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Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

nytimes.com

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Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#141

Post by akhilcacharya »

pastor_elm wrote: post #117
walrus01 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth noting that Google owns all of 111 8th in NYC. They're slowly not renewing leases for existing tenants and taking over the whole building. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111_Eighth_Avenue 111 8th is a major internet traffic exchange point. It's also gargantuan, it's 2.9 million square feet and occupies a whole city block. One of the interesting things about 111 8th is that it was designed for much higher than no…

I imagine they're getting decent bang for their buck when hiring in NYC. Really the COL adjusted wages in NYC are some of the lowest for all American tech cities.

...except (at least for Amazon) they pay more in NYC, and of all companies Google doesn't exactly exercise frugality wrt compensation.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#142

Post by ng12 »

Alex3917 wrote: post #58
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #6

Google didn't need any dog and pony show or significant forms of corporate welfare (that we know of) to announce a doubling of their presence in New York. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/12/17/google-...

Google's expansion doesn't require its employees to live in a part of the city that lacks adequate schools and parks. Whereas if you work in LIC it's not like you can really commute into the city from New Jersey or Stamford.

What are you talking about? LIC has lots of schools and parks. It's a very residential neighborhood.

> Whereas if you work in LIC it's not like you can really commute into the city from New Jersey or Stamford.

Why not? Take the Path to the E or the metro north to the 7.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#143

Post by skh »

mc32 wrote: post #124
skh wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My current pet idea is that the Electoral College ought to be replaced with the CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies. That way we could do away with the facade that presidential elections currently create.

What facade? CEOs? I don’t think Dems or Repubs would like to see that. Definitely not independents. We’d get the most pro-business candidate every time. Not that any candidate has been anti/business, but can you imagine, it’d be pro-business on steroids. Schultz, One of the Waltons, corporate raiders?

I think you take my comment more seriously than I intended. It's a suggestion meant to provoke thought about the nature/reality of U.S. presidential elections. With the suggestion one sees that my belief is that large corporations have far more influence on presidential elections than ordinary people like me have. But we have the facade that its actual humans that elect leaders and not the economic entities that are called persons in U.S. law.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#144

Post by ineedasername »

I can't imagine this was simply due to a vocal minority that opposed the move. Instead, I'm more inclined to think that the powerful NY unions who were dissatisfied with the deal were seen as a long term threat: They represented a likely avenue to unionization of Amazon employees in NY that would, from Amazon's point of view, be a very dangerous precedent.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#147

Post by bluecalm »

tmh79 wrote: post #108
raiyu wrote: post #70

After being a resident of NYC for 30 years and seeing the city change and become a technology hub and just a financial center I think this is a real loss for NYC. It would also be in Long island City which would provide a huge influx of new workers and move that neighborhood forward in development rapidly. The down side would be that it would push some residents and business owners out but this is simply a fact of li…

the issue for me is that the main benefit of the tax breaks is capitalized by owners of AMZN stock, mainly Bezos, the wealthiest man in the world. AMZN is going to grow somewhere, they should pay taxes where they grow.

It's not mainly Bezos. It's mainly investment/index funds - entities that that hold people's saving and retirement accounts.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#148

Post by shaki-dora »

tribune wrote: post #36

1. $3B in "incentives" sounds like a lot, but would this have been a good investment? i.e. would the city and State have gotten a reasonable return in the long run? 2. New York already has a lot to offer in terms of labor market, real estate for employees, and access to capital markets. Did Amazon really need incentives to want to be in NYC? 3. No huge loss for either party. NYC doesn't need Amazon, and Amazon can ma…

It isn’t about the net loss or win for NY.

The problem with subsidies is that they needlessly cost money in a zero-sum competition between cities. It was always clear that Amazon would build somewhere. A race to the bottom competition over the exact location leaves everyone but them worse off than the alternative, which is coordinating to refuse to engage in it, like any sane economy like the EU does.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#149

Post by untog »

raiyu wrote: post #70

After being a resident of NYC for 30 years and seeing the city change and become a technology hub and just a financial center I think this is a real loss for NYC. It would also be in Long island City which would provide a huge influx of new workers and move that neighborhood forward in development rapidly. The down side would be that it would push some residents and business owners out but this is simply a fact of li…

Would the tax breaks eventually be offset? Amazon paid zero federal tax for the last two years running. They're experts at tax avoidance. I don't see any reason to assume they wouldn't do the same in NY.
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