The New York Hustle of Amazon’s Second Headquarters • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by my_username_is_ » Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 6:07 PM UTC

jhall1468 wrote: post #22

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.

Still, it's a game that should be stopped. The federal government should stop things like this from happening, as it extracts value from local governments and gives it to corporations

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

#42

Post by jhall1468 » Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 6:23 PM UTC

my_username_is_ wrote: post #41

jhall1468 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Still, it's a game that should be stopped. The federal government should stop things like this from happening, as it extracts value from local governments and gives it to corporations

It does NOT extract local value... it reduces Amazon's tax burden in exchange for high paying, highly taxed jobs. There's no money being paid to Amazon.

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

#43

Post by jhall1468 » Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 6:23 PM UTC

throwaway2048 wrote: post #39

jhall1468 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can hate the players that rig the game, thanks.

And in doing so you become part of the problem. Amazon never rigged the game. The game has been the same for long before Amazon existed, they are simply playing by the rules.

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

#44

Post by oculusthrift » Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 6:38 PM UTC

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…

>> those claiming otherwise refuse to look at the math and instead want to go with how the deal makes them feel.

its more than a little immature to accuse this of those who disagree with you.

your model relies on the fact that this would all be additional tax revenue that wasn't collected earlier. While a lot of these jobs can be people who already work in NY and simply switch jobs. In addition, it neglects the cost to the govt of servicing this company and all its employees. It also neglects the negative externalities and consequences for current residents (only looking at it through a money lens which is a typical neoliberal fallacy).

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

#45

Post by RandomInteger4 » Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 6:43 PM UTC

clairity wrote: post #24

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 al…

What jobs are being lost and companies being shuttered in New York? What environmental impact is being had in New York?

This isn't a walmart that's going to displace local shops. This is a corporate headquarters; an office building.

Last I checked, they don't have to build a stagnant pond next to the building either, so I don't know what you mean by environmental impact.

Amazon is going to exist whether or not it has an HQ in NY, so your points seem tangential and irrelevant.

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

#46

Post by mattnewton » Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 6:49 PM UTC

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…

Or you could think NYC could have negotiated more because it was a likely choice anyways, having already major offices for other tech offices, for example. I don’t have a horse in this race but I don’t think this math is the comprehensive picture.

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

#47

Post by lordnacho » Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 6:51 PM UTC

The thing that seems the most interesting to me is the control over the financial narrative.

Here's a bunch of numbers, and if they add up to more than zero, we should do the deal.

There seems to be very little questioning of wether the accounting given is appropriate. What's the chance that Amazon would put staff in NYC even with no money? I'd say reasonable. Is anyone concerned about rising prices when 25k new high income people show up? Will they show up, or are they already there?

Plenty of things in the details can be challenged, I'm not saying I know the answer to any of these things.

But the narrative seems to be that there's these numbers, and they point to "we should do it".

Normally the only tax/subsidy I'm in favour of is externality related, eg Pigouvian. And I'm not seeing a lot of that argumentation here, though admittedly I'm not the keenest observer on this one.

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

#48

Post by jefftk » Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 6:54 PM UTC

We should ban these kinds of deals at the national level. They're rational for companies, and rational for regions, but overall they allow extremely large companies to avoid paying their share of taxes.

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

#49

Post by maria_ » Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 6:58 PM UTC

__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.

There is no agency, governmental or private, in existence that subsequently measures or keeps tracks of these "job creation" promises. And in the very unlikely event that their broken promises do come to light, it will be explained away in the usual manner as to deflect (e.g. circumstances change, etc.). Just remember one thing: At the end of the day Amazon is a private enterprise and it can and will do whatever they want and are accountable to no one.

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

#50

Post by gammateam » Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 7:03 PM UTC

oculusthrift wrote: post #44

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…

>> those claiming otherwise refuse to look at the math and instead want to go with how the deal makes them feel. its more than a little immature to accuse this of those who disagree with you. your model relies on the fact that this would all be additional tax revenue that wasn't collected earlier. While a lot of these jobs can be people who already work in NY and simply switch jobs. In addition, it neglects the cost…

thats true whether there are subsidies or not.

these are higher paying jobs than current averages no matter how the average is done, using less space than average, and the subsidies pay for themselves.

so............... thats why the model can exist in a vacuum