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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

#211

Post by SilasX »

CydeWeys wrote: post #13
lovecg wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the city gets back much more in tax revenue?

No, because then it's a race to the bottom and all other companies start expecting these same deals (or even better), and eventually you do end up with a situation where the city does not get back more in tax revenue. It's simple negotiation; you may lose some money on that one deal, but you'll gain more in the end by not decreasing the value of all subsequent deals.

Or, you'll lose out on all the businesses that won't start or expand there because the baseline level of taxation is too unfavorable for the economy (in either sense of the word) that the city offers.

It's almost like taxing easily-moveable economic activity is a bad idea.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#213

Post by moduspol »

Bucephalus355 wrote: post #24

Totally anedcotal evidence, but the first 5 top level comments (make that 6 now) are all against Amazon for NYC. Looks like we’ve reached our “Gettysburg” moment against corporate welfare. Terrible years of war still left, but the tide has turned.

HN users commenting with anti-corporate sentiment is not indicative of some fresh new change of attitude.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#214

Post by chiefalchemist »

Not to get off topic, but given all the talk about climate change and rising oceans, the LIC selection always struck me as odd. Why dig in (with a HQ2) that's so likely to be compromised by storms, rising tides, etc.

Yeah. It sounds odd, but it's certainly not crazy / wrong.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#215

Post by zdragnar »

djsumdog wrote: post #119
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.

There 2014 Princeton study that showed only the top 10% of income earners political opinions are reflected in the political leanings of the elected representatives in the US. I did a short video on this: https://youtu.be/sD8KtaNzI8o

I saw somewhere that the turnout for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's election was somewhere around 4%. The voter turnout for most American elections is really quite low, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were distinct differences in turnout between income percentiles. Perhaps that might go some way towards explaining it.

Edit: I did a bit of research below, and 4% definitely does not seem accurate. I have no idea where the source for that 4% was :/

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#216

Post by mc32 »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #172
skh wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So vote for elected officials who will fight for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.

Didn’t citizens united essentially try to overturn a previous BCRA reform which disallowed a non commercial entity from publishing a political film? Basically they were trying to “answer” (a la rap battle) Moore’s 9/11 film, but got knocked down by BCRA regulation because it was considered “electioneering” while Moore’s were okay because they were published by a “bona fide filmmaker”.

I think it gets complicated but the decision had merits, I think. Obvs, the SCOTUS believes it did.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#217

Post by gipp »

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.

If levels.fyi is any indication, Google NYC comp is only marginally lower than SV, if at all.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#219

Post by thex10 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #152
jotjotzzz wrote: post #93

NYC Subway is already falling apart. Fix that first! Less corruption, and get rid of de Blasio while we're at it.

Why would that be an either-or thing? I'd rather have Amazon here with no tax subsidies so that total tax revenue increases so that there's more money to fix the subways.

> Why would that be an either-or thing?

ask the state government, who's happy to give Amazon the tax break but not nearly so happy to fund the agencies running its largest city's transit.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#220

Post by ggggtez »

magduf wrote: post #188
djsumdog wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if anything, Amazon will make the market worse for all other companies by sucking up a lot of the talent and causing a rise in wages. It might be good short term for software devs, but like Seattle and The Valley, it hurts absolutely every other industry. The person in your IGA or Starbucks often has to commute via bus or train or (god forbid) car over an hour out just so they can afford to barely make it, while t…

Highly-paid professionals need service people, so bringing more of them into your city creates more demand for other careers to support them. If there isn't enough affordable housing for those lower-paid people, that's a failure by the local politicians. Don't blame the highly-paid professionals; they're not the ones controlling zoning and development.

I think most people on this thread are in agreement. It's not the tech people who are "to blame", it's the companies and politicians for not developing a sustainable growth strategy that includes housing for all the jobs that support those tech workers.

Suddenly bringing in 25k high paid workers without a concrete plan on how to support that growth (including not giving gigantic tax breaks which would impact the necessary schools/police/transportation/etc of the area) is the root cause of the housing and traffic issues in Silicon Valley. I think local politicians are becoming a bit wiser to that kind of thing after seeing how gentrification is causing issues in other cities. NYC local politicians are probably the most aware, given NYC's history.

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