good people of NYC to be railroaded. What the cities have submitted were nothing more than proposals, they are not contracts and are not binding. Considering the new information that has come to light mayor de Blasio. More than anything Northern Virginia should withdraw their proposal,…

I'm so confused by this. The people that negotiated these deals are perfectly content with what they got. You think Amazon said "jk, going to build two" and got the same deal?

Re: The New York Hustle of Amazon’s Second Headquarters

#30

Post by coredog64 »

__float wrote: post #3

Has anyone seen specifics on how they'll be held accountable? They've made promises for x jobs with $y average salaries, but if they don't meet that, then what? https://ny.curbed.com/2018/11/16/18098589/amazon-hq2-nyc-que... suggests that nearly $1.3 billion is not tied to any amount of job creation at all.

The NYC REAP is per employee[0]. Zero employees, zero dollars. ICAP is property tax abatement and requires spending 30-40% of the assessed value of the property[1]. Long Island City might be cheap in terms of NYC real estate, but it’s not particularly cheap overall. I can’t imagine they won’t spend more than the ICAP portion.

[0]https://www1.nyc.gov/site/finance/benefits/business-reap.pag... [1]https://www1.nyc.gov/site/finance/benefits/benefits-industri...

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